The National Council of Evangelicals of France (CNEF) has published a survey to analyse the effects of the coronavirus on the French evangelical churches and ministries.

The evangelical body sent a questionnaire to 2,500 evangelical churches, between April 17- 29, and it obtained 580 responses.

According to the survey, 31% of the responding evangelical churches have been affected by the coronavirus, with 72 people reported dead.

Church online

One of the main topics of the questionarie was the use of digital tools and devices, to continue with the worship services and other church meeting from home, due to the lockdown.

The survey shows that 73% of evangelical churches have broadcasted their content on the internet, most of them through video conference (80%). Less used tools were blogs and websites and external preachings.

The majority of the churches (87%) have started to use these digital tools due to the coronavirus. They mainly share their content privately though Whatsapp, Skype, Zoom, etc, although there are many churches which also use public platforms like You Tube or Facebook.

Economic future of the churches

The CNEF also asked churches about their revenue during the lockdown, and how they see their economic future.

Some churches have lost between 10-30% of their revenue, but there are also many churches which have not lost their income.

When asked how they face this loss of income, 54% of the respondents believe that it is “a fleeting difficulty that our reserves or our resources will make it possible to face”.

Challenges after the lockdown

Finally, the survey analyses the effects of the de-escalation in the evangelical churches, and the way they will face the everyday life of the churches after the coronavirus pandemic.

29% of the churches expect that “nothing will be exactly as before”, and “some things will be really different”, while 56% think that there will only be little changes.

Among the main challenges that the evangelical churches expect to face after the lockdown, 31% mentioned the abilityto manage “the bad image of the evangelicals in the news, both at the national and local level”. This has much to do with the media storm around the Porte Ouverte case.

According to the churches surveyed, another big challenge will be to fulfil the new expectations that their members might have after the crisis.

You can see the full survey of the CNEF here (in French).