Church attendance and church engagement are two different things. Someone can come to your church, sit down through an entire service, and leave without connecting.

Church engagement strategies help you build meaningful connections that can last. They identify those tiny friction points where engagement can break down and then take steps to fix them. 

But what does this look like in 2026? What does it look like to engage as the lines between digital and in-person church experiences blur? 

At Apollos, we’ve worked hard to equip church leaders with the tools they need to use church technology to build daily spiritual habits throughout the week. But what about Sunday service engagement? 

Let’s look at how you can keep people engaged during in-person services. We’ll also look at how this can become a launch point for a hybrid church model that goes beyond Sunday and becomes an everyday experience, and how Apollos Tap can help your church with that process.

There Are More People in Church…But Are They Engaged?

There was a shift in church energy in 2025. Record-breaking Easter Sunday attendance pleasantly surprised more than a few of us early in the year. There was a rise in personal commitments to Jesus, too, with Gen Zers leading the path back to the pews. Young men were also uniquely at the center of the spiritual revival.

As more people come to church, though, they are not attending in traditional patterns. Gallup found 30% of U.S. adults attend church every week, but a further 27% attend either “almost every week” or “about once a month.” 

That means you can’t count on half of your people being there on any given Sunday. This leads to inconsistent connections and requires more touch points for engagement opportunities.

That’s where digital church engagement strategies can help the in-person experience. 

How Apollos Tap Improves Church Engagement

We built Apollos Tap to help bridge the gap between the in-person and online church experience. It uses NFC and App Clips technology to create an efficient, seamless Tap-to-app experience. 

While this isn’t the first use of physical tags for digital connections in church, we’ve developed several things that help Apollos Tap stand out, especially in a church environment. Here’s how you can use it to encourage better engagement in church.

Stronger Antennas Make a Difference

NFC tags are the cardboard cutouts you see dotting the backs of pews in churches. All you need to do is hold your phone up to a tag to connect with it and lead to a prompt on your screen. 

At least, that’s true when things go smoothly. 

Here’s the thing. Tap tags are made with a physical card that contains an embedded copper antenna. This is what sends the signal to those looking to connect. But in many cases, these NFC tag antennas are too small. 

You might know what we’re talking about. You go to tap a tag, and you find yourself smashing your phone against it, sliding it up and down, trying to get some kind of response. 

With Apollos Tap, we’ve invested in bigger antennas in our tags. This makes it easier to pick up a signal within an inch or two of the tag. Why does this matter? Because easier antenna reception minimizes a potential connection abandonment point.

Half-Screen Take Over Beats Tiny Notifications

Tags traditionally send a notification to your phone screen. This is small, easy to miss, and often leads you to a website. Basically, it’s a glorified QR code that doesn’t need your phone camera.

That’s where App Clips comes into the picture. This is Apple’s iPhone native user experience that we’ve baked into our Apollos Tap technology. Instead of a link, it launches a half-screen experience on the bottom half of your lock screen. Even guests can use it to take direct actions without needing to create an account, visit a website, or even download an app.

Church Technology-Specific Support

If you buy a piece of church technology and something goes wrong, what do you do? Even if nothing is wrong, every church’s physical layout, service needs, and ministry goals are different. If you have a question during rollout or if an upgrade causes complications, where do you go?

Often, this depends on the forms of support available. The last thing you want is to comb over user feedback in forums or work with purely automated responses or a string of canned emails. 

Apollos has built a support system that understands church and technology. Our support, onboarding, and product leads were involved in major technology initiatives in church settings. We’ve collectively been involved in projects, like the YouVersion Bible App and Church Online Platform.

We have one of the best support teams with a strong history of church technology. That matters when you need support as your team is “in action” on Sunday morning.

Tap Tags Designed for Your Space

Tap tags don’t have to be generic. At Apollos, we’ve made sure you can tailor both the physical and digital Tap experience. 

Physically, you can white label the adhesive discs to feature your church logo, a specific ministry, a phrase, you name it. This makes it a flexible ministry tool that can help a variety of ministry activities. It’s designed for real rooms and real weekends in church.

Digitally, your Tap tags don’t have to be hard-wired to a specific action. You can have a tag point to a volunteer sign up one week, a special benevolence call the next, and a summer camp event sign-up form the next. We help you manage the action, catch the data, and have all the analytics available after the fact.

Engaging With Your Church in 2026

Church engagement is just as important as church attendance. Don’t get overly-focused on the number of people coming into the building. Make sure they’re connecting when they’re with you, too. Then help them develop spiritual habits online after the fact.

If you want to learn more about Apollos Tap, reach out to our mission-minded team. Together, we can explore how a simple, reliable tap experience can help your team develop a well-rounded hybrid digital/in-person strategy to cultivate connection in the modern era.