dissertation approved by

DISSERTATION APPROVED BY

_________________________ ____________________________________ Date James Martin, Ph.D., Chair ____________________________________ Nicolae Roddy, Ph.D. ____________________________________ Greg Owen, Ph.D. ____________________________________ Isabelle Cherney, Ph.D., Program Chair ____________________________________ Gail M. Jensen, Ph.D., Dean

Running Head: ORGANIZING FOR MISSION

ORGANIZING FOR MISSION: TESTING THE IMPACT OF STRUCTURE, CAPACITY, AND THEOLOGY ON HOW A CHURCH ORGANIZES TO SERVE ITS COMMUNITY

_________________________________

By

BRUCE J. BJORK

_________________________________

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to the faculty of the Graduate School of the Creighton University in Partial

Fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education in the Department of

Interdisciplinary Leadership.

_________________________________

Omaha, NE

March 17, 2014

ORGANIZING FOR MISSION

Copyright 2014, Bruce J. Bjork

This document is copyrighted material. Under copyright law, no part of this document may be reproduced without the expressed permission of the author.

ORGANIZING FOR MISSION iii

Abstract

In the United States, the Church has always been expected to provide care for members of

the community who were sick, hungry, homeless, and struggling to survive. Congregations

have responded in many different ways over the years, mobilizing their financial resources

and human capital to meet the needs they see around them. Changes in the economic,

political, and social environments have resulted in new opportunities for congregations to be

involved in the development and delivery of services to the community. Churches have

responded to increased expectations by offering programs that address critical community

concerns at a higher rate than ever before. Even though churches represent an organizational

type that is very different from most traditional social service providers, they are typically

expected to adopt the same structural models, often with ineffective results. Congregations

will be most effective as providers of social services and community problem solvers when

they are allowed to organize in ways that respect their traditions, cultures, and theologies.

The purpose of this study is to test how various organizational elements combine to influence

how a church can most effectively mobilize to serve its community.

ORGANIZING FOR MISSION iv

Acknowledgments

Completing a dissertation and earning a doctorate has been a dream and a goal of

mine for more years than I care to admit, and now that I have reached the end of this journey,

I want to thank those who have helped me along the way. I know I would not have made it

without the support and encouragement of family, friends, colleagues, and teachers.

I would like to thank Dr. Jim Martin, my advisor and committee chair for his patience

and advice. I especially appreciated his constant reminders that my dissertation was not going

to be the last thing I ever wrote. Similar thanks go to my other committee members, Dr.

Nicolae Roddy and Dr. Greg Owen. Their suggestions and advice made my work better.

I am grateful to the pastors who graciously agreed to be interviewed for my study.

Their days are already full with the work of the church, so setting aside time to meet with me

was truly a gift. I hope that the results of my research justify the support I received from

them. A special thanks goes out to the 258 anonymous church members who shared their

thoughts and beliefs with me by completing a survey. What they told me through their

responses was exciting, surprising, and perplexing, and I am grateful for their insight.

I suspect that everyone who completes a dissertation has at least one person who kept

them on task and held them accountable for what they said they were going to do. I was

fortunate to have two. Thank you LaDonna and Bridget for understanding how important this

was to me, and for refusing to let me off the hook when I could have easily set it aside.

And finally, I want to thank my family – Margo, Rachel, and Matthew – for their

support and understanding throughout this entire journey. You gave me the time and the

space I needed to get this done, even when it took me away from other, important things that

I could have been doing instead.

ORGANIZING FOR MISSION v

Table of Contents

Page

Abstract.................................................................................................................................... iii

Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................iv

Table of Contents.......................................................................................................................v

List of Tables ............................................................................................................................xi

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................1

Background of the Problem.......................................................................................................1

Overview .......................................................................................................................1

Church Context..............................................................................................................3

Problem Statement.....................................................................................................................5

Purpose Statement .....................................................................................................................6

Support from the Literature .......................................................................................................6

Research Questions..................................................................................................................13

Testing the Argument ..............................................................................................................14

Congregational Profile.................................................................................................14

Community Service Profile .........................................................................................15

Data Analysis...............................................................................................................16

Delimitations ...........................................................................................................................16

Definition of Terms .................................................................................................................18

Significance of the Study.........................................................................................................21

Summary..................................................................................................................................24

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW..........................................................................25

ORGANIZING FOR MISSION vi

Introduction .............................................................................................................................25

Historical Overview.................................................................................................................26

The Influence of Coproduction Theory .......................................................................28

The Politics of Devolution...........................................................................................34

Charitable Choice and Welfare Reform ......................................................................35

Faith-based and Community Initiatives.......................................................................36

Summary......................................................................................................................37

Organizing for Mission: The Influence of Isomorphism.........................................................38

Coercive Isomorphism and the Church .......................................................................40

Mimetic Isomorphism and the Church ........................................................................43

Normative Isomorphism and the Church.....................................................................45

Classifying the Church ............................................................................................................47

Introduction .................................................................................................................47

Theological Distinctions: Church and Sect .................................................................49

Classification by Church Type ....................................................................................53

Classification by the Role of Faith in an Organization ...............................................56

Classification by Organizational Characteristics.........................................................59

Classification by Differences with Secular Organizations ..........................................59

How Churches Provide Services to the Community ...............................................................61

The Faith-Factors View ...............................................................................................61

The Emergence of Church-based Social Services .......................................................64

Member Involvement in Programming .......................................................................68

The Principle of Subsidiarity .......................................................................................69

ORGANIZING FOR MISSION vii

The Role and Impact of Religiosity.........................................................................................71

The Church as Voluntary Association.....................................................................................75

Churches as Special Cases of Voluntary Association .................................................76

Churches as Semi-involuntary Organizations .............................................................78

Factors that Contribute to Voluntary Behavior in Churches .......................................80

CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY..........................................................84

Introduction .............................................................................................................................84

Quantitative Elements..................................................................................................85

Qualitative Elements....................................................................................................85

Research Questions..................................................................................................................85

Hypotheses...............................................................................................................................86

Variables ..................................................................................................................................88

Independent Variables .................................................................................................89

Dependent Variables....................................................................................................89

Population................................................................................................................................91

Sample .....................................................................................................................................91

Sample of Convenience ...............................................................................................91

Criterion Sampling ......................................................................................................92

Descriptive Characteristics of Participating Congregations ........................................93

Descriptive Characteristics of Lay Members Surveyed ..............................................96

Instrumentation........................................................................................................................98

Congregational Profile Form (Pastor Interview) .........................................................98

Mission Orientation Scale (Lay Member Survey).....................................................100

ORGANIZING FOR MISSION viii

Data Collection ......................................................................................................................101

Data Collection Process: Pastors ...............................................................................101

Data Collection Process: Lay Members ....................................................................103

Data Analysis.........................................................................................................................104

Qualitative Analysis ..................................................................................................104

Quantitative Analysis ................................................................................................105

Church Sub-Groups ...................................................................................................106

Statistical Methods ....................................................................................................106

Limitations of the Methodology ............................................................................................107

Limitations of the Sample..........................................................................................107

Use of Self-Reporting for Data Collection ................................................................108

Exaggeration of Impact .............................................................................................108

Ambiguous Concepts.................................................................................................108

Potential for False Positives ......................................................................................109

CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS.............................................................................................110

Introduction ...........................................................................................................................106

Review of the Methodology ..................................................................................................110

Qualitative Analysis: Interviews with Pastors.......................................................................111

Characteristics of Pastors Interviewed ......................................................................112

Section One: Church Profile......................................................................................114

Section Two: Organizational Capacity......................................................................126

Section Three: Community Service and Local Missions ..........................................133

Summary of Qualitative Results................................................................................141

ORGANIZING FOR MISSION ix

Overview ...................................................................................................................141

Key findings ..............................................................................................................141

Quantitative Analysis: Mission Orientation Scale (Lay Member Survey)............................143

Overview ...................................................................................................................143

Survey Process...........................................................................................................144

Missional Orientation of Church Members ...............................................................145

Preference for Collaboration and Partnership ...........................................................151

Lay Member’s Relationship to the Ministry of the Church.......................................155

Church’s Responsibility for Public Accountability...................................................161

Summary of Quantitative Results..............................................................................163

Conclusion: Analysis of Hypotheses.....................................................................................166

Hypothesis 1 ..............................................................................................................166

Hypothesis 2 ..............................................................................................................167

Hypothesis 3 ..............................................................................................................168

Hypothesis 4 ..............................................................................................................169

Hypothesis 5 ..............................................................................................................170

Hypothesis 6 ..............................................................................................................172

CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS..................................173

Introduction ...........................................................................................................................173

Purpose of the Study..................................................................................................173

Overview of Results ..................................................................................................173

Summary of the Study ...........................................................................................................174

Summary of the Finding ........................................................................................................177

ORGANIZING FOR MISSION x

Missional Alignment and Consistency ......................................................................177

The Church as an Organization .................................................................................178

Implications for Action..........................................................................................................188

Validating Best Practices in the Field........................................................................188

Encouraging Missional Mutuality .............................................................................190

Redefining Terms, Concepts and Constructs ............................................................192

Funding Impact, Not Outcomes.................................................................................194

Summary 195

Review of the Study ..................................................................................................195

Suggestions for Future Research ...............................................................................196

References .............................................................................................................................199

Appendices

Appendix A: Pastor Interview Form .........................................................................209

Appendix B: Mission Orientation Scale ....................................................................216

Appendix C: Lay Member Survey – Summary of Responses...................................218

Appendix D: Frequency Distributions from Interviews with Pastors .......................224

Appendix E: Institutional Review Board Application...............................................231

ORGANIZING FOR MISSION xi

List of Tables

Table 1. Characteristics of Churches in the Sample ............................................................94

Table 2. Distribution of Sample Congregations by Denomination/Tradition .....................94

Table 3. Distribution of Sample Congregations by Membership ........................................96

Table 4. Lay Member Sample by Age.................................................................................97

