A lot of church-website articles quote “80 percent” and never name a study. That number gets copied from vendor blogs. It is not in Pew. It is not in Lifeway’s published surveys. So here is what we can actually say.
Guests look before they come
Thom Rainer, writing for Lifeway Research in 2018, asked first-time guests what led them to visit. About seven out of ten named the church website. He is honest about the method. It is pastor-level counting, not a national poll. Still, the pattern is the same one pastors in towns like Wilson already know: people Google, they open a few sites, and they decide.
A 2023 survey cited by Larry Witzel (Liberty University) found 59 percent of U.S. worshipers looked at the church website before their first visit. In that same survey, 36 percent said they decided not to attend because of what they found, or could not find, on the site.
That is the benefit, stated the hard way. A clear site does not save anyone. A missing time, a dead kids page, or a Facebook wall pretending to be a front door can stop a family before they ever park.
People are already searching
Pew Research Center asked U.S. adults in late 2022 whether they go online to search for information about religion. Three in ten said yes. That is not “looking for a church” in every case. It is the larger habit: when people have a religion question, a third of the country will type it.
Pew also found that 27 percent of adults regularly watch services online or on TV, and 33 percent regularly attend in person. Among people who do both, about three in four prefer the building. The screen is not the destination. It is how a lot of people check whether the building is worth the drive.
A lot of churches still have no door
In January 2024, One Eighty Digital audited 2,725 church websites from one denomination across one state. They did not count a Facebook page as a website. 46.3 percent had no site at all. Only 35 percent had a site the auditors called digitally healthy.
That is one denomination, one state, a vendor doing the counting. Treat it as a field report, not a census. The picture is still plain. Almost half of those churches were invisible to a guest who typed the name and expected a page.
Witzel’s own study of 116 Adventist churches in Oregon and southwest Washington found only 9 percent had a dedicated guest page with a clear link on the home page. Churches that had a guest page, a sermon video archive, and a customized site grew faster than churches that did not. He is careful: that is correlation, not proof the website caused the growth. Churches that already look outward tend to build those pages. The pages still matter.
What a Wilson guest is trying to reduce
Researchers call it uncertainty. A first-time guest is walking into a room of strangers with their kids. They use the website the way they use a restaurant page: time, address, what it will feel like, whether the children will be okay.
Lifeway and Faith Perceptions mystery guests keep asking the same six things: Does this church care? Can I see the people? Where do I go? Do they love this town? What about my kids? Is anything actually happening this week?
If your site answers those, you did not run an ad. You practiced hospitality before Sunday.
What this is not
It is not a reason to buy a $15,000 agency site.
It is not a reason to livestream instead of gathering.
It is not a reason to turn the Journal into a stack of “why you need a website” posts.
The benefit is narrower and more serious. People are already looking. Some of them will not come if the door is locked or dated. Give them times, a map, kids, and a real picture of the room. Then meet them when they walk in.
Sources
Thom S. Rainer, “The Front Door Churches Often Forget,” Lifeway Research, March 6, 2018. https://research.lifeway.com/2018/03/06/front-door-church-often-forget/
Aaron Wilson, “6 Questions Guests Bring to Your Church Website,” Lifeway Research, April 22, 2019. https://research.lifeway.com/2019/04/22/6-questions-guests-bring-to-your-church-website/
Pew Research Center, “Use of apps and websites in religious life,” June 2, 2023 (survey Nov. 16–27, 2022). https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2023/06/02/use-of-apps-and-websites-in-religious-life/
Pew Research Center, “Americans’ experiences with virtual religious services,” June 2, 2023. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2023/06/02/americans-experiences-with-virtual-religious-services/
Larry D. Witzel, “Church Websites: Application of Uncertainty Reduction Theory,” Liberty University, May 12, 2023. https://larrywitzel.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Church-Websites-and-Uncertainty-Reduction.pdf
One Eighty Digital, “State of Church Websites: Insights from 2,725 Churches,” February 3, 2025 (audit January 2024). https://oneeighty.digital/2025/02/03/state-of-church-websites-insights/