Issue 1, Volume 1    July, 2005

   READERS REPORT

   An Invitation to Our Readers

Normally, this column will be for readers to share what has worked and not worked in attempts to embody or implement one of our past themes. For our first edition, we are using it to explain our purposes.

Our goal in publishing this newsletter is manifested in a two-pronged emphasis. We are committed to scouring the best of contemporary research for insight and information that can assist faith community change leaders to increase the vitality of their congregations. To that end we will use the valuable and growing body of information developed by judicatories, consultants and academic researchers that point to practices and perspectives that help communities grow spiritually, programmatically and numerically.

We are allied to the Hartford Institute for Religion Research and the multi-faith Cooperative Congregational Studies Partnership. Both focus on the exploration, development and application of the information good research generates. We want to use that research to address topics of concern to religious leaders of all faith traditions who are working at the local level, and to do so in ways that answer questions clergy ask about making a difference in their settings. That defines our first emphasis: providing you perspectives, tools and resources to help advance your ministry work.

We are also committed to fostering a dialogue between congregation leaders about how to increase the vitality and ministry effectiveness of our faith communities. The Exploring Religious America 2002 survey discovered that over 76% of respondents consider the religious diversity of the United States to be a source of strength and vitality to individual religious beliefs, yet there does not seem to be much sharing between faith communities. The National Congregations Study of 1998 revealed that nearly 78% of surveyed congregations had not engaged in any discussion or learning about other religious traditions in the previous twelve months. If you think about how easily people move between countries and cultures today, that’s very unfortunate. Together, we can advance inter-faith understanding among our congregants, while learning from one another’s experiences as faith community leaders.

I know that you have developed expertise that is not general, but particular to your passion and work in a local congregation. It is a perspective informed by your particular faith commitments and experience as a worship community leader. I also know that leaders of congregations can learn by speaking and listening to one another across faith boundaries; that in the unique viewpoint of a local faith community leader whose perspective is not our own, we can discover insights into the issues that perplex us in our daily work.

My experience with inter-faith clergy gatherings has convinced me that when we take the opportunity to hear from one another on a topic of mutual concern, we are all encouraged and we all become more effective in our daily work. Therefore, I am inviting you to share your insight with us, and we will share it with brothers and sisters of many faith traditions.

You can add your voice in two ways. In this space, “Readers Report,” we welcome your succinct reflection on recent topics. For example, regarding this issue’s topic, “Be aware of what is happening in the world,” you might have some experience in encouraging curiosity among your congregants, either about other faith traditions or about the secular community surrounding your worship site. What did you do and how well did it work? Why do you think your effort succeeded or failed? What kind of information or help might have led to better results? We would like to know.

We are also looking for contributions on upcoming topics from working clergy of every faith tradition, to publish in our “Clergy Perspective” column. If you are interested in contributing a Clergy Perspective, you can get a list of future topics by contacting me through our website. As a working clergyperson myself, I welcome hearing from you, and I look forward to helping you share your perspective with others in a manner that strengthens the faith and work of America’s diverse faith communities.

As a reader, and as a potential contributor, welcome to this new, exciting conversation!

            — Rev. Terry L. Bascom, Editor

 

THE SURVEY SAYS  

What's New and Why It Matters

In this column we focus on a relevant portion of what recent research reveals about the newsletter’s current topic.

There’s an old folk saying that, “Curiosity killed the cat.” Anyone who has watched a cat explore under precarious conditions understands that feline curiosity can cause cats to upset things that appear stable, putting the animal’s well-being at risk. The saying is often used figuratively to convey the warning that too much questioning can upset the equilibrium humans achieve through tradition and cultural consensus. It warns that prudent persons neither ask too many questions nor stray too far from approved views and behaviors.

Such advice might work when a community, culture, or society is relatively stable, but during times of change, especially times of rapid change, what was stable is already in motion. In that scenario, curiosity (in the form of looking for a way through) may be the only thing that saves the cat!

Change Is Upon Us

We live in a time of deep and rapid global change. For faith communities, curiosity is the path to survival. The lack of interest in how the world is changing – and what those changes mean to faith communities – must lead to their premature deaths as they become disconnected from and irrelevant to the people living in the neighborhoods around them.

