4-R Report On Studying Congregations
Dr. Gregg Marutzky in his course lectures, mentions that for purposes of this class, the congregation is local, voluntary, and a religious organization, and that understanding the dynamics of congregational life is essential for the future of the church and the united brotherhood of believers. In their well edited book, “Studying Congregations”, an informal coalition of eleven scholars and researchers who share an interest in congregational studies; Nancy T. Ammerman, Jackson W. Carroll, Carl S. Dudley, Nancy L. Eiesland, Ardith S, Hayes, Lawrence Mamiya, Robert Schreiter, Stephen Warner, Jack Wertheimer, Barbara G. Wheeler and William McKinney, all spent four years, to build frameworks about what congregations are, why they exist, and their ecological, cultural, and resource frames, as well as process frames. Here is a top level review summary of the entire seven chapters of the book: The authors, in the introduction-invitation to congregational study, noted that “ordinary people experienced and expressed their faith and their religion in gathered communities or what they termed congregations. Environmental, cultural, resource, and process frames are lenses/perspectives used to study a congregation. These lenses assist us in comprehending every congregation and what they represents. The authors claim that “congregations are essential for the religious health of the US population. They also quoted from that the yearbook of American and Canadian Churches reports “some 350,000 local communities of faith in the US alone with almost 135 million members and an average weekly attendance in excess of 65 million adults” Dr. Gregg Marutzky’s class note 2021
The authors carefully invite readers to new ways (frames or lenses) of seeing a congregation, ways to gather information and a variety of ways to of looking at congregational data and getting perspectives/vision and highlighting what they show us.
Robert J. Schreiter discusses theology in the congregation in connection to discovering and doing in chapter one. He examined ways of examining the theological content in congregational life. According to Schreiter, one of the key roles of religious leaders is to think systematically about congregational life, which can be a basic theological undertaking.
Nancy L. Eiesland and Stephen Warner, the authors of Chapter 2, assist the reader in seeing the congregation in various circumstances. One of the ways to see the congregation context, is to create/construct a congregational time line. The goal in constructing a time line is to understand how the congregation is situated within an inclusive conception of its history. Also important in this exercise is recognizing that history telling is a collective effort, involving multiple perspectives on those events and processes brought about by demographic, cultural, and organizational change.
In Chapter 3, Nancy Ammerman beautifully describes the culture and identity in the congregation, defining culture, highlighting distinct identities that can be seen in what they make and do together, reasons & methods for studying culture, activities of congregations or what they do together, their rituals like worship, Sunday/Sabbath school, symbols, fellowship activities, introducing newcomers to the culture, artefacts (the things congregations make), accounts (the stories congregations tell), myth, histories, worldviews, symbols, images, metaphors, theologies, interpreting the congregational culture, etc.
In defining culture, she writes “culture is who we are and the world we have created to live in. It is the predictable patterns of who does what and habitual strategies for telling the world about the things held most dear. Congregations, have a large store of ingredients from which to borrow.”
Chapter 4 was written by Carls Dudley, and talks about the process dynamics of congregational life. This chapter begins with a basic discussion of the distinction—and constant interaction— between formal and informal processes. He writes that “whether you are examining the formal structures of the organization or the expectations of those who belong to it.
The entire fifth chapter which is devoted to resources was written by William McKinney, Anthony T. Ruger, Diane Cohen, and Robert Jeager. They treat a congregation in this chapter as a collection of elements derived from a larger social and religious environment who, when combined, have the power or potential to achieve social and religious goals. All of the raw ingredients of congregational life—human, economic and financial, spiritual, and reputational—are at the center of this framework for understanding congregations.
In chapter 6, Jackson W. Carroll examines leadership in congregational study. He discussed the leaders’ obligations when it comes to leading the congregations. Carroll defines leadership as an action in the context of the congregation, and leadership in the context of congregational study includes helping a congregation’s members in many critical tasks: (1) helping the congregation gain a realistic understanding of its particular situation and circumstances; (2) assisting members to develop a vision for their corporate life that is faithful to their best understanding of God and God’s purposes for the congregation in this time and place; and
5 Studying Congregations: a new handbook, edited by Nancy T. Ammerman … (et al.). Abingdon press, 1988 p78
(3) assisting them in bringing that vision to reality in the congregation’s corporate life.
The book ends with Chapter 7 where Scott L. Thumma writes on methods for congregational study. Amongst the numerous methods he describes is the most potent one, to have members of the congregation do direct observation which he described as the intentional and systematic investigation and description of what takes place in a social setting, a conscious perceiving, recording, reflecting on, and analyzing all that happens art congregational event, be it worship, meetings, school class or coffee hour.