Table 5. Lay Member Sample by Years at the Church........................................................97

Table 6. Revenue Sources..................................................................................................120

Table 7. Theological Orientation of Participant Churches ................................................124

Table 8. Missional Orientation of Participating Churches ................................................125

Table 9. Organizational Capacity in Participating Churches.............................................129

Table 10. Churches Providing Emergency Services............................................................134

Table 11. Emergency Assistance: Service Models Used.....................................................136

Table 12. Emergency Assistance: Who is Served by the Program......................................137

Table 13. Programs Addressing Long-term Outcomes .......................................................139

Table 14. Service Delivery Models for Programs Addressing Long-term Outcomes.........140

Table 15. Distribution of Responses to Question 4 .............................................................147

Table 16. Distribution of Responses to Question 14 ...........................................................149

Table 17. Distribution of Responses to Question 27 ...........................................................150

Table 18. Question 6: The church can’t be effective in providing social services unless it partners with other organizations that have more expertise ..................152 Table 19. Question 22: It makes more sense for a congregation to support the work of organizations that are already meeting the needs of others than to start its own programs. ................................................................................................153 Table 20. Question 9: I am more likely to volunteer for a church ministry than I am for a program offered by a nonprofit organization, even if they meet the same need. ...........................................................................................................154

ORGANIZING FOR MISSION xii

Table 21. Question 13: I feel a strong call on my life to do something very specific for people in need. ...............................................................................................157 Table 22. Question 11: It is more important for the whole church to work together on something together than for me to be able to serve a particular need that I have a passion for. ......................................................................................158 Table 23. Question 15: My church offers a ministry to the community that meets the community need I am most passionate about. ...............................................160 Table 24. Question 3: The church is only accountable to God for the work that it does to make the world a better place ..............................................................161 Table 25. Question 18: The church should not do a ministry to serve others unless it can openly share the gospel of Jesus Christ. ....................................................163 Table 26. Theological Orientation and Programs with Long-Term Outcomes ...................166

Table 27. Theological Orientation and Advocacy Initiatives ..............................................167

Table 28. Lay Member Theology and Advocacy Initiatives ...............................................168

Table 29. Distribution of Services by Service Delivery Model...........................................170

Table 30: Church Membership ............................................................................................224

Table 31: Active Non-Members ..........................................................................................224

Table 32: Average Combined Weekly Worship Attendance...............................................224

Table 33: Number of Years Congregation has been in Existence .......................................224

Table 34: Number of Years Church has been in its Current Location ................................225

Table 35: Church Polity.......................................................................................................225

Table 36: Importance of Denominational Identity to the Church........................................225

Table 37: Theological Orientation of the Church................................................................225

Table 38: Missional Orientation of the Church ...................................................................226

Table 39: Authority to Make Decisions about Ministry ......................................................226

Table 40: Annual Church Budget ........................................................................................226

ORGANIZING FOR MISSION xiii

Table 41: Budget Amount Per Church Member..................................................................226

Table 42: Budget Amount Per Worship Attendee ...............................................................227

Table 43: Percent of Members Who Tithe...........................................................................227

Table 44: Percent of Adults with a College Degree ............................................................227

Table 45: Percent of Members who are Low-Income .........................................................227

Table 46: Percent of Members who are Unemployed .........................................................228

Table 47: Percent of Members Receiving Public Assistance ..............................................228

Table 48: Percent of Members Living in Traditional Families ...........................................228

Table 49: Percent of Members who are Retired ..................................................................228

Table 50: Percent of Members – Less than One Year at the Church...................................229

Table 51: Percent of Members – More than Ten Years at the Church ................................229

Table 52: Percent of Members Living within One Mile of the Church...............................229

Table 53: Percent of Members Living more than 20 Minutes from Church .......................229

Table 54: Percent of Members Considered Very Active by Pastor .....................................230

Table 55: Predominant Racial Composition of the Congregation.......................................230

ORGANIZING FOR MISSION 1

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

Background of the Problem

Overview

Across the country, communities continue to struggle with difficult social problems

that seem to defy solutions, and the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul offer no

exception. Numerous studies have been done by government, public advocacy groups and

private philanthropy in an effort to identify and define the problems the community faces,

and what they have uncovered is troubling:

• Fewer than half of all children of color do not have the basic literacy skills required to

start kindergarten (One Minneapolis, 2011).

• Only 47% of students enrolled in Minneapolis Public Schools graduate on time. The

rate for students of color is even lower, with African Americans graduating at 38%,

Hispanics at 35%, and American Indians at 17% (One Minneapolis, 2013).

• Approximately 80% of African American children in Hennepin County are born into

single-parent households (Pearlstein, 2013).

• The unemployment rate for residents in the inner-city neighborhoods of Minneapolis

and St. Paul is at least three times higher than the regional average (One Minneapolis,

2013).

• One-third of Minneapolis children live in poverty, 92% of them are children of color

(One Minneapolis, 2013).

• Every night, nearly 6,000 persons experiencing homelessness are housed in shelters

in the Twin Cities metro area (Wilder Research, 2013).


• Every year, children and families in the Twin Cities metro area miss an estimated

39.6 million meals (Hunger-Free MN, 2013).

In a world that is changing quickly, the same intractable problems continue to haunt

far too many communities, and the same cycle of despair continues day after day. Despite

huge public investments to make things different, very little real difference is being made.

We keep doing what does not work, and wonder why it does not get any better.

One of the answers to these difficult problems may be to involve a broader range of

stakeholders in the process of developing solutions and providing critically needed social

services. By looking to new partners in the struggle to improve the lives of those who have

the greatest needs, new solutions might be found and new ways of caring for people in need

might be imagined. This is beginning to happen in many places, as grassroots community

organizations claim their right to share in the decisions that impact the communities and

neighborhoods they have made commitments to serve.

This is particularly true in the faith community, where public policy makers and

social service bureaucrats have discovered the church, recognizing the enormous potential

congregations offer as partners in efforts to make the community a better place for everyone.

They recognize that the church has the ability to reach populations that no other organization

has been able to reliably access, and that the church is often trusted by those who have had

negative experiences with large institutions, and who have reasons to doubt that they will be

treated justly by the public entities that have been created to serve their needs (DiIulio,

1999).

Community leaders have begun to call upon the church to join the struggle to care for

those in need, and congregations have heard that call. Churches are providing more services


to the community than ever before, and a sense of missional responsibility for local concerns

has achieved a new prominence in many congregations (Cnann, 1999; Davidson, Elly, Hull,

and Nead, 1979). But while the level of service has increased, there is justifiable concern

about the effectiveness of the work churches have chosen to do (Wuthnow, Hackett, and

Yang Hsu, 2004). Congregations may be willing to do more, but a sincere desire to serve the

community should not be confused with having the ability to serve it well. The church needs

to learn how to serve in new ways that meet the new challenges facing the community, while

continuing to maintain and honor the history, traditions, and culture that make it an attractive

partner in the first place.

The church is a unique organizational type, and there are too few organizational

models available for congregations to use as they develop programs to serve the community.

The tendency to adopt models that are used by organizations with radically different

missions, visions, and purposes is prevalent. Perhaps this happens because churches lack the

creativity to imagine new ways of organizing or because the pressure to conform to generally

accepted best practices is overwhelming. It may happen because access to public funding and

philanthropic resources requires a posture of compliance, and the standard organizational

models used by most service providers are aligned to ensure rules and are followed

(DiMaggio and Powell, 1983).

Church Context

Throughout its history, the Church has struggled to fulfill its mandate to care for

those who are poor, oppressed, and marginalized. The call to discipleship and its

corresponding call to minister to the least of these (Matthew 25:40) has been interpreted in

many ways by those who follow Christ, but social ministry often finds itself competing with


the other priorities of the church: evangelism, worship, pastoral care, and Christian

education. This is not a contemporary problem. The earliest church, as described in Acts 6,

recognized this conflict and reorganized itself for ministry by setting apart seven members of

that first congregation to care for widows, children, and those who were poor and hungry.

How the church organizes to develop and deliver social ministry to the community it

has been called to serve continues to be a challenge that must be faced by every generation,

in every place, and at all times. Throughout its history, the church in the United States has

always had an important role in caring for those who find themselves on the margins of

society – the poor, the sick, the hungry, the imprisoned, and those who struggle with

addictions. The fact that some Christian traditions and many local congregations have done

little to address the crushing effects of poverty in both urban and rural areas does not

diminish the contribution that the wider church has made to the common good through

ministries of compassion and justice. In many communities, the church has been the only

institution that consistently stepped forward to care for those who were suffering. This has

been particularly true in communities of color, where institutional racism and the deleterious

effects of class have too often denied access to the social services that people need to survive,

and the assistance they need to succeed (Barnes, 2005; Chaves and Higgins, 1992; DiIulio,

1999).

While it might be argued that the power and influence of the church has waned over

the years, it still plays a critical role in caring for those who have a wide range of social

service needs. The church continues to be a place where people go for assistance, expecting

to be served by those who claim to follow a loving Christ and who believe in a gracious and

giving God. For some, the church is a first stop as they try to piece together the resources


they need to make it for another month. For others, the church is the last resort when all other

options have been tried and every other effort has failed. And for some, the church is the only

institution in the community that they trust enough to turn to for help. Despite its

shortcomings and its past failures, the church is firmly established as an important partner in

the battle to overcome poverty and establish an equitable and just community.

The nature of the church’s participation and its role in meeting critical community

needs has changed over the years as congregations mobilize to respond to new concerns and

ever-evolving issues. The social, political, and economic landscape fluctuates rapidly in a

modern world, so it is imperative that churches learn to adapt themselves to highly dynamic

environments if they are to be viable and respected partners in addressing critical community

needs. Old organizational models and ways of providing social ministry to the community

may not be effective anymore, necessitating the development of paradigms that are

appropriate for the contexts that the church finds itself in. This raises two questions that form

the foundation of this study: 1) what are the organizational and cultural factors that influence

how a church chooses to serve those in need, and 2) how will local congregations organize to

serve the community?