According to researcher Dr. David Roozen of Hartford Institute for Religion Research, in 1945 Christians made up about 98% of the religious population in the U.S., and non-Christians hardly made a statistical showing (barely 2%). Just 60 years later non-Christians constituted over 20% of the nation’s religious population. That is a significant change!

Two factors appear to distinguish growing faith communities. One is the adoption of the more “contemporary and expressive” style of worship that has become popular with the rise of evangelical Christian churches. Not surprisingly, the adoption of similar forms of worship by older, mainline Christian congregations has led to membership growth rates that are just as strong.

Ethnicity is the other key factor. Within the rapidly growing Assemblies of God Church, Latino congregations – fed, no doubt, by immigration – have set a very fast pace during the 1990s. Among non-Christian faiths, the largely immigrant Islamic community grew more rapidly between 1990 and 2000 than even the Latino segment of the Assemblies of God.  (See: “Three Sources of American Religious Renewal”)

Are You Ready?

Is your congregation responding to the challenges of change on the American religious and social scene? The 1998 National Congregations Study discovered that less than 40% of U.S. congregations (Christian and non-Christian alike) had either planned or conducted an assessment of the community within which they were situated in the previous twelve months. That suggests that communities of faith either think they know what is going on around them (so do not need to ask questions about how their neighborhoods are changing); or they are so preoccupied with life inside their faith communities that they do not have the time or interest to look outward. Either attitude is likely to lead neighbors to conclude that your faith community is irrelevant to daily life. To put it another way, your congregation’s lack of curiosity is certain to be setting it up for disaster, and it may never know what hit it.

Differences Are Welcomed, But Knowledge Is Limited

On the other hand, the general U.S. population has a healthy curiosity about, and is adapting to, growing religious plurality. In a national survey, called Exploring Religious America 2002 (http://www.thearda.com/FR_Index.html?/archive/Description/RELIGN02.html), 76% of respondents said, “America’s religious diversity is a source of strength and vitality to individual religious beliefs.” In other words, 3 out of every 4 Americans think that our growing religious diversity strengthens and vitalizes our personal religious beliefs. Only 11% said that religious diversity was a threat to individual religious beliefs.

When asked what religious traditions they were familiar with, 94% indicated familiarity with Christianity. Only 3.5% said they were very unfamiliar with Christianity, which makes sense, given Christianity’s historic dominant position on the U.S. religious scene.

By contrast, about 50% indicated familiarity with Judaism – historically the second most visible faith tradition in the U.S. – and over 39% indicated that they were very unfamiliar with Judaism. More than 50% of the people surveyed indicated they were “very unfamiliar” with Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism.

The National Congregations Study (1998) found that only one in five faith communities had engaged in some kind of discussion or teaching about other faith traditions in the previous twelve months. And of those, only 4% explored a non-Christian faith tradition. That means that one half of one percent of the total survey had explored a non-Christian faith. Clearly, the cat isn’t very curious – even though the world around it is changing dramatically.

The Value of Curiosity

Will curiosity kill the cat? Or might it be that curiosity is the secret to a cat’s reputed nine lives? That is, does a congregation’s curiosity not only cause it to run risks, but also empower it to discover new avenues to a better future?

Curious faith communities certainly run risks, including the risk of upsetting the group’s traditional norms and practices; and the fallout from that can be painful! On the other hand, when a congregation’s neighborhood is already changing rapidly, it is curiosity that leads it to find a way through the turbulence and into a new and more vibrant life.

CONSULTANT'S CORNER  

Your Muslim Neighbors: A Primer  by Ibrahim Abu-Rabi

Islam was the fastest growing faith in the United States during the 1990s, primarily because of migration. Since September 11, 2001, all Americans – Muslim and non-Muslim – have a need to better understand the Muslim presence in North America. Dr. Ibrahim Abu-Rabi, of the Duncan Black Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations in Hartford, Connecticut [http://macdonald.hartsem.edu], is an expert on contemporary Islamic political movements, and agreed to an interview, from which this article was developed.     – Editor

 

It may be surprising to learn that most of the Muslim migrants into the United States are from Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, India, and Pakistan; an area of the world known as South Asia. Prior to 1970, most South Asian emigrants hoped to get to England, the supreme colonial western power of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, by the 1970s, the United States had emerged as the new supreme western power, with the result that South Asians switched destinations and the current wave of Islamic immigration to the U.S. began in earnest. Most prominently represented were students from Pakistan, Bangladesh and India who came to the U.S. in pursuit of advanced medical and other degrees.

