Dr. Ellen Childs holds a Ph.D. in sociology from University of Notre Dame. She was the inaugural Website Director at StudyingCongregations.org.

Framing Congregations: Redemption through a Visitor’s Lens

NPR featured a story about a Washington Post reporter who simultaneously reported on drug crimes while being addicted to heroin while living in Washington D.C. in the 1980s and 1990s. From the article: In a new book, S Street Rising, Castaneda writes that S Street was once an epicenter of the drug war. Now, it’s much quieter. Neighbors walk by…

Language, Culture, and Congregations

The Huffington Post posted an article outlining the complications historically Spanish-speaking congregations have in adapting to new English-speaking generations. For many of these second- and third-generation immigrants, their religious lives were tied to their second language, which caused some difficulties. Vanessa Pardo, a 20-year-old from South Florida, reports, It was never a faith of my…

Congregational Profile: LifeGARDEN

LifeGARDEN, a mission of Lord of Life Lutheran Church in Maple Grove, MN, is a labor of love of member and Associate in Ministry – Director of Worship, Alice Woodard. She explains, I first started thinking about the possibility of a community garden while attending a worship conference at St. Olaf in 2005 called “For…

PBS Special: Endangered Churches as Resources for the Community

In 2014, PBS aired a Religion & Ethics Newsweekly report on closing churches in Philadelphia. Look at the description of congregational resources, their membership, commitment, financial and physical resources. These congregations recognized they have one type of resource — physical space — that they can share with the community. In exchange, they can gain another…

Calling all History Buffs: Houses of Worship through Time

The University of Minnesota is working on a project focused on data on congregations of settlers in and around the Mississippi River in Minneapolis and St. Paul. The researchers Marilyn J. Chiat, Ph.D. and Jeanne Halgren Kilde, Ph.D., have created a unique resource for those interested in the history of neighborhoods and the congregations that inhabited…