Problem Statement

Although there has been a significant shift in the public’s expectation of what the role

of the church should be in meeting critical social service needs, and even though church

leadership and church members tend to imagine themselves providing a broader range of

service than they have in the past, there are still few viable organizational models that

churches can use to provide the infrastructure and support they need to be effective. As a

result, congregations frequently choose to function in ways that mimic nonprofit


organizations, businesses, or even units of local government, forgetting that they come to the

social service process with a unique set of strengths, motivations, and cultural influences

(Stout and Commode, 1998).

The institution of church has enormous potential as a provider of social services. Its

diversity and immersion in the community offers the ability to reach new people and

implement new ways of solving old problems that other organizations may have a difficult

time duplicating. Maximizing this potential, however, requires a careful examination of how

congregations prefer to organize themselves, what levels of organizational capacity they can

expect to achieve and maintain, and how the faith, beliefs, and theological orientation of

members impact who they will serve, how they will serve the community, and what impact

they will ultimately have.

Purpose Statement

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to test how a congregation’s structure,

organizational capacity, and theological orientation combine to impact the decisions it makes

about how it will serve the community by developing and delivering social service programs

that meet defined needs. The study used personal interviews with the pastors of participating

congregations and a Likert-scale survey instrument administered to lay members of the

churches to test how the beliefs and preferences of lay members, along with the way a church

organizes itself impact the service programs offered by the church.

Support from the Literature

In 1979, researchers studying congregations in Indiana reported that less than thirty

percent of the churches they surveyed were delivering social services to those who were in

need in the community. Even more interesting, they found that in mainline denominations,


there was greater involvement at the denominational level in addressing the concerns of the

poor than at the local church level (Davidson, Hull, Elly, and Nead, 1979). With fewer than

one in three local churches reporting that they were actively involved in serving their

communities, the value that congregations added to efforts to overcome poverty and

suffering appeared to be suspect at best. Yet only twenty years later, researchers in

Philadelphia reported dramatically different results, with estimates of the number of churches

providing social services to the community ranging as high as 85 or 90 percent (Cnaan, 1999;

Cnaan and Boddie, 2001). While it is problematic to compare the results of these studies that

were separated by slightly more than two decades because of significant differences in

methodology, it is clear that congregations have responded to the call to serve in higher

numbers, with increasing frequency, and with more significant investment of both financial

and human resources (Chaves and Tsitos, 2001).

Perhaps the answer can be found in the evolving political, economic, and social

landscape that defined the decades beginning in the mid 1970’s. The recession of the early

1980’s, coupled with a political philosophy that had a strong preference for smaller

government led to the Reagan Administration’s emphasis on the devolution of public

services to the private sector. This was followed up by the inclusion of the Charitable Choice

provision in the Clinton Administration’s 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work

Opportunity Act – more commonly known as welfare reform – and the Faith-Based and

Community Initiative established by President George W. Bush in 2001. These political

developments created an environment where the faith community began to be seen and

understood as a viable partner in solving difficult community problems, and churches

responded to increased community expectations by elevating the level of services they


provided, diversifying what they offered to the community, and seeking out new ways of

being present for those in need (Reingold, Pirog, and Brady, 2007).

Key to the conversation about the role of the church in meeting community needs is

the assumption that congregations offer a significantly different alternative to secular social

service providers. The argument in support of this assumption has typically included two

parts. First, supporters of an increased presence of the church in social service networks insist

that congregations are important because they have the ability to reach people that secular

providers have found difficult to serve. The second part of the argument in support of

churches suggests that the real value that congregations offer is through relational ministry

that works to improve the lives of clients through programs that encourage transformational

change (Chaves and Tsitos, 2001). The implication is that churches offer something

distinctive, and that they are more than just another player in an already-crowded social

service provider network. Churches offer a substantively different presence that secular

nonprofits and government cannot duplicate.

Research into the effectiveness of churches as social service providers has been

inconclusive. Though some studies have found increased levels of service by churches, they

have been unable to provide significant evidence that churches do better work than their

secular counterparts, the dual claims of enhanced access to difficult-to-serve populations and

expertise in programs that produce life-changing transformation have not been substantiated

(Chaves, 2001; Cnaan, 1999). While some evidence exists that supports the claim that

churches can serve a segment of the population that has traditionally been underserved, there

is little evidence that churches prefer to offer transformational programming that requires

long-term relationships with clients over services that can be provided quickly and


intermittently (Chaves and Tsitos, 2001; Cnaan, 1999; Cnaan and Boddie, 2001). To the

contrary, evidence suggests that churches are most effective when they provide services that

do not require the development of an ongoing relationship with the person to be served. The

services most frequently provided by congregations include food pantries, clothing closets,

soup kitchens, and emergency assistance to families with special needs (Chaves and Tsitos,

2001; Cnaan, 1999).

One possible explanation for the apparent lack of differentiation between faith-based

service providers and secular nonprofits is the tendency of both faith-based nonprofits and

churches to adopt organizational models that are similar to the models that are in use by other

community-based organizations. Reingold, et al (2007) conducted a review of social services

provided by both faith-based and community-based organizations, and found that there were

few or no differences between faith-based organizations and non-religious organizations in

either organizational structure or clients served. The isomorphic pressures identified by

DiMaggio and Powell (1998) appear to influence how faith-based organizations structure

themselves to serve the community. While there has been little research that specifically

addresses the organizational tendencies of churches, it seems likely that some of the same

issues of isomorphism would apply to congregations as well.

The National Congregations Study surveyed literally thousands of congregations

around the country in 1998 and again in 2006. The results of the study recognized the impact

that the imitation of secular organizational models by churches and faith-based nonprofits

had on their mission. It compared the effectiveness of faith-based and secular nonprofits,

noting that there was a clear absence of substantive organizational differences between faith-

based and non-religious organizations. The result is that faith-based social service


organizations should not be considered an alternative to secular or government-supported

programs because they have essentially become a part of the system (Chaves, Konieczny,

Beyerlein, and Barman 2009).

Arguably, there is value in having churches and other faith-based organizations

grafted into the current social service delivery network. The existing system has not been

successful in many respects, and the prominence of some churches in some neighborhoods

and for some populations makes them an attractive option for government contracts and

grants from private foundations. Churches are unique organizations with the potential to offer

new possibilities for solving old problems. Releasing that potential will require strategies that

allow them to utilize their specific gifts in appropriate ways. Many ethnic and racial

communities have known this for decades, with the historic African American church being

the best example of an institution that has learned how to serve its people in ways that utilize

church culture as an effective tool in its problem-solving arsenal (Barnes, 2005; Chaves and

Higgins, 1992; Loury and Loury, 1997). Understanding the organizational elements that are

most influential for a church as it organizes itself is an important step toward understanding

how a congregation can be most effective in delivering social services to its community.

Einoff (2011) explored the link between religion and helping others, identifying six

themes that he believed explained how religion motivates pro-social behavior. A common

thread that runs through each of the six themes is intentionality. Einoff makes it clear that

making explicit connections between a person’s religious beliefs and his or her actions is

critical if a sustained commitment to serving others is to be achieved. The implication is

church-based service programs are more likely to be effective if members are able to


understand how their service to the community is related to the claims they make as a

community of faith.

Einoff does point out that different faith traditions understand this connection in very

different ways, specifically referring to the difference between how liberal churches and

born-again, evangelical Christians find inspiration in the teachings of Jesus. Conservative

churches often focus on the redemptive and transformational message of Christ with an

interest in how the church can make real differences in the individual lives of those who may

be in need, while the liberal church tends to be more interested in addressing poverty and

suffering through systems change and public policy advocacy (Einoff, 2011).

Other studies have made the connection between religious beliefs and values and the

choices churches make regarding how they will provide services to the community (Dudley,

1991; Sider and Unruh, 2004; Unruh, 2004). One of the foundational challenges facing

researchers who study how churches provide service to the community is that there is no

generally accepted definition of what a faith-based service or program is. Sider and Unruh

(2004) suggested a typology of faith-based providers that emphasizes the role that faith plays

in an organization’s decision-making processes, with organizations aligned along a

continuum ranging from faith-permeated to faith-secular partnerships. Their work is helpful

in understanding how faith may be present in the operation of an organization, but it does not

explain how faith may motivate individuals or organizations to act in particular ways.

Jeavons (1998) provided important insight into how faith-based organizations

organize themselves as service providers, developing a model that included seven elements

he claimed were descriptive of faith-based organizations. Unlike Sider and Unruh, who

focused on the apparent role of faith in an organization as a way to categorize it, Jeavons


provided a list of characteristics that he felt defined a faith-based organization. These

elements, which are particularly salient for a study on how churches organize to serve the

community, are as follows:

• Self-identification as a religious organization

• Organization is comprised of religiously committed individuals

• Organization is resourced primarily by religious people or organizations

• Programming utilizes spiritual technologies (prayer, worship, teaching, scripture, etc)

• Decision making references spiritual or religious values

• The distribution of power within the organization is based on religious sources

• The organization tends to interact predominantly with other religious organizations

A review of research in the field of congregational mission and service to the

community provides a number of studies that examine what congregations do when they

decide to provide social services to people in need (Chaves and Higgins, 1992; Chaves and

Tsitos, 2001; Cnaan, 1999; Cnaan and Boddie, 2001; Davidson, et al, 1979). There are also a

number of studies that examine what motivates individual believers and corporate

communities of faith to reach out to the community (Campbell and Coles, 1973; Chavis and

Wandersman, 2009; Dudley, 1991; Einoff, 2011; Garland, Meyers, and Wolger, 2009;

Hugen, Wolfer, and Renkema, 2006; Lam, 2006). Little work has been done on how

theological orientation informs motivation to serve, nor has there been substantial research

that examines how decisions related to a church’s missional response to community need are

related to its organizational structure and capacity.


