Category

A lot of you are thinking about the buildings you aren’t worshipping in right now. This pandemic has prompted both nostalgia and hard reassessment. What do we miss? What could we still do? What use is the building anyway? One of the most vivid and poignant accounts I’ve read... Read More →

How should congregations aiming to initiate or expand their social service programming go about doing so? We recently published The Arc of Faith-Based Initiatives (2018, Springer) and have both examined congregational social services for about two decades. Our research suggests... Read More →

Denominations matter more than you may think. Not all congregations are affiliated with a denomination or other national or international religious body, but most are. Even when they downplay that affiliation, it can be a significant part of how they do things.  When... Read More →

In the midst of this pandemic, congregations have often been in the news (not always for good reasons). Newspaper columnists are writing about how we need what religion has to offer and how we miss the little things, like singing together, as well as highlighting the creative... Read More →

In every religious community that has life there are people who embody and extend that life. At Boston’s historic Trinity Church, one of those people is Bob Yearwood. His story invites us to think about all the small things that make up the culture of a congregation. Profiled in... Read More →