A lack of technology investment

Future of the Church
#1

In 2019 The National Study of Congregations’ Economic Practices did a review of church budgets across the US. If you examine their data it appears that Churches are spending less than 1% of the annual budget on technology.

Further a Business Insider article in March 14, 2021 highlighted a number of pastors who were leaving their congregations after losing their churchgoers to QAnon. They hypothesis put forward by Business Insider.

“The church is falling behind in the race to bring Christian messages to a world that spends most of its time online…The church is going through the biggest information shift since the printing press,”

Thoughts?

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#2

That is a stunning statistic! I tried to search for “tech” in the PDF, but couldn’t find it. Do you know how they define tech spending?

“The church is falling behind in the race to bring Christian messages to a world that spends most of its time online…The church is going through the biggest information shift since the printing press,”

Makes me think that with the information shift comes a shift in authority, which has been a perennial question for churches. The Reformation shifted authority from the papacy and priesthood to people’s interpretation of Scripture and coincided with the printing press.

It makes me wonder, “how has authority shifted with the QAnon/Facebook/the Internet and what new configurations of church might emerge from that shift?”

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#3

This organization reviewed the budgets of 1,231 Churches from 2018 and according to this analysis, the breakdown was as follows:

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Of the 10% towards programs is the most likely spot for these funds to get allocated under and the breakdown for this category is as follows:

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So technically - the technology budget is not even a line item. In all likelihood, the technology budget would probably either fall under the “other” category, so even if technology takes up this full 7%, they are looking at an average total investment of 0.7% of the annual total Church budget.

#4

I see! I think technology is so broad because pre-pandemic some churches might pay for very expensive A/V equipment or outfitting their buildings with expensive tech. But if we mean digital/online/virtual technology, that low percentage seems realistic.

#5

Oddly enough even with this hardware included - if you stack these 1 time costs up against the capital used for staff, rent, etc you get some very low numbers.

But I get what you mean, I’m not saying that these number need to be huge - even at a fortune 500 company staffing for development and other IT functions rarely surpasses 3-5%.

What worries me is I think that the secular worldview seems to have really taken over the online space and I just don’t know of many ministries that have been effective in engaging here. Praying and working for solutions!

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