 

Many of those migrants became permanent residents and even citizens of the U.S. As such, they have been the backbone of the migratory journeys of their relatives. They also provide the organizational force and financial foundation for the establishment of mosques, which means that most American mosques are controlled by South Asians. Muslims from other regions tend to be kept outside the mosque decision-making process, a dynamic that produces fissures within local Islamic communities.

 

Now that the early migrants have produced children and grandchildren native to the U.S., another kind of tension has developed. Second and third generation U.S. Muslims don’t tend to have the same commitment to the traditional forms of Islam their parents or grandparents were nurtured in, nor the same loyalty to their home country. That puts them at odds with not only their elders, but with new immigrants who want to maintain traditional religious practices and cultural mores.

 

Currently, many mosques are facing a dilemma. In order to address the conditions of life in the U.S. and meet the needs of second and third generation Muslims, they need domestically-raised imams who know and understand U.S. culture; but most of the financial support comes from foreign-born immigrants who want leaders raised in their homelands who are steeped in their old-world history, theology and traditions. That dilemma is exacerbated by the fact that the Muslim world is not homogenous. In fact, Dr. Abu-Rabi identifies seven distinct zones of Islam, each with its own ethnic culture and Islamic traditions. Furthermore, most Muslims don’t know much about their religious brothers and sisters in zones other than their own.

 

All of these organic factors produce pressures and conflicts within the U.S. Muslim community. Like many Christian churches, mosques are not as homogenous as they appear to outsiders.

 

The events of September 11, 2001 added to those pressures. While it’s true that many traditional Muslims do not want to identify with the United States (or any secular nation) because they consider Islam to be a better identity, most don’t seek the destruction of the U.S. either. Nevertheless, there is a radical element in many mosques that dates back to the 1980s, when money and people were solicited to join the Afghanistan effort to fight off the encroaching Soviet Union. With the blessings of the U.S. government, young men went off to join the battle, and came back with a more militant outlook and military experience. Some of those men see the United States as the next colonial power that needs to be pushed out of the Muslim World, just as the Russians were. However, the generalized condemnation that targeted the U.S. Muslim community in the weeks after 9/11 failed to distinguish between those few who wish the U.S. harm, and the majority who sincerely want to adapt to their host country and adopted home. 

In the aftermath of the 2001 attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., many American mosques have felt pushed to identify themselves more clearly with their future in the United States than their past in the Muslim World. They increasingly realize they need leadership that can address contemporary domestic issues, rather than carry on, in absentia, the battles of their home countries.

 

Dr. Abu-Rabi believes non-Muslims can help the U.S. Muslim community in its period of transition by becoming partners with local mosques and by learning more about Islam. He encourages churches and other faith organizations to make overtures to area mosques and initiate group and personal exchanges. He also thinks both Muslims and non-Muslims could benefit from seminars and trips to the Muslim World: non-Muslims would be exposed to Islamic cultures, and Muslims would be exposed to the diverse expressions of Islam, as practiced in zones other than their own.

 

If you would like to develop your own, or your congregation’s curiosity about Islam or Muslims in North America, consider starting a book club to read and discuss books on Islam. It could be especially beneficial to do so in partnership with a local mosque.

 

To participate in study tours to Muslim countries, Dr. Abu-Rabi suggests contacting Mr. Bob Evans of Plowshares, Inc. [http://plowsharesinstitute.org], who has led many tours to the Muslim World.

 

Also, Hartford Seminary [http://www.hartsem.edu] offers a number of courses covering various aspects of Islam. Some of those courses may be available online. The Seminary also has a substantial population of Muslim students, who enrich the educational environment of the campus. The Macdonald Center, located at the Seminary, is a world-renowned research institute, with connections to national and international Muslim communities.

