Check Out the Latest Research on Congregations
Explore projects that are gathering religious research and are offering resources to congregations on their websites.
Dr. Nancy T. Ammerman is Professor of Sociology of Religion Emerita, Department of Sociology and School of Theology at Boston University. A longtime member of the Congregational Studies Team, she is primary editor for StudyingCongregations.org
Supporting Transformation During Times of Congregational Change
Even as change has become ever-present in our lives and those of our churches during the pandemic, our human struggle adapting to and learning from change persists. In our work consulting with congregations at ConvergenceUS.org, we see this in the conflicts and struggles that have heightened and sometimes exploded as congregations pivot from online to…
What Next?
How Has the Pandemic Changed Your Congregation for Good?
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.
Teaching about Congregations
Are you teaching about congregations in an upcoming semester? Just curious about existing data on congregations? Check out the crowd-sourced teaching library assembled at the Center for the Study of Religion & American Culture. It includes instructional materials developed by its researchers and participating scholars for use in the classroom. From college syllabi and instructional…
Gender & Congregational Life Survey
Studying congregations always means paying attention to the different ways people are involved – especially the differences between men and women. Now, researchers at the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, are taking that question to a new level. They want to know how those patterns differ in Christian groups…