Research Questions

The purpose of this study was to examine how the organizational structure, capacity,

and the theological orientations of a congregation combine to influence the services a church

provides to the community, as well as the strategies used to deliver those services and the

strength of the impact the church ultimately makes in the lives of the people they serve. The

primary research question used to address this purpose was as follows:

1. How do the structural and cultural elements that make up the organizational profile of

a church impact how the congregation serves its community?

The study looked at four components of a church’s organizational profile, which

suggested four complementary research questions that informed the research project:

2. In what ways are a congregation’s community service ministries impacted by the

demographic characteristics of the church?

3. Does a congregation’s organizational capacity, as defined by traditional and generally

accepted measures, make a significant difference in its ability to provide effective

social services to the community?

4. How does the theological orientation of a congregation’s membership affect the

service choices and delivery strategies a church uses to implement its service

programs?

5. How does a congregation’s missional orientation impact how it chooses to serve the

community and meet the needs of the people it feels called to serve?

The final research question is specifically related to how the information that was

gathered during the project can be used to improve the frequency and quality of services that

churches provide to their communities. One of the goals of the project is to determine if the


structural and cultural characteristics of a church are predictive of a congregation’s missional

effectiveness, and if so, whether it possible to make decisions about service delivery based on

the congregation’s missional profile.

6. Can churches be classified according to a typology that can predict a congregation’s

missional effectiveness based on their structure, capacity, and theological orientation?

Testing the Argument

The principle argument raised by this study was the supposition that congregations

will be more effective in providing social services to the community when they organize

themselves in ways that are consistent with their own structure, capacity, culture, and

theology. This study examined some of the elements that influence how a church organizes

itself, and explored the relationship between the existing organizational model in place at a

congregation, and its ability to deliver services to the community.

Congregational Profile

A baseline profile of each participating congregation was developed using four

independent variables – church structure, church capacity, theological orientation, and

missional orientation – as primary categories for data collection. Congregational profile

information was collected during the interview with the senior pastor of each participating

church.

Church structure. During the interview with the pastor, standard benchmark data

about the church were collected. This included information about church size, staffing

patterns, budget and finance, church culture, and member demographics.

Church capacity. The organizational capacity of each participating church was

assessed using an abbreviated version of the McKinsey Capacity Assessment Grid, a widely


recognized and respected assessment tool used to measure the capacity of nonprofit

organizations. During the interview, pastors were asked to self-assess the capacity of their

church on five of the seven elements included in the McKinsey instrument.

Theological orientation. The theological orientation of each participating church was

assessed by the pastor, who was asked to rank the theological position of the church along a

four-point scale: conservative, tends toward conservative, tends toward liberal, and liberal.

Missional orientation. Each pastor was asked to assess the congregation’s missional

orientation, which was defined as the point of emphasis the congregation had for the ministry

it provided to the community. For the purposes of this study, missional orientation was self-

identified by the pastor as redemption, compassion, or justice.

In addition to the pastor’s assessment, lay members of each congregation were

surveyed to determine their preferences for ministry and service in the church. Three of the

twenty-seven questions addressed missional orientation, providing a second way to

categorize congregations.

Community Service Profile

The second component of the study was establishing a community service profile of

each participating church. During their interviews, pastors were asked to identify services

that were already being provided by the congregation and its members. Information collected

about existing services included preferred service delivery models, the target population

served by each program, the number of individuals served, and the number of volunteers

involved. The community service profile of each church provided the dependent variables

used in the study.


Data Analysis

Data were analyzed using a variety of statistical tests that provided insight into the

relationship between the four independent variables - church structure, organizational

capacity, theological orientation, and missional orientation – and the three dependent

variables related to community service programming – existing services, delivery methods,

and program impact. Statistical methods used included frequency distributions, cross-

tabulations, and the Pearson Chi-Square test for significance.

Delimitations

Any study of the church must recognize the enormous diversity that is present in even

the smallest of communities. Congregations are defined by denominational affiliation,

geographical location, size of the church, socio-economic status of its members, predominant

racial and ethnic composition, theological orientation, church polity, and many more

characteristics that are too numerous to mention here. In a report commissioned by the Pew

Forum, the Center for the Study of Global Christianity identified more than 41,000

denominations worldwide (Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 2013). In its own study

of the church in the United States, Hartford Seminary’s Institute for Religion Research

suggested that there were over 220 denominations in the United States, acknowledging that

this figure likely underestimated the actual number while also ignoring the many traditions

present that did not meet the basic benchmarks needed to be classified as a denomination

(Hartford Institute for Religion Research, 2013). Consequently, this study was limited to a

very small cross-section of the Christian community.

This study focused on Christian congregations located within the cities of

Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, as well as congregations located in first-ring


suburban communities immediately adjacent to these two core cities. One additional

congregation was included that was located on the extreme edge of the Twin Cities

metropolitan planning district. Urban churches are located in social, economic, and political

contexts that make generalization of this study’s finding questionable for other suburban,

exurban, or rural congregational settings.

The study included a total twenty congregations from four Christian traditions.

Though care was taken to create a diverse sample, the scope of the project did fully

incorporate the wide range of traditions that are present in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul

metropolitan area. While the exact number of unique denominations is difficult to accurately

assess, conservative estimates suggest that there are between thirty and forty discrete

Christian faith traditions present in the community, not including the many independent and

nondenominational congregations that do not claim any particular affiliation (Greater

Minneapolis Council of Churches, 2013; Saint Paul Area Council of Churches, 2013).

Consequently, the results of this study represent a relatively narrow range of denominational

and faith traditions within the Christian community, suggesting that the results may

generalize to traditions that were not included in the sample.

Finally, the sample population was limited to congregations with memberships that

were either predominately Caucasian or predominately African American. There are many

other racial and ethnic communities represented in the Christian church in the

Minneapolis/Saint Paul metropolitan area, including Latino, Hmong, Korean, and immigrant-

led congregations from many other countries. Race and ethnicity are important aspects of a

congregation’s social location, influencing how they understand their place in the community

and their relationship with others. The focus on Caucasian and African American


congregations limits the ability to generalize the study to the broader range of racial and

ethnic traditions represented in the greater Minneapolis/Saint Paul area.

Definition of Terms

Any study of the faith community and its activity in the community will necessarily

involve the use of terms that may appear to be familiar to most readers, but may be nuanced

in ways that require careful attention to the meanings that are associated with language. Like

any other institution in the community, the church has its own jargon and specifically defined

terms. The challenge lies in the fact that even within the religious community, the same terms

may have radically different definitions, leading to very distinct perspectives. Wide

institutional, theological, and historical diversity makes it difficult to use terms as universal

constructs. Terms that may appear to have very obvious definitions had to be given

operational definitions in this study. The following operational definitions were used:

Call: A religious phenomenon associated with a strong belief that God is asking either

an individual or groups to engage in a specific activity, meet a specific need, or serve a

specific population.

Church: This term is used to refer to groups of individuals who share Christian beliefs.

References to church can be ambiguous, and may refer to one of three levels of organization:

1) the universal church, which includes all Christian denominations and faith expressions, 2)

a denomination, i.e. the Roman Catholic Church, 3) a group of Christians who form a

localized expression of the wider church, i.e. Trinity Lutheran Church.

Community-based Organization (CBO): Organizations that have been created to

address particular community needs. The CBO designation includes a wide range of


organizational types, to include: informally organized community groups, neighborhood

associations, secular nonprofits, and civic groups. While faith-based organizations are

frequently included in this classification, for the purpose of this study, the distinction

between a secular community-based organization and a faith-related faith-based organization

will be made.

Compassion: The missional orientation that emphasizes meeting the specific needs of

individuals and families who are in need. Compassion is motivated by the desire to ease

another’s suffering and improve their lives.

Congregation: A congregation is a local gathered community of faith. For the purpose

of this study, only congregations that are formally organized with clearly identified

leadership are recognized as congregations, excluding informally organized groups such as

Bible studies, fellowship groups, informal house churches, etc. The term congregation can be

used interchangeably with church when describing a single faith community.

Faith-based organization (FBO): A classification of organizations that identify their

mission, motivation, and relationship to the community through a perspective of faith. There

is no clear definition of what a faith-based organization is, though several attempts have been

made to develop a typology of faith-based organizations that can identify and define an

organization’s specific relationship with faith traditions. FBO’s include informal community

groups, nonprofit organizations, churches, mosques, synagogues, and other worshipping

communities.

Faith-based nonprofit: A faith-based nonprofit organization is defined as a 501(c)(3)

that delivers social service or educational programs to the community. This definition


excludes worshipping communities (churches, congregations) that are primarily organized

for worship, Christian education, pastoral care, and other traditional ecclesial services.

Justice: The missional orientation that is motivated by a desire to ensure that public

policies and public systems are fair and equitable. A justice orientation focuses heavily on

advocacy efforts on behalf of those who lack sufficient power to speak for themselves.

Lay leader: A member of a local congregation who holds a leadership role in a

congregation that is formally recognized by the institution. Lay leaders are typically

appointed by pastors or elected by congregational membership.

Lay member: Any member of a local congregation that is not an ordained,

commissioned, or consecrated member of the clergy. Lay members (as distinguished from

lay leaders) do not hold formal leadership positions in their local congregation.

Ministry: Refers to the activities the church (at the universal, denominational, and local

level) engages in as a response to what they perceive their call to be. Ministry includes

worship, Christian education, pastoral care, evangelism, and community outreach.

Pastor: The spiritual leader recognized by the church or congregation as authoritative in

the community. A pastor is typically ordained, consecrated, commissioned, or otherwise set

apart by the church for the ministry of word, order, and sacrament, though different traditions

include different understandings of the office of pastor.

Redemption: The missional orientation that is motivated by the desire to transform an

individual’s life from one that is captured by sin to one that is defined by righteousness. A

redemptive orientation emphasizes the importance of personal salvation and personal

holiness.


