Congregation and Community
Change--in population, economy, and culture--is sweeping through American communities. Corner groceries are stocking new foods. New roads are being built and Main Streets abandoned. Schools have come and gone, and old friends move away as strangers arrive. But in every community, no matter how volatile, religious institutions provide for their members places of moral guidance and spiritual nurture, civic participation, and identity.
How do congregations react to significant community change? Why do some religious institutions decline in the face of racial integration while others adapt and grow? How do congregations make sense of economic distress? Do they provide havens from community upheaval or vehicles for change? Congregation and Community is the most comprehensive study to date of congregations in the face of community transformation. Nancy Ammerman and her colleagues include stories of over twenty congregations in nine communities from across the nation, communities with new immigrant populations, growing groups of gays and lesbians, rapid suburbanization, and economic dislocations.
With almost half of the nation's population attending religious services each week, it is impossible to understand change in American society without a close look at congregations. Congregation and Community will exist as a standard resource for years to come, and clergy, academics, and general readers alike will benefit from its insights.
This is the best study of congregations to have appeared in the past seventy years.
In this excellent example of comparative case-study research, Ammerman (sociology of religion, Hartford Seminary) and her research team focus on how congregations respond to changes in their communities. The book studies 23 congregations in nine communities where significant economic, structural, and cultural changes occurred with respect to class structures, age distributions, racial diversity, developing homosexual enclaves, new immigrant populations, and recessions caused by industrial relocationà.This book belongs in every seminary library, but it has value also for sociologists interested in organizations and communities..Eminently readable, it has useful notes and a valuable bibliography. General; upper-division undergraduate through professional.
This is a path-breaking study of the way in which churches adapt, or fail to adapt, to changes in their environment. This definitive study should be read both by people active in church work and by academics interested in religion in a changing American society.
Acknowledgments
1 Congregation and Community: Introductions
2 Persistence in the Face of Change
3 Relocating: New Places, New Identities
4 Adaptation: Integrating Gay and Straight
5 Adaptation: Integrating across Cultures
6 AdaptationL Creating New Internal Structures
7 Innovation: Birth and Rebirth
8 How Congregations Change
9 Congregation and Community: Conclusions
Appendix A: Focus Questions
Appendix B: Congregational Survey
Notes
Selected Bibliography
List of Contributors
Index