CLERGY PERSPECTIVE  

The Part Curiosity Has Played  

Here we present the viewpoint of one or more clergy who work in local faith communities and have first-hand experience in applying the theme of the issue.

Two and a half years ago I left a larger congregation to accept the challenge of invigorating a forty-year old Christian church that has never had more than 120 members, or average worship attendance above 40.  Over the last 30 months we have increased attendance, reduced the average age of attendees, transformed our worship service, and expanded the decision making power of the membership. In December 2004, we reincorporated the church and incorporated a new, non-profit faith-based ministry arm; both are IRS approved 501(c)(3) corporations. The following month we transformed our board-and-committee system of management into a more flexible, service-oriented network of ministry teams.

 

There have been three keys to opening up this rich period of transformation. First, the members have a genuine concern for the future of the church, which has allowed them to entertain new ideas and try new things. Second, we have successfully expanded the membership’s voice in making decisions and setting directions, building up from small decisions and victories toward significant changes and large risks. Third, we have used research tools to develop a deeper understanding of the neighborhood context within which the church is situated.

 

As might be expected, most of the active membership always read newspapers, watched television, listened to the radio, and had plenty of opportunity to directly observe the social and cultural changes taking place around them. But like so many church people, they failed to understand the impact social change was having upon their church. They did not know how to connect what was taking place outside the church to what was not taking place inside the church. Yet, those external changes have been influencing our neighbors’ decisions about whether to worship and where to worship.

 

Over recent months, many members have become more interested in understanding the linkages. They have become newly curious about those who are not in the church body. As a result, they are developing a more informed understanding of the nature of their neighborhood, and that is beginning to influence how we make plans for touching the lives of people who live near us. The addition to the church of several young families with infant children, and the involvement on our primary decision-making body of a 20-year old college student who is not hesitant to share her perceptions, have both stoked and fed the emerging curiosity of the church’s elected leaders.

 

Why have those young families settled in our church? Who might be like them in the area? What can we do to improve their spiritual experience and expression? How has a single, 20-year old college student become so committed to our congregation of mostly over-60 year olds? Can we build on her experience with us – along with the experience of our two other young single adults – to create a ministry to the undergraduate students and graduate medical students in our neighborhood?

 

These are the questions now being voiced. They are questions of the curious whose curiosity can lead to new ministry and vitality. More significantly, they are the result of the membership finding its collective voice, feeling empowered to direct its course, seeing the benefits that accrue from making a series of small changes, and grasping a sense of hope for the future. Curiosity about options in worship style and self-government, about visitors and new members, and about the surrounding community – this is the kind of curiosity that has made possible the changes we have enacted over these last months.

– Rev. Terry Bascom, CT

TOOLS FOR CHANGE  

Here are some tips and techniques to help you transform your faith community, oriented around the issue’s theme.

There are a variety of ways to satisfy your curiosity about the neighborhood surrounding your faith community’s worship site. Here are two.

1. Identify and Interview

You can get a better sense of the religious environment within which you live by exploring the variety of worship options available in your area. All it takes is a little research and legwork.

The Research. First, identify the geographic area you wish to examine. Your task is to identify the boundaries of the area within which people could reasonably be expected to consider your place of worship a viable option for meeting their spiritual needs. You might

§   identify a 2- or 5-mile radius from your worship site, depending upon how far you believe people might travel to find a faith community in which they would feel comfortable worshipping; or,

§     identify the topographic boundaries that define your neighborhood; or,

§   define the boundaries indicated by the shopping and entertainment patterns of the people who live near-by (perhaps by surveying members who live close to your worship site).  

Those visible and invisible boundaries that condition the social and self-care behaviors of people in your neighborhood are likely to influence their quest for a worship community, too.

Second, once you have determined your research parameters:

§   Identify Christian and Jewish worship sites through the Yahoo! home page. Click on the “Communities/Religious” listing, then select whether you want “churches” or “synagogues/temples.” On the page that opens, type in your worship facility’s address and zip code. What results is a selection of faith communities with a notation on how far each is from your address.