Social service: Any service provided by or through the church that meets a basic human

need or addresses a concern that prevents an individual or family from achieving a certain

level of success. Examples of social services include, but are not limited to, 1) emergency

assistance (food, housing, clothing, cash assistance), 2) education (tutoring, literacy, adult

basic education), 3) family services (domestic abuse, parenting, mentoring).

Missional orientation: The primary theological orientation that motivates a

congregation to engage in service to the community. For the purpose of this study, three

missional orientations have been identified, 1) redemption, 2) compassion, and 3) justice.

These three orientations are defined elsewhere in this section.

Vocation: An individual’s vocation is understood to be the work that he or she does for

God in response to God’s call. In this sense, vocation must be differentiated from occupation,

which is the work that an individual does to earn an income.

Significance of the Study

An evolving social, political, and economic environment at both the national and

local level has changed the relationship of the church to public agencies and other

community stakeholders who are responsible for ensuring that critically needed social

services are provided to those who find themselves on the margins of society. Policy makers

and service providers seem to have discovered congregations, recognizing the real value the

faith community has to offer in the struggle to overcome the intractable problems that have

stifled neighborhoods and ruined countless lives.

While the church has had a long history of involvement in caring for those who are

poor, hungry, and homeless, it has relatively little experience as a full partner with

government, foundations, and the nonprofit organizations who have been the primary


providers of social services for decades. Those who have been responsible for the social

service network in the community are still trying to figure out how to engage congregations,

but far too often they fall back on the principles and practices that they are familiar with,

failing to recognize that churches (and other faith communities) are unique organizational

types that have very specific ways of operating. They exert tremendous isomorphic pressures

on churches that want to serve the community, requiring the use of organizational models

that may not be appropriate for congregations, and that may have the effect of damaging the

church’s relationship with the people it serves and limiting its ability to deliver effective

services.

The faith community is an important partner in the broader effort to care for those in

need, but if it is to reach its full potential as a partner, it must learn how to function

effectively in an environment that is very new to many congregations. However, adopting

standard secular organizational models that frequently mimic the way corporations and

government organize is unlikely to unleash the full power of the church. Churches need to be

able to organize in ways that are consistent with their own theologies, traditions, histories,

and values.

For the church to be effective, new organizational models must be developed, and

developing these models will require information about how congregations are currently

organized, what services they already provide, what their organizational preferences are, and

how elements of organization can be aligned in ways that honor the uniqueness of the church.

The purpose of this study, to examine how the specific characteristics of a local church

combine to create a missional environment that is organized in a way that is conducive to the

delivery of social service programs, is significant because it will help church leaders imagine


new ways of organizing their congregations, and assist policy makers and community

stakeholders identify appropriate roles for the church in the struggle to establish a

compassionate, just, and equitable community for everyone.

If the church is merely integrated into the existing social service system as one of

many organizations that all look essentially alike, the radical transformation of community

that could take place will fall short. That would be a tragedy, because more service providers

is not what the community really needs. Changing the configuration of the system is not what

the community really needs. In his book, The Careless Society: Community and its

Counterfeits, John McKnight points out that a commonly held belief is that serving the

community better will require significant reform of the programs, agencies, and

organizations that currently provide services. This seems intuitive, and forming an argument

against the call for institutional reform seems counterproductive to the goal of making the

community a better place for everyone. This is precisely what McKnight does, stating,

“…our problem is not ineffective service-producing institutions. In fact, our institutions are

too powerful, too authoritative, and strong.

Our problem is weak communities, made ever more impotent by our strong service systems”

(McKnight, 1995, ix).

What the community needs, and what the church has to offer, is an approach that

casts aside what has always been done in favor of what might be better. There is hidden

potential in the church as institution, and it is the purpose of this study to uncover it and form

it in a way that will improve the church’s ability to respond to those it has been called to care

for.


Summary

The faith community has been a valuable community asset that has provided

important services to the community, meeting a wide range of needs and serving individuals

and families that are too often underserved and m56arginalized by other community

institutions; recent political, economic and social trends make it likely that the church will be

called upon to play an even greater role in caring for the needs of the community.

The effectiveness of the church as provider of critically needed social services is

contingent upon its ability to organize itself for this mission. The purpose of this study was to

test how different organizational characteristics impact how a church organizes itself to serve

the community. Using data gathered from interviews with pastors and surveys of lay

members of the church, the relationship between four independent variables – church

structure, organizational capacity, theological orientation, and missional orientation – and

dependent variables related to service delivery preference and service impact was tested.


CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction

This study is based on the argument that local congregations can be important

partners in efforts to solve some of the community’s most difficult social problems, but that

the church’s effectiveness as a provider of these critically needed services is contingent upon

their ability to organize for this mission in ways that are consistent with their ability,

capacity, culture, and theology. Congregations will be most effective if they are allowed to

use their own unique strengths and gifts when they design and deliver services to the

communities they have been called by God to serve.

The purpose of this chapter is to examine relevant literature related to the modern

church’s experience in developing and delivering social services that meet the needs of

people in the community, the organizational factors that are most important to churches, and

the impact of these factors on how churches organize for mission. The literature review will

be organized around the following six areas:

1. An overview of the contemporary political trends that have influenced the

community’s expectations of the church as a provider of social services.

2. An review of how isomorphic pressures to align with existing organizational models

impact the way church’s organize for ministry.

3. A review of research that attempts to provide ways to classify the church as

distinctive organizational types.

4. A review of trends and tendencies related to the services that congregations typically

provide to their communities.


5. A review of factors that motivate individual Christians and corporate communities of

faith to develop and deliver services that meet critical community needs.

6. An examination of alternative organizational models and service delivery strategies

that might offer new insight for the development of social service programs offered

through local congregations.

Historical Overview

Throughout the history of the United States, the church has been an important

institution in most communities. In a nation defined by rapid growth and geographic

expansion, the church was often the only institution in a community that had an abiding

concern for the welfare of those who were poor. Churches provided care for their

communities long before government programs were established that institutionalized social

services, and even when there were supposedly public services in place, the church was

frequently the only organization that would consistently provide for persons of color and

others who were unofficially marginalized by society (Barnes, 2005; Lewis and Trulear,

2008; McRoberts, 1999; Patillo-McCoy, 1998).

Communities have changed over the years, and many of the barriers – official and

unofficial, seen and unseen – have disappeared. The introduction and subsequent expansion

of publicly funded and publicly mandated social services has changed the role the church is

expected to fulfill, creating new relationships and different opportunities for congregations to

be involved in meeting needs. New communities are formed in urban neighborhoods as new

Americans from different countries arrive and try to integrate themselves into their new

homes. New economic challenges arise as old jobs fall victim to changing markets, and new

careers are created that will require new skills and different levels of education. The


traditional family is slowly eroding in numbers, with more and more children being raised by

single parents, grandparents, or in foster homes. And the fastest growing demographic is the

person over the age of 60 who will soon retire. The church’s relationship to the community

has changed over the years, and there is no reason to expect anything different moving

forward.

Even though things do change, and even though the community’s expectations of the

church have been altered by broader events, one thing has remained relatively constant over

the years; there has always been an assumption that the work of the church and the work of

the state should remain distinct and separate from one another (DiIulio, 1999). This First

Amendment battle over the establishment and free exercise of religion has been a point of

contention for well over 200 years, but for most of that time, public agencies that have been

assigned responsibility for the common good have done their work in relative isolation from

the faith communities that share their concern for the welfare of the community. Public

institutions provided the services they were mandated to deliver and churches did what they

felt called to do. Even though there were similarities and common concerns, the two seldom

intersected and each responded to the needs of the community in its own way.

One consequence of this distinct separation of church and state responsibility in

caring for the poor was that congregations were typically required to fund social ministries

using their own internal resources. With few exceptions, public money was inaccessible to

the church and most of the largest foundations and philanthropic organizations had funding

guidelines that prohibited making grants to organizations that had a religious function or

purpose. Congregations had to rely on the generosity of their own members to raise money


for social programs and ministries, with an occasional grant from their denomination or a

wealthy individual donor.

This funding model put stress on church budgets and limited the scope and scale of

what a congregation could do to meet critical community needs, but it also allowed them

more flexibility in how they could organize to serve others. With no funding from local,

state, or federal government entities and without grants from private philanthropy,

congregations were not bound by the same accountability and transparency expectations that

secular and faith-based nonprofit organizations were required to adhere to. With few external

stakeholders watching over them, congregations developed programs that were aligned with

their own values, and delivered them in ways that were consistent with their own

organizational cultures. They set their own goals and outcomes, monitored their own

progress, and defined success on their own terms. The church was an important institution in

most communities, but this relative autonomy meant that they were usually excluded from

the formal social service networks that were convened to develop solutions to the

community’s most difficult problems.

The Influence of Coproduction Theory

Most scholars will agree that Coproduction Theory has its roots in the work of Dr.

Elinor Ostrom and her colleagues at Indiana University, beginning in the late 1970’s.

Ostrom’s foundational research in what would later become the basis of Coproduction

Theory focused on how changes in government-funded community programs impacted the

quality and effectiveness of public services. Specifically, her team explored the impact of a

reduced police presence on neighborhood crime rates in Chicago, and how the community

responded to provide new services in cooperation with the police department and city


government. The collaborative process where the community and government work together

to produce and deliver necessary community services evolved into Coproduction Theory

(Parks, Baker, Ostrom, and Ostrom, Oakerson, and Vanvidort, 1981).

It is not coincidental that Coproduction found its genesis in the decade following the

radical social changes of the 1960’s. The Johnson Administration’s Great Society presented a

bold vision for the social, political, and economic future of the United States, one that

assumed that government could initiate and sustain the changes that were needed to

overcome the social problems that plagued the nation – poverty, hunger, homelessness, urban

violence, illiteracy, and racism. While great strides were made in many of these areas, it

became apparent that government was incapable of defining, designing, delivering, and

sustaining the changes that were needed on its own. Government agencies lacked both the

insight and the ability to extend itself into the community that was necessary to initiate

significant social change, and programs that relied too extensively on government agencies

were simply to expensive to maintain. It became increasingly clear that these well-

intentioned government efforts needed to identify new ways of engaging with the community

if outcomes were to be achieved and effort maintained.

