Over the past two years, the Project on Religion and Urban Culture 2.0 has examined how congregations have adapted to the dramatic social and economic changes of the past two decades. We observed almost fifty congregations, interviewed pastors and lay leadership, and discussed the findings-in-progress with a clergy advisory committee. We also witnessed change in…
No social or cultural change over the past twenty years has happened as quickly, or caused such a noticeable change in congregational behavior, as evolving attitudes toward sexual and gender orientation. Once firmly in the closet, LGBTQ identification is both open and accepted in ways thatwould have seemed impossible a brief two decades ago. Even…
What role do church neighbors want or expect congregations to play in their communities? Even if they do not regard themselves as part of any geographic parish, adjacent communities still expect the people who use this building to be good neighbors. And when there are racial or ethnic or other cultural ties, neighbors’ expectations, as…
Although we make no claim that this modest offering does anything other than emulate Martin Luther’s desire for discussion, this report provides 9.5 propositions we have reached after observing race and religion in Indianapolis congregations. They are generalizations based on what our researchers have discovered.
One of the most surprising findings of the initial Project on Religion and Urban Culture (RUC 1.0) was the tenuous connections that existed between congregations and the surrounding neighborhoods. Most people assumed that congregations were intensely local, with strong links to the communities that surrounded them geographically and even with most parishioners living near the…
A national project, “Exploring the Pandemic Impact on Congregations (EPIC),” based at Hartford International University for Peace and Religion (formerly Hartford Seminary), is looking at the effect of the pandemic on eight representative cities across the U.S. beginning in 2022. Indianapolis, of course, is one of these cities. RUC 2.0 is a partner in this…
Faith Communities Today (FACT) recently unveiled its 2020 survey, Twenty Years of Congregational Change: The 2020 Faith Communities Today Overview. It follows decennial surveys in 2000 and 2010, plus a couple of smaller interim surveys. FACT is not a random-sample survey. With more than 15,000 responding congregations from over 80 religious denominations and traditions, it is the largest…
A perennial question over the past three decades, especially among Protestant denominations, is whether some congregations have become transactional and instrumental versus transformational and relational. The framing is intentionally provocative. Much traditional religious practice in America resists elements of secular culture that elevate individualism, consumerism, and competition—traits we usually consider transactional or instrumental. Sometimes this…
Clergy are concerned that congregations face an existential crisis. Specific issues occur in the context of concern about the future. Questions about technology or anti-racism or political polarization are also questions about survival. We do not use the term “existential” glibly. In-person groups, the form of association most common to older generations, have weakened over…
Communities change and congregations move. A host of variables—immigration, tax policy, perceptions of school quality, and many others—create community change. Congregations seek to serve their members and to serve their communities, but the relationship between these two desires is fluid and dynamic. How congregations resolve this tension is what is important for us to understand.
Our observations suggest that the pastoral role is being decentralized to a significant degree. In large mainline, predominantly white Protestant congregations, as well as in the larger African American congregations, we are seeing movement toward leadership roles for supporting clergy or other professional staff who have significant responsibilities beyond what assistants have traditionally done. Indeed,…
On April 15, 2021, Indianapolis was thrust into national, even international, headlines because of the shooting at a FedEx truck facility near the airport. We asked researchers to observe how the current eight congregations responded this extremely visible example of gun violence, as well as look in on the thirteen congregations we had observed in…
The pandemic shined a bright light on the digital divide among congregations. Students of congregations specifically, or service organizations more broadly, already knew there were wide disparities in the adoption of technology, but as congregations made the rapid switch to virtual platforms in March 2020, the differences became glaring.
One of the most evident changes over the past two decades has been the dramatic increase in political partisanship. Such polarization has existed throughout U.S. history, with the 1960s an example within living memory. The hyper-partisanship of the 2020 election and its aftermath, especially in the assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021,…
The pandemic worsened in the fall, requiring many congregations to return to virtual worship. Disparities in audio-visual technology and the capacity to engage with members through digital media wereevident. Moreover, Christians were entering one of their two most sacred seasons and many other religious traditions were celebrating their own winter festivals. How did congregations and…
