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…
There are a lot of congregational studies going on these days! The Lilly Endowment (sometimes known as “The Church’s One Foundation”) has been making a raft of grants for the study of thriving congregations. You might want to explore the descriptions of the work that is happening near you. Another project that caught our eye…
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…
When students and others observe a new congregation or parish it is helpful to know something about that larger connection. What are the beliefs and rules? Is this congregation typical? The Association of Religion Data Archives, commonly called “the ARDA,” can help. The website now features landing pages for 25 of America’s largest denominations. The…
Amidst the endless stream of research studies, news stories, and anecdotes that rightly report on religious decline across denominations and congregations, where are the signs of congregational life and vitality, and what can we learn from such settings? These are anchoring questions for our Canadian-based research team at the Flourishing Congregations Institute at Ambrose University.…