Defining Coproduction. It is interesting to note that in 2013, more than thirty years

after Ostrom’s initial work in the development of Coproduction Theory, there is still no clear

and widely recognized definition of what coproduction theory actually entails. The confusion

over definition is clear in the early literature, with many researchers beginning their journal

articles with the proviso that Coproduction theory was in need of a standard definition that

could be used to guide research in the field (Ferris, 1984; Levine, 1984; Marschall, 2004;

Matthews, 2008). Brudney and England (1983) provided one of the first attempts at a


standardized definition, suggesting that “Coproduction is an emerging conception of the

service delivery process which envisions direct citizen involvement in the design and

delivery of city services with professional service agents” (p. 59). Their first attempt at a

definition of Coproduction assumes an active and participative community that wants to be

involved in producing services that it will consume. The notion of a consumer producer is

key to understanding Coproduction, and has driven much of the conversation about

definition.

One reason a standardized definition of Coproduction has proven difficult to develop

is that there seems to be multiple agendas at work in the process. Any process that involves

an intentional relationship between government and community is likely to create a highly

charged political environment, and Coproduction is no exception. Two such agendas that

make frequent appearances in the literature include economic efficiency and community

engagement.

Economic impact and operational efficiency. Perhaps because Coproduction found

its legs during the Reagan Administration as a proposed fiscal solution to budget deficits and

economic difficulties, Coproduction is frequently considered a strategy to provide critically

needed public services at a lower cost to the government. Much of the scholarly work related

to Coproduction has focused on the ways citizen participation in the delivery of public

services can be used to decrease costs and increase efficiency (Brudney and England, 1983;

Ferris, 1984). The elements of an emerging theory of Coproduction emphasized the value of

voluntarism, and suggested that community members and community organizations should

be considered valuable sources of financial support for public programs (Matthews, 2008).

While the use of volunteers and community contributions (both financial and in-kind) are


important, their ultimate value lies in the engagement they produce, not in the savings for

government and the public coffers that are likely to follow.

The importance of economics in the definition of Coproduction can also be seen by

the use of language that identifies the various participants in the process. In the traditional

arrangement, where government produces services in response to perceived community

needs, there are two roles that are fulfilled. Public agencies function as regular producers,

while the community is understood to be a consumer. In Coproduction, the public agencies

still produce and community members still consume, but a third category is introduced, that

of consumer producer. Here, community members who will benefit from the delivery of a

service participate in both the design and delivery of it, which political economists suggest

will lead to increased efficiency and reduced costs (Brudney and England, 1983).

Community engagement and empowerment. A second strand that can be identified

in the effort to define Coproduction is an emphasis on the importance of capturing the

informal understanding and experience that community members have about the

neighborhoods they live in, and the needs that are present. While the economic impact of

Coproduction may be difficult to justify, the value of community engagement and

community empowerment that comes when citizens are afforded the opportunity to

participate in the development and delivery of the services they need is something that

deserves increased attention. Marschall (2004) concentrates on this aspect of Coproduction in

her study on citizen participation and neighborhood context, suggesting that Coproduction

“…focuses on the role of citizen involvement in the provision of local goods and the ways in

which institutional arrangements foster this participation” (p. 231). Marschall’s approach to

defining Coproduction emphasizes relational value that community members bring to the


process, rather than the economic impact that might occur when citizens are asked to share

the cost of providing important services. Efficiency may result, but a community engagement

definition of Coproduction places more value on what might be considered the intangible

benefits of citizen participation and involvement.

Levine (1984) developed a working definition that seems to walk a line between the

economic benefit and community engagement schools of Coproduction. He acknowledged

the value that Coproduction can produce for local government and efforts to reduce costs and

improve efficiency in service delivery. However, he also developed an argument that

highlights the importance of citizenship in the delivery of public services by residents of the

community and private sector organizations. One of the benefits of Coproduction, from

Levine’s perspective, is that a closer relationship between community and government in the

delivery of critical services might help overcome the decline in confidence in public

institutions that began in the 1960’s and continued throughout the 1970’s and early 1980’s.

There has been an ongoing trend towards the movement of public services away from

governmental structures, with the oft-spoken expectation that individuals, businesses,

community organizations, secular nonprofits, and faith communities will take on additional

responsibility for meeting the critical needs of those who reside in their neighborhoods.

While this is clearly an enormous challenge with significant social, economic, and political

implications, there seems to be a general consensus in most communities that the government

has failed to deliver on its promise to meet the needs of the citizenry, and that the greatest

public failures are related to the care and support of those who are the most vulnerable.

Public education is not equitable, resulting in an enormous achievement gap between

students of color and their white classmates. African Americans, Latinos, and American


Indians are disproportionately impacted by diabetes, hypertension, and other serious health

conditions, yet public health officials have been ineffective in closing these tragic health

disparities. Police departments struggle to keep neighborhoods safe, yet crime and violence

continue to plague some neighborhoods more than others, and those who suffer the most are

once again those who are most vulnerable to virtually every social ill.

This pattern of ineffectiveness and disparity is repeated far too often in both rural and

urban communities for the status quo to be considered sufficient. The government needs to

recognize that it lacks the context, the experience, and the capacity to reach those who are

most in need of services, and alternative service delivery approaches need to be considered.

The good news is that at the same time government seems to be recognizing its inability to

fulfill every mission and meet every need, the community has begun to demand a more

prominent place at the table and a stronger role in identifying needs, fuller participation in

planning solutions, and equal consideration as partners in delivering the services that are

developed (Chavis and Wandersman, 2009).

Coproduction Theory offers a basic framework that can be used to understand how

this process can be implemented most effectively and how real partnerships between

government and community can be developed. Too often, the assumption is made that

community-based organizations are appropriate alternatives for government-delivered

services without considering the implications of the transfer of responsibility from the public

sector to private entities. Transferring responsibility without making provisions to support,

resource, and evaluate new service paradigms is certainly a recipe for disaster, and the field

is ripe with examples of failed initiatives that were built on insufficient theoretical

foundations.


Coproduction and faith-based organizations. An interesting element of

Coproduction theory lies in its implications for the relationship between the public sector and

the faith community. With the possible exception of the devolution of public services to

private, for-profit contractors, there is no issue related to Coproduction that has received

more public attention than the role churches (and other faith traditions) might play in the

delivery of services to those in need. Remarkably, while politicians and public administrators

seem intent on identifying greater roles for people of faith, research and scholarly writing on

Coproduction theory has largely ignored its impact on the relationship between church and

government. A thorough review of literature related to Coproduction theory reveals no

articles or studies that address specifically the application of theory to church/state

relationships, and very few references to faith communities as institutions that might be

engaged in the Coproduction of services. Most authors (; Ferris, 1984; Marschall, 2004;

Matthew, 2008) identify neighborhood organizations, nonprofit organizations, and citizen

groups as participants in Coproduction, with churches, mosques, and synagogues

conspicuously absent from the conversation. Considering the sheer number of faith

communities that are present in most neighborhoods, and their ability to effectively mirror

the different racial and ethnic populations present in the community, this lack of attention by

researchers and theorists is troubling.

The Politics of Devolution

The election of Ronald Reagan as President of the United States in 1980 signaled a

new sense of urgency for the early pioneers of Coproduction Theory. Devolution, the

systematic transfer of services from government to the private sector, was a priority for the

new administration, but while the concept may have seemed simple, the implementation of


devolution was exceedingly complex, especially when it came to the delivery of social

service programs. It may have made sense to contract with the private sector to do some of

the things that government had done in the past, but meeting the needs of the poor, educating

children, keeping streets and neighborhoods safe, and providing the care needed to keep

people healthy were just a few examples of services that could not be transferred from

government control easily (Brudney and England, 1983; Levine and Fisher, 1984; Marschall,

2004).

Charitable Choice and Welfare Reform

The effort to incorporate churches into the social service delivery network gained

additional momentum in 1996 when the federal government enacted the Personal

Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (PRWO), which issued in an era of radical change

and reform in the way social services were delivered to those in the community who were

most in need. More commonly referred to as Welfare Reform, this landmark piece of

legislation replaced the existing Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with the

Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) program. Among other things, it limited the

amount of time an individual could receive public assistance, added incentives that were

supposed to encourage TANF recipients to move from welfare to self-sufficiency, and

introduced a public expectation that welfare was to be a temporary safety net for struggling

families and not a long-term lifestyle that people could expect to maintain indefinitely.

A key component of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act was a

provision that became known as Charitable Choice. Initially proposed by Senator John

Ashcroft of Missouri, Charitable Choice was designed to remove many of the barriers – both

real and perceived – that prevented faith-based organizations from receiving federal funding


to deliver social services related to welfare reform. In essence, Charitable Choice sought to

level the playing field for religious organizations, enabling them to compete for federal

grants and contracts without having to surrender their religious identity and faith-related

mission. Supporters of Charitable Choice argued that faith-based organizations should be

encouraged to participate in delivering essential services to welfare clients, and that they

should be allowed to maintain their religiosity while at the same time attending to the

obvious First Amendment separation of church and state concerns (Chaves, 1999; DiIulio,

2007).

While it could be argued that Charitable Choice failed to deliver on its promise to

engage the faith community more completely and intensively in the delivery of services to

TANF clients, it did initiate broad, and often passionate, public debate about what role the

church could play in caring for those who were poor and those in need of a wide range of

critical social services. Perhaps for the first time, the faith community was being seen as a

legitimate partner in a public-private partnership to address the myriad of challenges that

people were facing. While the church has a long and storied history of serving its neighbors

and caring for the hungry, sick, and suffering, Charitable Choice raised the possibility that

the church could be more, and that if given the right opportunities and sufficient support, the

church could do more for the community.

