01 August 2008

Religious Organizations Go High-Tech

Podcasts and social networking now used to reach congregants

 

Technician Amanda Parker works on the lighting system in the Lakewood Church in Houston. The nondenominational evangelical church, the nation’s largest, has a sanctuary that seats 16,000 and features three giant television screens and a sophisticated sound and lighting system.

A technician works on the lighting system in the Lakewood Church in Houston, which seats 16,000 worshippers.

By Jessica Hilberman
Special Correspondent

Los Angeles -- Type “Bible podcast” into a search engine and you get more than 300,000 results -- that’s enough to download prerecorded verses from a new Web site every day for more than 800 years. The abundance of these podcasts, coupled with tens of thousands of Quran podcasts and even Bhagavad-Gita downloads suggests that people are looking toward technology to facilitate their relationships with religion.

In turn, religious institutions are using Web applications, high-tech public address systems and even text messages to reach out to their congregants. Shelagh Rogers, founder of Technologies for Worship Magazine, says the Internet has become the most effective tool for church outreach and development. “It has created a whole new of set of ways in which churches can reach out and stay in touch with their congregants.”

e-CHURCH

Reverend Richard Hong of the First Presbyterian Church of Englewood, New Jersey, says technology is taking hold in community churches the same way it is penetrating the general population. “Basic technology use in churches is cost-driven and mostly internal: it is simply cheaper to send a newsletter as an e-mail blast than as paper; it is cheaper to maintain a Web site than pay for a Yellow Pages ad,” he says. “E-mail is replacing the telephone as an organizational tool for coordinating church events. I can’t live without my Blackberry [a device that combines cell phone and Internet access]; my parishioners are learning to text me -- the younger ones do it naturally.”

Hong also says churches like his are moving away from traditional advertising outreach. “When you Google church-related topics, you are beginning to see more churches appear as ‘sponsored links,’ meaning that more churches are paying Google through their ad-words program to appear at the top of the search results," Hong says. Churches also are accepting donations via a PayPal link on their Web site, allowing people who use the church’s resources, such as listening to sermon podcasts, to contribute.

GODCASTING: SOUND BYTES AND SOCIAL NETWORKS

While the trend among churches is to make sermons available via podcast, Hong says many churches are skipping the video podcasts. With notable exceptions, including major U.S. Christian minister Joel Osteen, Hong says sermons are far less exciting to watch than to listen to, so providing audio is most common.

Churches also rely heavily on their Web sites to reach out. Hong says, “A little known factoid is this: On most church Web sites, the page with the most hits is the pastor’s biography. Worshippers need information of things like directions and service times after you decide that they might like a particular church. And a primary decision point is, ‘will I like the pastor?’ People want to know: ‘What does it feel like? What kind of people go there?’”

 

Members of Northland, A Church Distributed, in Longwood, Florida, watch a sermon given by senior pastor Joel Hunter via a live video feed from the main church to this satellite location in a nearby high school auditorium. The evangelical megachurch, with 12,000 members, has three other satellite locations in central Florida.

Members of Northland, A Church Distributed, in Longwood, Florida, watch the pastor’s sermon via a live video feed from the main church.

A good way to find out about fellow parishioners, at least younger ones, is through social networks. On the Web site Facebook.com, all types of religions organize by building groups. There are groups for Buddhist fellowships; church, mosque, and synagogue youth groups; groups of friends who went to religious summer camps who want to stay connected; and even groups for Hindu pride and Shinto hip-hop. Hong says these kinds of groups allow both members and clergy to bring people into a religious community simply by showing that they are members. “Adding a church as either a Facebook group or a virtual ‘person’ is an accepted technique.  The advantage is that your friends get to see that one of the groups you belong to is a church -- and that’s a natural conversation starter.”

According to Hong, “The number one reason why someone attends a new church is through personal invitation. The number one reason why people don’t invite their friends is fear of approaching the topic of religion. Facebook lets your friends see that you’re associated with a church, so the ice is already broken.”

The anonymity of the Internet also enables people not only to learn more about specific congregations and leaders, but to explore other religions. Laura Kwerel, producer for InterFaith Voices, a nationally syndicated public radio show, says people who play the Internet-based game Second Life can attend religious services online -- and they sometimes use the opportunity to attend services of other faiths.

RELIGIOUS TECHNOLOGY AND THE FUTURE

Rogers says religious organizations are pulling out all the stops when it comes to incorporating new technology into their programs. Churches “understand that in order to communicate to a media-riddled culture, they have to create familiar environments and remain technically relevant. In some cases, churches are modeling their setups after organizations like Cirque du Soleil; their aim is to create incredibly powerful worship experiences.” Kwerel agrees: “Some of the megachurches are the most technologically advanced places you’ve ever seen. They have jumbotrons [large video projection screens] and stadium seating.”

In addition to taking advantage of social networks and the up-to-the-minute status update appeal of Web sites like Twitter, a micro-blogging site, Rogers says churches are developing unique social networking solutions of their own to pull congregants together and increase the effectiveness of their outreach. A recent development is the networked church, where one main facility's service is broadcast to several satellite facilities over fiber optic networks, enabling several local communities to worship together without having to be in the same physical building. This practice is also called “video venue.”  One prominent example is Northland, A Church Distributed, in Longwood, Florida, which broadcasts sermons to four satellite locations.

“And then,” Rogers says, “there's the holographic pastor.”

On his church’s blog, Lead Pastor Eddie Johnson of Cumberland Church in Franklin, Tennessee, writes of religious lessons from life-sized, 3-D holograms. As religious organizations continue to take full advantage of outreach solutions from the Internet, they soon may be able to bring a whole virtual world into satellite communities or even individuals’ homes. It’s the ultimate high-tech outreach:  Casting a net so wide that anyone looking to be touched by a religious community would be enabled to join.  

Also see “U.S. Megachurches Thrive in Climate of Faith, Tolerance, Bigness.”

For more information on religion in the United States, see Diversity-At Worship.