CONTOC² – A study on the Protestant churches in Germany and Switzerland
Annotated results presentation
Media release
In the summer of 2022, researchers from the Universities of Würzburg and Zurich and the Social Science Institute of the EKD conducted the online survey CONTOC2 and presented its first results on 28 September 2022.
CONTOC2 is the follow-up study to CONTOC – Churches Online in Times of Corona, the international ecumenical research project carried out in the summer of 2020. The current sample is based on the answers of around 1,500 respondents from the Protestant churches in Germany and Switzerland. For the first time at this breadth, the survey included not only pastors but also church musicians, parish and social deacons, and religious educators, asking about the current state of digital communication practices in the church.
The survey focused on how respondents assess the opportunities and risks of online communication, on the individual workload in the different professional fields, on digital practice in worship, pastoral care and education, on the support systems available, and on the resulting need for action.
In both countries and across the professional groups, CONTOC2 participants regard church online communication as a lasting opportunity. Respondents particularly value the social dimensions of communication in digital church practice – including the need for recognition and appreciation and the acknowledgement of each individual person.
Digital offerings in the areas of worship, pastoral care and education are considered highly significant for personal encounters, community building and networking. Interestingly, this also holds true for those respondents who do not offer digital communication formats in their own professional practice.
The CONTOC2 results paint a differentiated picture across the various fields of church work, revealing varying levels of activity and creativity in online communication related to worship, pastoral care and education.
Digital services are offered regularly by 40% of respondents in Germany and by just over 30% in Switzerland. The variety of formats, including shorter forms of worship already made visible by CONTOC1, indicates that many respondents have embraced digital usage patterns.
In pastoral care and education, however, the further development of digital and hybrid formats can only partly be observed.
Looking at the engagement of practitioners across the fields of church work, an intensive digital practice, great creativity and a high digital affinity become apparent. At the same time, the higher workload reported by many respondents makes clear that digital engagement is far from universally established and is not yet a matter of course in church professional practice and parish reality.
Consequently, respondents call for a sustained expansion of the structural framework (such as technical equipment) and of church support systems (such as dedicated IT services). The existing training and further-education opportunities – including those for the desired theological reflection and formation of criteria – as well as the available resources are considered insufficient so far.
In addition, many respondents see a particular need for action in accompanying and supporting volunteers. The evident wish for closer cooperation between the different professional groups as well as between staff and volunteers in digital practice suggests a clear potential for shared, responsible collaboration.
The results so far, which will be interpreted in greater depth over the coming months, do not yet allow a definitive judgement on whether the Protestant churches in Germany and Switzerland have fully adapted to the demands of digital communication culture. Speaking of a digital transformation will require longer-term observation of the developments that have begun.
However, the evident intensity and creativity of digital practice suggests that a return to the “old normal” of an exclusively analogue church presence is no longer to be expected.
The willingness of the church personnel surveyed to creatively and actively advance the development of digital church presence in their respective working contexts is clearly recognisable in the CONTOC2 results. Further aspects – for example how digital activities affect the role of professionals in the parish – will be explored through deeper analyses of the CONTOC2 data.
Whether, and how intensively, the Protestant churches in Germany and Switzerland as a whole will embrace these potentials and opportunities of digital presence in strategic, structural and resource-related terms remains open for now.
More information: www.contoc.org
For further information please contact:
Prof. Dr. Thomas Schlag, Professor of Practical Theology, University of Zurich
Prof. Dr. Ilona Nord, Institute of Protestant Theology and Religious Education, University of Würzburg
Prof. Dr. Georg Lämmlin, Social Science Institute of the EKD, Hanover