With this website, we explore why and how they do. No matter what form the gathering takes—a parish, synagogue, mosque, temple, prayer circle, etc.—these are transformational human communities with religious and spiritual purposes. Whether your aim is to understand them or to lead them, learning to see these communities in all their human joy and messiness is essential. So we invite you to understand, to explore and to engage.
This website builds on two generations of insight by scholars & leaders who have developed ways of thinking about congregations. We call them “frames” because by seeing through the lens of ecology, theology, culture, resources, and processes of a gathering, we move toward deeper understanding.
Experts in the social sciences, theology, and ritual studies have great insight into these transformational communities. Return often for new observations from the field, search our archives for articles that answer your questions, and explore our searchable bibliographic database to start your reading list.
Every congregation pursues its mission within a specific culture, and in the US today, that culture is deeply polarized. The Congregations and Polarization Project spent its first 18 months asking pastors which issue they found most polarizing in their congregations or in the larger community they served. We created focus groups of pastors all…
