South America

Specialists discuss the future of live broadcasts after the pandemic

With the return of face-to-face activities in churches, will worship services and other online programs die out or will they still have a place?

Brasilia, Brazil | Vanessa Arba

A recent survey of 1,930 members and patrons of the Adventist Church in the Brazilian Central Planalto region showed that 82.3 percent have regularly followed, over the past three months, the services and online programs of their churches or other Adventist churches. In this period, these remained closed due to social isolation. Now, with the gradual return of face-to-face activities, some questions arise: Will this audience, which has adapted to a virtual church, gather again on-site? Will online programming continue with force or begin to die out?

Carlos Magalhães, digital strategy manager of the Adventist Church in South America, says some factors lead him to believe that not all members will return to churches immediately. 

“Many are afraid of COVID-19, or will prefer to stay isolated to protect their families,” he points out. “Others will continue more comfortably following the spiritual content on the Internet.”

Despite this, the organization's director of communication, Pastor Rafael Rossi, believes that the sense of belonging to a community still appeals to many, which is an idea supported in the aforementioned survey: 52.4 percent of interviewees, even at home, prefer to see the preaching of their own pastors and leaders, rather than looking for programming from other churches. This may indicate that there will be a relatively expressive group returning to their congregations soon.

Although closing the churches due to the pandemic has required the migration of services and meetings to the virtual environment, Rossi says that this was an interim measure, and does not feel it should not become a standard. 

“Christianity without a church can last, but it is far from the ideal projected by Jesus,” Rossi argues. “The Christian needs a community. If I live in isolation, I stop exercising my gifts and supporting the spiritual walk of my neighbor. It is in the church where I help and I am helped.”

The digital ministry continues

What Rossi said, however, does not presuppose that worship services and other online content will cease to exist after the pandemic. Years ago the Adventist Church began using the Internet to transmit the gospel message, and Rossi explains the reasons: “There is a group of people who will only be reached in this way. This is the environment of the new generations. We do not want to create a digital-only church, but we have used this tool to bring people closer to Jesus. ”

For Magalhães, the significant increase in prayer requests coming through official Adventist channels is proof of that. 

“As a church, we have reached the climax of the productions and loyalty to an audience; now these people interact with us and, in an unassuming conversation, we end up introducing a Jesus they didn't know,” he says. “That is the great difference: The quality of attention of the public which we captivate.”

The communication department of the UNASP Church, the São Paulo campus, has worked in the same vein. In addition to the broadcasts of traditional services, the team maintains regular Bible study and intercessory prayer programs that appeal to the public and have real results, such as the baptism of dozens of people. For the team's director, marketing specialist Fábio Bergamo, this is the true meaning of a church having an online presence. 

“I had no idea of ​​the power of a transmission until I participated in it,” he reflects. “The message is coming through the rooftops, as Christ affirms in Matthew 10:27. That is the fulfillment of the mission; it is how we are going to reach people in these last days.”

Strategy and innovation

Observing the behavior of Internet users who follow the official channels of the Adventist Church, Magalhães points out some recent phenomena. 

“At the start of the pandemic, we acted quickly and gave people what they needed: live broadcasts on eschatological topics and on the relationship between the pandemic and the end of the world,” he says. “Our audience increased a lot in the first month. Since then, there have been other trends, such as that of live music broadcasts. But in recent weeks, almost half of Internet users stopped seeing this type of content.”

For the specialist, the reason is the saturation of the public.

"People lose interest very quickly, and the church, in digital media, needs to be agile to continue being relevant,” he explains. 

For this reason, Magalhães and his team have anticipated the trends and have worked on new strategies for the following months.

“The forecast is that the next trend will be about health,” says Magalhães. “People realized that they cannot be quarantined, so they are trying to strengthen their immunity, and we have prepared content for that. We also note that people seek deeper biblical themes and participate more in mission; we are supplying that too. "

And this agility is only possible with strategic planning. For Bergamo, these items are even more important than the technical quality of the productions. 

"Success is in knowing your audience and delivering what they need," says the director, who saw the UNASP church online audience film in less than a year after an update to their communication methodology.

The adaptation of the messages to the moment and to the social context is part of the new strategy; as, for example, since the beginning of the pandemic, preachers have aligned their sermons to eschatological themes and of hope for the future. Currently, its YouTube and Facebook channels have one of the largest audiences among the country's evangelical programming on these platforms.

This article was originally published on the South American Division’s Portuguese news site

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