A newsletter of
Faith Communities Today
Volume 1, Number 3
September 2000
Project in new phase:
"The fun begins!"
In the opening moments of FACT's Plenary
2000 in August, an ebullient David Roozen announced, "The research is
virtually completed. We're entering a new phase. We begin the analysis and
dissemination of our data. Now the fun begins!" Read more about
it here!
Next months' features:
- David Roozen on what FACT research shows
- How faith groups will
share data
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Project
in new phase: "The fun begins!"
n the opening moments of FACT's Plenary
2000 in August, an ebullient David Roozen announced, "The research is
virtually completed. We're entering a new phase. We begin the analysis and
dissemination of our data. Now the fun begins!"
Echoing his co-director's enthusiasm, Carl
Dudley projected that "The most powerful use of the responses will be
by congregations. We can help them use the responses to look at themselves
and to look at their communities. They can see the kind of faith they hold
and the way they fit into the landscape of American religion."
Roozen and Dudley are professors at
Hartford Seminary in Connecticut and are part of the Hartford Institute
for Religion Research where they direct the Faith Communities Today
project. An evening session was delayed so that teachers and researchers
present could recognize the five-year leadership Dudley and Roozen
provided to what several called "this extraordinary interfaith
effort."
More than a dozen Key Communicators joined
a record number of Key Researchers and Key Teachers in the Plenary.
Together they heard a preliminary analysis of the findings and outlined
plans for the project's dissemination phase.
Roozen's report on the initial responses
offered a snapshot of the aggregate findings that will be released
publicly in February 2001.
Several of the individual faith groups were
ready to compare their findings with the aggregate totals that had been
assembled in Hartford. Among them was Researcher Craig This, who showed
how he will make United Methodist findings available on an interactive
website. He believes his website will encourage leaders of congregations
to take the FACT findings seriously in their own lives.
Several groups in the Reformed and Lutheran
family of churches will make their data available to each other, and UCC
Researcher Kirk Hadaway is developing a computer program that will put
FACT responses from congregations alongside other known information about
the local groups.
The budget-stretching attendance at the
plenary was one signal that the project's momentum is picking up in the
various faith groups. All but one of FACT's participating groups were
represented in Chicago. Teams of specialists in research and
congregational development attended from the Episcopal Church, the Muslim
community and from the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta,
which is representing the historic Black churches (see separate stories).
Most of the faith groups held at least one
separate session to refine plans on how the data will be shared across
their religious body. Some, like the historic African-American churches,
will work closely together.
From
Scott Thumma:
FACT will use modern communication media…
The most effective delivery system in history
will give FACT an enormous
potential audience.
We are in the midst of a communications
revolution that is more far-reaching than the one brought about by
Guttenberg’s printing press. The revolution is the direct result of the
Internet and its graphic interface, the World Wide Web. Faith Communities
Today is poised to utilize this technology.
Never before has such an effective
information delivery system existed. Through email, listserves and online
bulletin boards one can communicate instaneously with any number of people
around the world. It is now also possible to post a document on the web at
virtually no cost and reach a potential audience of at least a hundred
million people.
Recent statistics indicate that over half
the homes in the United States are connected to the Internet. Research
conducted in 1998 at Hartford Institute showed that well over a third of
the pastors in the U.S. used the Internet regularly–and that at least
thirty percent of congregations had web sites.
Faith Communities Today will make use of
this delivery system in a number of innovative ways:
- For general information, this FACT
newsletter is already on the web.
- Denominational key teachers and
researchers who are working on the project have their own private
sections of the web site, on which to exchange techniques and advice.
- The site will allow any visitor to take
a self-guided tour of the entire project or see a video introducing
the research and teaching efforts.
- Interested guests will be encouraged to
question the co-directors or denominational researchers through email.
They will also be able to join a web-based discussion.
- Visitors to the site will be able to
obtain information from the entire pool of responses or link to a
parallel site for denominationally-specific information and analysis.
- Clergy, denominational leaders, and
congregational members will have access to survey data in the form of
findings and interpretative reports on a variety of important issues.
- Printed workbooks will also be available
online, with interactive support from the web-based database.
- The press will have an information
section of hot topics, user-friendly FACToids, and a list of
denominational contacts.
- A guest book will allow interested
persons to sign up for the newsletter, receive research updates, or
even request assistance in sharing the findings with congregations.
The web-based material will allow pastors
or congregations to tailor the survey reports to best meet their needs and
context. Members’ responses may be compared with those of comparable
faith communities in terms of size, rural or urban location, date of
founding, etc., across denominational traditions throughout the nation. It
is hoped this approach will lead to shared insights that will strengthen
congregational life and ministry.
Come, explore the current web site at
http://FACT.hartsem.edu and see how using this technology can lead to
stronger faith communities.
Dr. Scott Thumma, research associate of the
Hartford Institute for Religion Research at Hartford Seminary, manages of
the websites serving the Institute and FACT. He also is a Key Researcher
working with some of the Independent and Nondenominational Christian
Churches in the Faith Communities Today study.
Survey Will Help Black Church
Leaders
One of the major contributions of Faith
Communities Today within the African American churches will be "to
help denominational leaders connect with congregations," according to
Lawrence Mamiya a researcher who specializes in Black religion in America.