Faith-Based and Community Initiatives

Increased expectations of faith-based organizations reached a new level in 2001,

when President George W. Bush signed an executive order creating the White House Office

of Faith-Based Initiatives – which was later renamed the White House Office of Faith-Based

and Community Initiatives (FBCI). With the express purpose of rallying the “armies of


compassion,” this initiative expanded to include FBCI offices in eleven federal departments

and extended Charitable Choice to include all federal social service programs. While in the

recent past faith-based organizations had been invited to participate in the delivery of

services to the community, the FBCI actively sought to recruit wider participation from

churches and faith-based nonprofits. The Compassion Capital Fund, the hallmark program of

the initiative, provided capacity-building support to thousands of small nonprofit

organizations, including those that were explicitly religious in nature. While little new money

was allocated for programs, existing funding streams were restructured in ways that were

intended to encourage faith-based organizations to participate in service delivery (DiIulio,

2007).

A was being created for people of faith to become involved in meeting the needs of

the community at significantly higher levels than those of the past. Proof that this newfound

interest in the church was bipartisan in nature was provided soon after President Barack

Obama was inaugurated in 2009. Instead of abolishing one of the cornerstones of the Bush

Administration, President Obama established the new office of Faith-Based and Community

Partnerships, an indication that his administration would also value the participation of

churches, mosques, synagogues, and faith-based organizations in efforts to ameliorate the

most difficult problems.

Summary

Political, social, and economic factors have converged in a way that has created a

very favorable environment for fuller participation by the faith community in the design and

delivery of critically needed social services. Consequently, pastors, rabbis, imams, and other

religious leaders have expressed heightened levels of interest in developing partnerships with


government, schools, and foundations to create opportunities for their constituents to serve

where they are most needed. Churches are reporting significantly higher levels of social

service programming than they did in the past, and it seems likely that this trend will

continue into the future.

The door to fuller participation by the faith community as problem solvers and

partners in addressing critical social problems has clearly been opened, and it seems unlikely

that the robust church-public separation that has been historically used in the United States to

define how churches are allowed to share in meeting public social service needs will ever be

restored. Too much conversation and debate about the role of the church has occurred over

the years, and the power and place that churches have claimed for themselves as community

partners will not be easily relinquished. While significant dialogue about whether or not

churches should be involved in partnerships with public entities has happened, relatively

little work has been done to examine how churches can be most effectively engaged in this

work, and how their participation as social service providers might impact the way they

organize themselves to serve the people in their own communities.

Organizing for Mission: The Influence of Isomorphism

Throughout the process of redefining how churches should be involved in addressing

critical community needs, the assumption has been that congregations that want access to

public resources, including those provided by large private foundations, must adopt

organizational models that mimic those used by secular nonprofits, businesses, and even

units of local government. The isomorphic pressure to become like existing organizations is

strong, and the result has been the limitation of available organizational models for local


churches to use when they organize for mission (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; Stout and

Commode, 1998).

DiMaggio and Powell provide a structural model for understanding why there are so

few differences between organizations, even when they have radically different missions and

visions, and even when they serve significantly different needs and communities. Using a

model that focuses on three key isomorphic influences – coercive, mimetic, and normative –

they attempt to explain the “…startling homogeneity of organizational forms and practices”

(p. 148). Using their approach to understanding organizational similarities, it might be

suggested that churches adopt standard organizational practices because they are required to

meet certain institutional expectations by funders that they are dependent upon. Social and

organizational uncertainty exerts pressure to imitate existing models that appear to be

working for other organizations or because the pressures and expectations of

professionalization guide them toward a particular way of organizing. Churches find it hard

to organize creatively in ways that honor their own values, experiences, interests, and

strengths because they are under pressure to look like others in the community who want to

do the same things.

Referring to a definition of isomorphism by Hawley (1968), DiMaggio and Powell

suggest that “….isomorphism is a constraining process that forces one unit in a population to

resemble other units that face the same set of environmental conditions” (p. 149). The

implication is that non-optimal organizational forms fail to thrive, either because they are

selected out of the organizational options available to the community, or because decision

makers in organization move away from them, reacting to both external and internal

pressures to conform to generally accepted ways of organizing. The issue for churches as


they organize to serve the community is that what may justifiably be considered a non-

optimal model for other kinds of organizations may be the most effective way for them to

organize themselves.

Coercive Isomorphism and the Church

The coercive isomorphism that churches must contend with is the result of pressures

exerted by other organizations in the community that they are either dependent on or with

whom the want to maintain a positive relationship. A historical example is that congregations

with denominational affiliations must usually adhere to certain organizational requirements

imposed on them by their jurisdictional authority. Churches that want to be associated with a

particular historical tradition must agree to organize in ways that are consistent with the

denomination’s polity, culture, and theology. While there are always differences between

churches in the same denomination, the similarities between congregations are sufficient

enough that they can be classified together under a common rubric.

In the United States, one of the most significant coercive pressures to conform to

specific organizational models comes from a legal system that requires certain structures to

be in place for an organization to be officially recognized by the state. For churches and other

nonprofit organizations, tax laws that regulate the deductibility of contributions are

particularly important. In many respects, the financial health and sustainability of a nonprofit

organization is dependent upon its willingness to comply with local, state, and federal

regulations, many of which have significant implications for how they organize themselves.

Meyer and Rowan (1977) extend the argument about the influence of the state on

organizations, suggesting that as bureaucratic institutions become larger and more powerful,

they inevitably seek to solidify their influence by requiring organizations they interact with to


mirror their own organizational preferences. The result is a reduction in the diversity of

organizational types as a result of required conformity to these more expansive institutions.

In their discussion they use the term ritual conformity to describe this ongoing process.

While state and legal influences certainly exert enormous pressures on churches to

conform to specific organizational models, it could be argued that access to funding is the

most important coercive element churches currently face. The historical overview that was

presented earlier in this chapter discussed the emergence of the church as a viable community

partner in the delivery of services to people and families in need. While government and

philanthropic organizations are more willing to partner with churches to provide services,

these new financial relationships are almost always contingent upon the church’s willingness

to adhere to guidelines and encumbrances that limit what a congregation is allowed to do and

how they can organize to serve the community.

While the influence of funders on the organizational practices of faith-based and

community-based organizations has achieved an increased level of prominence in recent

years, it is not an entirely new phenomenon. In the 1930’s, United Charities, a precursor to

current funding organizations like the United Way or the Combined Federal Campaign,

forced many of the organizations that applied to it for resources to adopt standardized

organizational models, methods, and service philosophies (Sedlak, 1981). While

standardizing operations may appear to be an effective way to produce an efficient

uniformity and accountability, it also homogenizes the organizations that become part of the

funding network. If a community is relatively homogenous itself, this may not be particularly

problematic. As communities in urban neighborhoods become increasingly diverse, the

limitation of available organizational models and practices presents a barrier to effective


service delivery and may reduce the relative ability of churches to produce the best possible

outcomes for the people they serve.

The Compassion Capital Fund Demonstration Project, a program of the Faith-Based

and Community Initiatives office during the presidency of Georg W. Bush provides an

excellent example of how coercive isomorphism can impact the structural elements of a

church or community-based organization.

Arguably the most influential component of the FBCI, the Compassion Capital Fund

(CCF) was designed to increase the capacity of small faith-based and community-based

organizations, helping them put in place the infrastructure needed to develop and implement

effective, efficient, and accountable programs that met critical community needs. The first

request for proposals, which was released in 2002, defined organizational capacity in rather

ambiguous terms. Applicants for CCF funding were given wide latitude to define what a high

capacity organization should look like. Since one of the stated goals of the program was to

strengthen the capacity of organizations that had not had ready access to federal funding in

the past, flexibility in defining how an effective organization should structure itself was

innovative and ambitious (Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance, 2013).

In 2003, the Department of Health and Human Services announced a second

application cycle for organizations interested in becoming a CCF grantee. The most

significant difference in the second year of the program was that the federal government very

clearly defined how organizational capacity was to be interpreted. New CCF programs were

required to provide training, technical assistance, and grant funding to help organizations

improve the program skills, develop stronger leaders, enhance their ability to raise funds, and

collaborate effectively with other community partners. By defining organizational capacity in


ways that were aligned with existing models, the federal government effectively announced

to the community what they would expect of organizations that intended to apply for future

grants and contracts. Acceptable structural standards were delineated in ways that would

force some organizations, to include most churches, to make significant organizational

changes if they hoped to be competitive for federal funds (Richardson, 2005).

In an ironic twist of isomorphic fate, local governments and private foundations

adopted the federal view of what appropriate and acceptable organizational capacity should

include, and then imposed those standards on their own grant applicants.

Mimetic Isomorphism and the Church

DiMaggio and Powell (1998) articulate the essence of mimetic isomorphism when

they suggest that organizations tend to model themselves after other organizations they

consider to be successful. Perceived effectiveness and success is a powerful motivator that

many organizations rely on when they make decisions about their own program practices, but

as DiMaggio and Powell also suggest, the extensive use of particular models, structures, and

practices is likely the result of pressures to imitate rather than the inherent effectiveness of a

model or practice itself. Imitation may be the suitable option in many cases, but relying too

exclusively on what others have done in the past limits the organizational imagination that

might produce even better results in the future.

The inability to imagine new organizational models is largely attributable to

uncertainty, which March and Olsen (1976) identify as a significant contributor to mimetic

isomorphism. When organizations find themselves breaking new ground for themselves, they

often face ambiguous goals and unclear expectations. If they do not have sufficient

experience with whatever task or function they are about to take on, the temptation to copy


what appears to have been successful in other places can be overwhelming. This is an

excellent descriptor of the circumstances that many congregations find themselves in as they

work to develop new ways of interacting with their communities and providing social

services in partnership with government, private foundations, and experienced service

providers.

Imitating existing organizational structures is not inherently problematic. There is

much that can be learned from what others have done effectively in the past. Wholesale

attempts to duplicate the procedures and processes of organizations that are significantly

different in history, philosophy, mission, and vision can lead to problems that might have

been avoided.

