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…
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…
The Houston Chronicle published a piece outlining the multi-site, First Methodist Church in Houston. One location is in the suburbs, whereas the other location is downtown Houston. The United Methodist Reporter outlines some of the differences between the communities: “It will be extremely communal,” Hagans said of the smaller sessions. “It will be more about relationships…
The Kansas City Star is reporting that Georgia Walker — a woman — became a Roman Catholic priest last Saturday. The stories of women becoming ordained within the Roman Catholic church circulate every few years. These services take place outside of Catholic churches, usually officiated by the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests. This, of…
The focus of this site is the study of congregations, understood in the most basic sense as local religious assemblies. But concepts of “the congregation,” “congregational,” and “congregationalism” have both more precise and more contested meanings. As a form of “church polity,” congregationalism holds the local religious assembly to be the source of earthy ecclesiastical…