§   To get a more complete picture, use the resources of Harvard University’s Pluralism Project. Access the site by going to http://www.pluralism.org/directory/search.php. Identify your state and select the religious tradition you want to locate, or choose “all” for a comprehensive list. From the search results, you will need to cull the list for those closest to your place of worship. (When looking at non-Christian religious communities, you ought to anticipate that adherents are willing to travel further to worship than are Christian and Jewish people, because of the scarcity of opportunity. A 10- or 15-mile radius may be an appropriate territory.)

The Legwork. Once you know what kinds of worship options exist in your area, you can get a more in-depth look at representative samples of each by selecting nearby faith communities and visiting. Asking questions of the staff, talking with the clergy leader, and making mental notes about the facility and neighborhood are all ways to acquaint yourself with the range and vitality of religious opportunities surrounding your worship community. Looking closely at those who are of a like religious tradition can help you clarify what you already do or what you might offer that is distinctive. What distinguishes you from the pack may be an asset, strength you can build upon.

2. The Walk-Through

A good way to get an up-to-date understanding of the secular community around your worship site is to conduct a neighborhood “walk-through.” (In some communities a “drive through” may be more appropriate, such as in spread-out suburban or rural settings, or where walking urban streets may be dangerous.) The purpose of the walk- or drive-through is to look with fresh eyes at the neighborhood(s) surrounding your place of worship. It’s helpful to make the trip with several members of your faith community, representing different cohorts. A teenager, for example, may see things older adults miss because of a personal familiarity with those things that are important to the youth subculture of the area. Similarly, a senior citizen may note changes in the neighborhood that either positively or negatively impinge upon elderly residents. All members of the touring group may be able to help identify how old businesses have been replaced by new enterprises, what changes have helped or hurt foot traffic in the area, how empty land has been transformed into residential neighborhoods, or residential property into commercial establishments. Changes in community ethnic or racial composition may become evident, too, perhaps on a block-by-block basis. All of this information can help in your faith community’s strategizing.

You can expand your understanding of the neighborhood by organizing several study groups. They might be sent in different directions, or to cover the same ground. In either case, a follow-up meeting to share discoveries, insights and tentative conclusions can help your membership begin to develop a group understanding of how the worship community’s ministry context has changed. Such first-person understanding helps congregations think about how to more effectively connect to their changing communities. It is an exercise that encourages additional curiosity.

Either of these exercises can improve your faith community’s grasp of its context and help members make good and reasonable plans for touching the lives of near-by residents. The best results, however, come from utilizing several strategies in concert. Looking at your neighborhood through multiple lenses helps you to make better plans, because each method uncovers different information about those who live near-by. The more comprehensively you understand the interests, options and trajectories of your neighbors, the more successfully you can hone in upon your target population and address their needs. Over the coming months, we will add community-analysis tools to our website, which we hope will be an added help to you.

Trends 

Signs of the times: emerging religious patterns and practices on the U.S. landscape, as reported in the print media.

And What About the Grandparents?

Time Magazine reported that in 2001, 22% of the U.S. population lived in mixed-religion households. When those who are parents decide to choose one religion for their kids, grandparents who are of the religion not chosen can end up at a loss about how to interact with their grandchildren without stepping on the parents’ wishes. To address the need for guidance and, often, just for a place to talk out their sense of loss, several nonprofit organizations have emerged. The website, interfaithfamily.com, maintained by a Jewish advocacy organization of the same name, maintains an archive of articles about grandchildren in mixed-faith marriages. Dovetail Institute is a nondenominational group with the same concern (dovetailinstitute.org). (“Generations,” Time Magazine, September 27, 2004; p. A13.)

The Southern Catholic Revival

While Catholics make up just 12% of the population in the southern states of the U.S. (compared to 22% nationwide), southern Catholics grew almost 30% during the 1990s, compared to the 10% growth of Baptists (the region’s largest denomination). In Houston and Atlanta the number of Catholics has tripled in the past decade, and the first new Catholic university built in 40 years is being constructed in Naples, Florida. In Charlotte, North Carolina, Mexican immigrants make up half of the area’s Catholic population, fueling a 10% annual growth rate in the Charlotte diocese. But thousands of Vietnamese and Filipino Catholics are adding to Charlotte’s momentum, too.