RELATE: Relate: In 250 words share a personal life story that this book triggered in your memory. Tell this in first person, “I”. Be specific. By making a personal connection to the book you increase the likelihood of its contents being remembered. This book right from the beginning discussed congregation leadership and reminded me about the period from 1998-2018 when my wife & I held various positions of regional leadership in the three-thousand strong Lagos congregation/church. This book paints the picture of some of the things we were engaged in, but without any formal procedural documentation to follow day by day. These included as the book described, understanding change and development of the region/church. Since the congregation was made up of diverse members from a variety of sub-cultures and tribal languages, leading for us required that we became adaptive leaders that are flexible and discerning when to push for change and when to hold back. My wife and I knew that adaptive leaders would have to recognize the dynamics of change and the forces of resistance and the importance of forward progress. Coming from outside the congregation, we needed to understand the culture of a congregation, remember that there are probably significant variations on the themes we discovered.
We had to recognize and acknowledge that even what seems unremarkable is still a distinctive culture. While there may be many elements everyone shares, large congregations like the one in Lagos do have subgroups that are defined by the unique activities that they do not share with other groups in the congregation. This is why we led mostly through several small groups that we created.
REFLECT: Reflect: In 250 words share what questions came to mind as you read the book. What bothered you about the book? If you could ask the author a question what would it be? In essence critique the text. See Reflection comments in grading rubric.
The authors emphasized that understanding culture is critical to making any sort of change. Before new programs can be implemented or administrations reorganized or new ministries begun, clergy and other leaders need to understand the well-established ways of life that will be disrupted by these new changes. Would this be a necessity for a congregation who is sensitive to and desires to follow the words of Jesus and the apostles whose doctrines loosely mimicked his? For such a congregation, wouldn’t members largely identify with the commands of Jesus and habits/programs that are aimed at pleasing him?
Would anything be lost if these substitutes help members to become more committed to Jesus instead of things aimed at keeping congregational status-quo? The Biblical people of God in the Old covenant were super interrupted by God himself and his leader Moses, at various places in their formative history. At mount Sanai for instance, God imposed a set of rules following the covenant he made with them. God and Moses did not consider the impact on the existing culture. I wonder why? I agree with the authors that seeing clearly how people’s lives will be changed can help leaders know how to communicate about what will happen and avoid unpleasant surprises for everyone involved, however I am at loss to decipher why these considerations were not recorded for the first century congregation and their leaders. When Paul and Barnabas were teachers at the congregation in Antioch, in Acts 15, some people come from Judea and demanded that the Gentiles should become practicing Jews before being regarded as real believers. Luke summarizes their claim in a sentence: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved” (15:1). These hard-line Jewish Christians are confronted by Paul and Barnabas, who get “into sharp dispute and debate with them” (15:2).
RESPOND: Respond: In 200 words tell me what you are going to do with this information? This is a two-part response: First what changes will you make in your personal life as a result of the information from this text and second, based on this text what will you say to a client?
I hold the Bible to be the defining document or the constitution of my Christian faith. Thus, for me, it specifies what is to be believed and what is to be done. It is the sole driver of my behavior as a member of my congregation here in St. Louis. When another member is in need, I need to respond with tangible forms of assistance, as well as with emotional support-with food and hugs.
I need to continue to initiate face-to-face discussions of life’s issues and deliberately form family-like bonds of friendship and care. I need to help any congregation members who do not expect such social bonds to be important, and only see themselves primarily as worshippers who come and go, to seek to create and foster relationships among other congregants.
I expect to be a committed participant of teaching and living out Biblical doctrine that has the potential to influence congregational culture and behavior. Since my congregation has a distinctive culture, I will have to work hard at training their new recruits/members, in accordance with sound Biblical doctrine.
If my client is a new Evangelist or Teacher or a congregational leader of some sort, I will advise as follows;
The new leader needs to learn the often-unspoken expectations of the insiders and known long term members. A careful study of its culture can be invaluable. New leader will have to learn his or her place in it. A careful study of the congregation’s culture can help them know how to help the congregation in general and specific individuals. Seeing clearly how people’s lives will be changed can help leaders know how to communicate about what will happen and avoid unpleasant surprises for everyone involved. Studying the culture may also uncover stories and symbols from the congregation’s past that may help to bridge the way into the future. There are both hidden riches and lurking land mines in any culture, and it pays to know where they are. One of your first tasks in understanding the culture of your congregation is to take an inventory of the important pieces of the outside culture your members share. One of the things you may discover rather quickly, both from surveys and from interviews, is that no congregation is ever really just one unified culture. There are subcultures within that may be more or less distinct, groups that spend a good deal of time with each other and perhaps relatively little with others in the congregation.
