From 2014-2017, the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture (CRCC) undertook a three-year project that was focused on questions related to whether, and how, competition and various elements of geographic place may lead to creative innovation and religious change within congregations and other religious organizations. The project also includes a comparative component with Seoul,…
St. Lydia’s Dinner Church, in Brooklyn New York, is a different type of church. They gather on Sundays and Mondays to “cook and share a sacred meal, just as the followers of Jesus did.” From their website: We eat, explore scripture, offer prayers, and sing together. Tied to the Lutheran and Episcopal traditions, our worship…
The Alley News is a very local newspaper, based in the Phillips Neighborhood in Minneapolis. In 2014, they published an account and explanation of St. Paul Lutheran Church’s “Notes of Growth and Change.” This looks a lot like the basic facts people would want to have about their particular churches for a congregational timeline. The…
Dan Hotchkiss at the Alban Institute wrote an interesting piece on the strength of committees. Committees, he argues, are instituted to reduce decision-making from a large group to a small group. Most “committees” he sees in congregations are actually in charge of a particular activity, and thus work as leading and organizing the ongoing needs…
An article from the York, Pennsylvania Dispatch outlined how two churches used ceremony and ritual to merge. Trinity and Fourth United Methodist churches were set to merge, but instead of a more traditional merging ceremony, the planners opted to bring in a particular ritual common to weddings. From the article, At 10:30 a.m. Sunday, the…