Southern Catholics are deeply influenced by their conservative Southern Baptist neighbors, and by the conservative piety of Latin America. As a result, they are proving to be more orthodox than U.S. Catholics in general. Many southern Catholics see it as their mission to rescue the U.S. Church from the grip of more liberal northern and northeastern Catholic thinking. (“Bible-Belt Catholics,” Time Magazine, February 14, 2005; p. 44.)

Islamic Centers in Ohio

Central Ohio’s Franklin County now has an estimated 35,000 Muslims, mostly of the Sunni sect. That’s more than the approximate 22,000 adherents of Judaism in the area, and makes Islam a distant second only to Christianity. Mosques outnumber synagogues and Jewish centers, too, by 14 to 12. Immigration accounts for most of the growth. In the last decade Muslim immigration has been mostly among Somali and Senegalese refugees who find the Columbus area affordable, peaceful, and a relatively easy place to find work.

The rapid growth in the Muslim population has increased tensions in some parts of Columbus. Some of the tension is the result of cultural and religious differences brought to the U.S. by the immigrant communities themselves; some is unease over the transition that is taking place in established communities. However, Leslie Stansbery, president of the Interfaith Association of Central Ohio, says, “On the whole, though, people are very supportive of their arrival and are willing to work with them.”  (“Rising Voices,” The Columbus Dispatch, Final Home Edition, Friday, February 1, 2005.)

Buddhism Plants Roots

There are about 3 million Buddhists in the U.S. Many are immigrants; many others are U.S. born converts, including some famous Hollywood personalities drawn to the Buddhist virtues of sacrifice, selflessness, and the promise of finding nirvana (or true happiness). Rev. Tonen O’Connor of the Milwaukee Zen Center in Wisconsin says she has seen a surge in interest lately, including new materials in bookstores, and an increase in requests that she address churches, school groups and others. “It is growing,” she said, “and it is taking root.” (“Temple In the Woods Buddhists Find a Home, Warm Neighbors in Town,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Sunday Final Edition, December 5, 2004.)

All God’s Children Got a Voice in the City Council Chambers

Austin, Texas, Mayor Will Wynn invited the Austin Area Interreligious Ministries to bless the new City Hall and Council Chambers on January 13, 2005. The Ministries comprises more than 130 congregations from 10 different faiths, including Wicca, Hinduism, Bahá'í, Islam, Judaism, Shinto, and Christianity. The blessing ceremony was conducted in English, Japanese, Hebrew and Sanskrit, and took the form of song, chant, and prayer. (“Bounty of Blessings in Council Chambers,” The Austin American-Statesman, Friday, January 14, 2005.)

Web Wise 

Internet resources for faith community transformation.

Need Internet resources to help examine how your congregation fits into the religious mosaic of your region?  These web sites should help in the task.

The North American Religion Atlas www.religionatlas.org/ provides access to resources for the study and teaching of North American religious history and offers a great overview of American religious life.

On the Faith Communities Today site http://fact.hartsem.edu, you will find summaries of research from a study of 14,000 congregations done in 1999-2000 at http://fact.hartsem.edu/topfindings/topicalfindings.htm and a pdf version of the most recent book from the research which focuses on Interfaith findings and comparisons within the study  http://fact.hartsem.edu/MeetNgbors1.pdf  You can read a summary of this booklet at http://hirr.hartsem.edu/research/quick_question38.html  and a summary of research on how Muslims want to be involved in US public life.

The American Religion Data Archive is a site that houses over 250 data files on American Religion including several years of General Social Surveys and the National Congregations Study, has recently added new features which allow the user to create bar and pie charts of the data, map information, and combine religion data with census, crime and voting information. These features are well-worth a look at www.thearda.com/  The most helpful feature on this site allows you to examine a listing of the congregations in your county from the Religious Communities Membership Study http://www.thearda.com/RCMS/2000/RCMS_report2000.asp

The Pluralism Project web site is dedicated to religious diversity. This web site contains an extensive collection of links to NonChristian faiths such as Islam, Hindu, Santeria, Bahá'í, and Jainism. http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~pluralsm/.  Site users are able to search the database by their state.  There are many other excellent resources on this site.

