Religious Leadership and Digital Innovation: An Explorative Interview Study with Church Actors in the Swiss Context

This study explores the impact of digital innovation on religious leadership in the Swiss context, based on qualitative interviews with church leaders and personnel. The findings reveal diverse attitudes towards digital media use, shaped by personal, theological, and contextual factors. The study identifies key motivators for embracing digital innovations, including theological imperatives to contextualize the gospel, the need to meet people where they are in digital and analog spaces, and ethical responsibilities to engage in the digital sphere. Interviews highlight a range of digital competencies and show that successful digital transformation depends on collaborative team dynamics and resource availability. Although digital practices are viewed as supplements rather than replacements for analog church life, they are seen as crucial for engaging modern society. The study concludes that digital innovation offers opportunities for multi-professional collaboration, strategic resource allocation and the development of empowering educational formats, ultimately aiming to foster a balanced, reciprocal relationship between digital and analog church practices and personal encounters, both within the individual local congregation and far beyond.