What can a church do for you at their building

In some cases, however, the coronavirus shutdowns have weakened church connections. The Pew survey and a survey by the Public Religion Research Institute found that one-third or more of those who had previously attended church regularly were not bothering to watch online services. For those whose church affiliation was already tenuous, the disconnect may be permanent.

"I wasn't regularly attending church anyway," says Beth Daniel, 50, of Mounds View, Minn., "so it really hasn't changed anything. But now I feel less guilty about not going. I thought at first [the pandemic] might encourage me to do more online worship, but it really hasn't." Though raised in an evangelical tradition, Daniel says she has found her own time and space for spiritual connection, "and it doesn't usually happen on Sunday mornings."

But Mary McGrath, 26, whose church affiliation has likewise been slipping, has reacted to the coronavirus shutdown in the opposite way, with a new yearning to return to the Catholic parish she left as a college student.

"Down at my foundation, faith has a strong role, one I've kind of repressed or disregarded," she says. "And I've realized that when you're especially alone, something I haven't really experienced before, it's something I would really like to be able to fall back on. I was very surprised to have that feeling just hit me. Like, 'Wow, I would really like to be in a pew right now, in a place that's bigger and holier than I am.'"

Clearly, the way churchgoers are reacting to the pandemic depends in good part on their past experience. For John Chadwick, 73, a retired Lutheran pastor in Iowa, 40 years of preaching have left him feeling that his faith no longer provides the answers he needs.

"I look at the virus, and I wonder," he says. "As a pastor, I always say, 'We need to trust God in all this.' And that's OK, to say that. But I gotta admit, for me, I wonder where God is, which is not great for a pastor. I realize that, but that's where I am today."