The Wabash Center Guide to Internet Resources contains a wonderful page of Interreligious Dialogue links at http://www.wabashcenter.wabash.edu/Internet/dialogue.htm   

Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations offers many fine resources for answering your questions about Islam.  One section of its site http://macdonald.hartsem.edu/answers.htm   has a very helpful FAQ about basic Muslim beliefs and practices. 

The Center is also the home to the unique Hartford Seminary program designed to train Islamic chaplains http://macdonald.hartsem.edu/chaplaincy/.

Resources 

Check out these books on the theme of the issue.

New books just out  –

• Chris Smith (NSYR) Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (Oxford University Press) 2005
• David Roozen and James Nieman (Hartford Institute) Church, Identity, and Change: Theology and Denominational Structures in Unsettled Times (Eerdmans Press) 2005
• Scott Thumma (Hartford Institute) and Edward Gray Gay Religion (AltaMira Press) 2004
• Cynthia Woolever and Deborah Bruce (US Congregational Life Study) Beyond the Ordinary: 10 Strengths of U.S. Congregations (Westminster John Knox Press) 2004
• Aaron Spiegel, Nancy Armstrong, and Brent Bill (Indianapolis Center) 40 Days and 40 Bytes: Making Computers Work for Your Congregation (Alban Institute) 2004

Pulpit and Pew Website

The Pulpit & Pew project is an interdenominational effort aimed at “strengthening the quality of pastoral leadership in churches, parishes, and other faith communities across America.” The several year project is being undertaken by J.M. Ormond Center at the Divinity School at Duke University and is directed by Jackson Carroll. The web site to support this project is rapidly becoming a rich resource of excellent articles and research reports about clergy leadership.

Practicing Our Faith Website

Wanting to expand your understanding of spiritual disciplines? Check out the Practicing Our Faith website at www.practicingourfaith.org for a unique look at and interesting information on spiritual practices that help us live out our Christian commitments in daily live. The site contains great practical advice for individuals and groups as well as sermon aids.

The Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals

The Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals web site. On this site you can find a very informative page that defines several often-misunderstood religious terms within Evangelicalism.

A Look at Issue #2…

The second issue of Leadership & Transformation will be published in in early fall, on the topic, “Exploring Fellowship: studying and interpreting your congregation’s culture.”

Between now and then, our parent organization, CCSP, will be conducting a national survey of U.S. faith communities. In the column, “The Survey Says,” we will explore what the latest research tells us about the state of religious communities today.

In the “Tools for Change” section, we will introduce a method of gathering data on a congregation, and in the “Clergy Perspective” column we hope to offer you cross-religious viewpoints on involving members in self-study.

With your participation, we  will also provide some encouraging tips and techniques to help one another involve our members in the topic of this first issue: exploring the world around us. Submit your ideas and experiences for the “Readers Report” column.

You will also find the wisdom of a consultant (“Consultant’s Corner”), some helpful internet links and tools (“Tech Talk”), a review of non-electronic resources and publications (“Resources”), and relevant snippets from the general media (“Trends & Patterns”).

…and Beyond

We shall soon debut a new column, “Lay Leader Perspective,” because we know that a lot of support for, and leadership in, the transformation of worship communities comes from dedicated and motivated non-clergy.  Lay leaders working for the transformation of congregations can have different perspectives and concerns than clergy; here is your opportunity to speak to one another, to clergy, and to the researchers who try to understand what’s taking place in local congregations.

As a reader, your contribution is always welcome. Readers may contribute to the “Clergy Perspective,” “Lay Leader Perspective,” and “Readers Report” columns.

If you would like to write for one of the Perspective columns, please contact us for information on upcoming topics. We are seeking perspectives from clergy and lay change leaders among all of the faith traditions found in the United States.

For the Readers Report column, we ask you to reflect upon your experience implementing or attempting the kind of transformation highlighted as a recent issue’s topic. Put yourself in this frame of mind: “I see this [event/pattern/result] and I think a lot of other congregations could learn from it.” Then briefly tell us what you have witnessed and how it might inform the work of other congregations engaged in transformation.

Finally, watch our website for the introduction of threaded conversations and forums, and for upcoming information about special benefits and resources for subscribers.