There are amazing resources available to people who want to understand — and support —congregational life. Here are a few that are worth checking out. See how these sources intersect with our Frames for Study and how they help you imagine what tools from our Toolkit you might use. Surveying the Landscape If you are…
When we think about relationships in congregational life, we often think about relationships between attenders within a congregation. But what about relationships between congregations as organizations? These relationships can involve friendships between ministers, joint events, collaborations, and other partnerships. And different kinds of relationships can have different consequences. My research has looked at two…
No – those aren’t coronaviruses you see! They are connections between congregations! As much as we all may feel isolated these days, you have likely also been discovering just how interconnected your world is and how much we all need each other. And that goes for congregations, too. The ecology in which your congregation is…
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 four critical considerations. What’s your programming focus and will it fill a void? The field…
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 ways religious communities are staying connected. Meanwhile leaders…