There’s been a lot of buzz recently about the state of health and happiness among the people who lead U.S. congregations. One widely-circulated blog post expounded on the stresses and strains that led one pastor to call it quits – not just from his church, but from the profession itself. The responses to that post…
When we say we are ‘observing’ congregational life, we often think about using our eyes to see what people are doing and using our ears to listen for the words used. But what else can our ears tell us? That’s a question the American Religious Sounds Project has been asking. Since 2014, scholars from…
The University of Southern California’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture is especially focused, not surprisingly, on Southern California, but many of their tools – everything from responding to disasters to engaging racial issues — can be useful to congregational leaders anywhere.
Explore projects that are gathering religious research and are offering resources to congregations on their websites.
If ‘congregation’ implies gathering, March 2020 created a seismic shift that has fundamentally altered congregational life. If we are able to return to pre-pandemic habits sometime soon, which of the new habits will remain?
Thinking about that question will require the sort of careful assessment long-time congregation watcher Jack Wertheimer has offered in a recent essay, “How Will Synagogues Survive?”. He comes to his wisdom by asking good questions and gathering good data.