Mamiya teaches at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York.
He believes that the FACT research within
eight historically Black denominations also will help seminary leaders
understand the strengths and needs of African American congregations.
"Connecting with congregations is
important," he says, "because they are the heart and lifeline of
most religious bodies. When seminaries train pastors to send out to the
congregations they need to know the lay of the land--how the congregations
are doing--their strengths and their weaknesses."
Mamiya is one of three researchers who are
supervising data-gathering and analysis for these denominations. The
others are Michael I.N. Dash and Stephen C. Rasor, the co-chairpersons of
Project 2000, a FACT-related effort based at the Interdenominational
Theological Center in Atlanta.
The three arranged for the Gallup
Organization to do the polling of the Black churches, using questions
drawn from the FACT core questionnaire. Several seminary deans from the
Atlanta Center are functioning as Key Teachers relating to the various
historic Black churches.
Dash is convinced that the survey will help
congregations of all groups understand themselves and meet the challenges
that are presented. "Churches will evaluate the data and begin to
shape their own ministries," he said. "The high potential of
this project is that congregations will look at themselves and then
develop more creative programs in church and community."
Mamiya agrees that the FACT research will
be "very valuable so congregations will have an instrument available
for self-assessment." He said that African American congregations
will find it helpful to be able to compare themselves with other religious
communities, to see their own vitality and to see where they need
improvement."
He expects that responses to the survey
will help denominational leaders plan for the future of their
congregations and their clergy. He acknowledged that among some of the
African American communities very little hard data has been gathered in
the past.
The historic Black denominations included
in the survey are the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the African
Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church,
the Church of God in Christ, the National Baptist Convention of America,
the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc., the National Missionary
Baptist Convention, and the Progressive National Baptist Association.
Video urges congregations:
study yourself
A new fast-paced video will encourage
churches, synagogues, and mosques to look carefully at themselves in the
light of FACT research.
The film, called "See Yourself as a
Stronger Congregation," was created for FACT by United Methodist
Communications. It includes footage showing a wide range of local faith
groups at worship and at work in their communities.
The video shows a number of Dayton, Ohio,
congregations using special resources, including a self-guiding workbook,
to evaluate their activities. Leaders of the Dayton congregations were
filmed early this year during a pilot project designed to test methods for
utilizing the data gathered by Faith Communities Today.
"The video also shows seminary
faculty, regional church leaders, and ecumenical groups reviewing the
results of research in their city," according to the film's director,
Harry Leake of Nashville
The twin purposes of the video are to show
how FACT can help faith groups in congregational development and how
congregations can be strengthened as they seek to understand themselves
using FACT data. "See Yourself as a Stronger Congregation" can
be used as a "stand-alone" resource, but it was designed to be
used by Key Teachers and others in reporting sessions and to initiate
discussion among congregational members.
Archival footage was obtained from the
Indianapolis-based Polis Center, from the Odyssey television network, and
from UMCom. The images reflect the diversity that is represented in the
FACT approach.
Several groups, including a coalition of
historic African-American churches, expect to customize the video for
distribution to their constituencies. The executive producer, Martin
Bailey, explained that the film was created in a digital format to
encourage groups to add or substitute reflections and recommendations from
their own leaders.
Single copies of the video are available at
$15 from the Hartford office. Quantity prices and information on
customized versions also are available.
Muslims see help from FACT
Both the research and educational programs
of Faith Communities Today will benefit America's Muslim communities,
according to Dr. Ihsam Bagby, who teaches at Shaw University in Raleigh,
North Carolina and is a scholar specializing in contemporary Islam.
Explaining that "strategic planning is
not on the Muslim calendar," Bagby expects that the research he is
conducting among Islamic masjids, or congregations, will lead to the first
self-studies that Muslims have done in the United States. Bagby serves as
Key Researcher for several Islamic groups.
"We are a new community here," he
says, "and our priorities have been building fine mosques and
developing strong educational programs. We have not yet developed our
institutions, including programs for volunteers and community
involvement."
As the masjids and Islamic centers begin
looking at themselves using the FACT workbooks, Bagby believes that they
will compare themselves to Christian and Jewish groups and develop new
patterns of assistance to their members and of work in their localities.
"Comparison with others will be a good motivator," he says.
"People will feel good about themselves--but also feel guilty. We
need to 'get it together'."
Two leading Muslim lay leaders from the
Dayton area agreed with Bagby following a pilot discussion in their
mosque. Dr. Khairat U. Ahmed, a physician, believes that various religious
groups will learn from each other's experiences. "Islam on this
continent is quite new," he said, expressing concern that "we
often are not well understood." FACT will help people see that we are
concerned for the spiritual well being of our young people, he said.
Dr. Akber Mohammed, a Dayton-area
cardiologist, was struck by the ways that Christians also place high value
on spiritual development. "Each community," he observed,
"is seeking to cope with the materialism of our society."
According to Bagby, "Christians for the most part know very little
about Islam. This project has great potential. It is the first national
project in which Muslims have been involved. The FACT survey will show
that we share more with others than we differ from them. "In the
Islamic, Jewish and Christian faiths, to be a believer you must be a
witness in society, working for justice, equality, and for a righteous
society. I expect Faith Communities Today to lead to new coalitions."
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