Stout and Commode (1998) provide a specific perspective on isomorphism and the

church, suggesting that churches are a unique form of organization that combines structure

and culture in ways that other organizations do not. As a voluntary organization that typically

includes members with a wider range of experiences than are normally found in most other

organizations, the church has to determine how it can organize itself to meet its missional

needs as well as the needs of its membership. Stout and Commode suggest that churches

must contend with competing visions of how they should organize, with pressures coming

from denominations, other churches in the area, significant organizations in close proximity

to the church, and their own membership. They also provide an interesting perspective on

how members influence a church’s organization when they suggest that the other

organizations that members belong to will pressure the church to organize in a similar way.

For example, a church in a university town may find itself organized like a college, while a

church located in a community dominated by a particular business or industry will find itself


taking on the characteristics of that entity. The implication of this is that churches that share

members with other institutions that have very different functions and purposes become

connected to one another in significant ways.

Another key issue that is related to mimetic isomorphism is the pressure that is

exerted on service organizations, whether they are secular or faith-based, to adopt service

strategies that incorporate best practices, evidence-based practices, or promising practices.

Even a cursory review of foundation websites, United Way expectations, and government

grant and contract proposals will show that those who control access to resources also intend

to control how their resources will be used in the community. While the use of best practices

that have a proven track record for success may seem like a reasonable expectation of a

potential grantee, if those best practices were validated in very different settings and under

different circumstances than those most churches face, the expectation that successful

programs will be copied by local congregations can be an unreasonable burden that will

likely lead to failure.

Normative Isomorphism and the Church

Normative isomorphism is the third pressure identified by DiMaggio and Powell that

drives the trend towards the increasing homogeneity of organizations. Normative

isomorphism emerges primarily out of the need for professionalization in the fields where

new organizations are being asked to participate. Coproduction Theory, as understood by

Ostrom and others, stresses the importance of engaging the community as producers of the

services they need, in partnership with government. While an increased community presence

and higher levels of engagement and accountability are valued by bureaucrats and policy

makers, the consumer/producer can be interpreted as a threat by employees who are already


involved in the design and delivery of services. Teachers may feel undervalued if tutors from

the community are given more responsibility for educating children and social workers may

feel threatened if pastors provide services to the community that look too much like case

management. The emerging profession of public health educators may not appreciate un-

credentialed individuals teaching people how to live healthier lives (Matthews, 2008;

McKnight, 1995; McKnight and Block, 2010).

The service industry has responded by advocating for the need to have services

provided by persons who are educated, trained, supervised, and credentialed. The influence

of public employee unions has increased the normative isomorphic pressure on organizations

seeking to enter into the delivery of a particular service, and government programs and

private philanthropy has responded by adding requirements to their funding that requires the

use of professionally trained staff and best practices that can only be accomplished by

organizations that hire staff that are considered highly qualified by normative standards.

McKnight (1995) provides a critique of the pressures that normative isomorphism

imposes on the community when he suggests that increasing professionalization in the social

service industry has damaged the community’s ability to care for those in need. He

distinguishes between the care that neighbors and friends provide to one another and the

system of professionally delivered services that he claims has created an environment where

people in need have become consumers of services that are delivered by those that have a

vested interest in defining people as deficient.

His claims have significant implications for how churches might organize to deliver

services to the community, since churches are largely understood as organizations that care

about the welfare of their neighbors. Whether or not this claim is entirely justified is open to


interpretation. The church has not always done a good job of expressing compassion to those

who are suffering or seeking justice for those who are oppressed. It is largely understood and

expected that churches are supposed to be in the business of caring about the welfare of

others, and these expectations impact how a church relates to its neighbors.

McKnight recognizes that churches have developed a tendency to move toward

service models that are similar to those in place in secular nonprofits and government

agencies. While he does not expressly condemn the use of service-oriented paradigms by the

church, he does suggest that a theology that emphasizes being a servant to the community

often leads to an unintentional relationship of dominance over those who come to the church

with needs. A servant who controls access to the resources a person needs to overcome a

problem or difficulty is in danger of using the difference in power to control the person he or

she is supposed to be serving. McKnight’s alternative is the development of a relationship

between the church and community that is predicated on friendship and a relationship of true

and intentional mutuality. This is a position that is echoed by others who recognize the same

threats to the church (Heurtz and Pohl, 2010; Lupton, 2007).

Classifying the Church

Introduction

The church is a complex organizational type, one that is characterized by an

enormous diversity of factors, variables, and characteristics that differentiate traditions and

organizational preferences. The fact that there are literally thousands of denominations

present in the world clearly testifies to the differences that are present in the institutional

church. To some, these differences may seem minute and almost indiscernible, artifacts of a

time when religion could claim a cultural and political significance that it no longer has. To


those who belong to a specific congregation or who clam allegiance to a particular religious

tradition, these distinctions mean something, or at least they did at some point in history.

While the importance of denominational affiliation has waned over the years, historical

allegiances are still able to command the loyalties of many believers.

Whether the differences between churches is sufficient to warrant the historical

separations that have characterized the history of congregational development in the United

States and throughout the world is not particularly important. What is important is that they

have led to the development of traditions that view the world and the role the church plays in

it in very different ways. Since social scientists tend to be intrigued by what makes us

different from one another, there have been numerous efforts over the years to develop

categories, taxonomies, typologies, and organizational continuums that try to describe the

differences between churches, and define how they impact the ministry of congregations to

their communities. While these efforts have met with varied levels of success, a definitive

way to classify congregations that takes into account the full range of diversity that

characterizes the church has not been found.

There are a number of different ways that churches can be classified or categorized,

depending on the specific characteristics that one is interested in highlighting. For the

purposes of this study, the following five classification approaches, each of which has

particular relevance for how churches organize to serve the community, will be examined:

1. Theological distinctions, using the classical Church-Sect typology.

2. Church types, using the model suggested by Dudley (1991).

3. Role and place of faith, using the classification suggested by Sider and Unruh

(2004).


4. The differentiation of faith-based organizations (including churches) based on

specific organizational characteristics, using the model proposed by Jeavons (1998).

5. Defining faith-based organizations by what makes them different from secular

organizations, using the paradigm of Ebaugh, Pipes, Chafetz, and Daniels (2003).

Theological Distinctions: Church and Sect

One of the first efforts to make a meaningful distinction between churches based on

their organizational character was the church-sect typology. Initially developed by prominent

organizational and religious sociologist Max Weber, and later expanded by Ernest Troeltsch,

the church-sect typology provides a way to classify churches based on two primary

characteristics, the level of tension that exists with the values and moral positions that are

prevalent in the community, and the degree of separation with the community that a

congregation imposes on itself and its members in order to maintain an acceptable degree of

theological integrity. In essence, the Weber’s church-sect typology seeks to classify churches

and religious traditions based on the level of contention it maintains with society and the

level of conflict its values generate with what is considered generally acceptable by wider

society.

Troeltsch provided the foundational work on the church-sect typology, seeing church

and sect as two institutional forms of Christianity with radically different structural and value

orientations. He defined the church as an institution that was typically conservative in its

orientation, accepting as much of the secular order as its faith would allow. The sect, on the

other hand, is a voluntary association with members who are committed to a set of values and

ideals that are defined more narrowly by the faith community itself (Johnson, 1957).

Whereas the church is willing to engage with society as an affirmed member, the sect will


either seek to radically reform secular culture through its prophetic witness, or be passively

critical of it as it withdraws from society in ways that will enable it to maintain its religious

purity.

Johnson, building on the work of Weber and Troeltsch, defines the two opposite poles

of the typology in a way that is particularly helpful. At one end of the continuum are the

denominations and congregations that are classified as sectarian. These faith communities are

characterized as protest-oriented traditions, with a tendency to stand in firm opposition to

secular values that they see as contrary to their religious beliefs. At the other end of the

continuum are the faith traditions defined as church. These faith communities tend to

promote social equilibrium, and are less suspicious of prevailing community value and the

status quo. Congregations with sectarian tendencies see secular culture as a threat to their

faith, while congregations with church tendencies are more willing to integrate themselves

and their members into wider society. Johnson provides a useful definition of the church-sect

differentiation, writing, “A church is religious group that accepts the social environment in

which it exists. A sect is a religious group that rejects the social environment…” (p. 540).

Liebman (1966) makes an important distinction between church and sect, suggesting

that while churches are primarily concerned with social cohesion and maintaining social

order, congregations with sectarian tendencies emphasize “…religious beliefs and practices

that are efforts to deal with individual needs” (p. 157). This distinction has important

implications for church-based social service programs, with churches being more likely to

engage the wider community in an effort to meet critical community needs than sectarian

congregations that tend to focus on their own membership.


The church-sect distinction can probably best be described by using language

proposed by Bainbridge and Stark (1980). In their review of previous literature on the

church-sect typology, they suggest that a useful way of understanding the relationship

between a sect and wider secular society could be articulated using the term tension. Many

previous scholars (Coleman, 1968; Johnson, 1957; Scanzoni, 1965) had used the concept of

rejection when discussing the relationship between sect and society, acknowledging that

sectarian congregations rejected secular values and practices as a response to their own

beliefs. Bainbridge and Stark suggested that the classical use of the concept of rejection

failed to acknowledge that the rejection was in fact a two-way street, as sects tend to be

rejected by society as well. They suggested that tension provided a more accurate depiction

of the true sect-society relationship, writing, “Tension with the sociocultural environment is

equivalent to subcultural deviance, marked by difference, antagonism, and separation” (p.

108).

One of the difficulties with scholarship related to the church-sect typology is that

virtually all of the work done in the field was conducted prior to 1980, with the most

influential work being done in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The church-sect typology was formed

in a time when the church had a less active role in the development and delivery of services

to the community, with fewer than twenty-five percent of congregations in urban America

reporting that they had social service programs that were offered to individuals and families

who were not members of the church (Davidson, Elly, Hull, and Nead, 1979). The issues of

interest to church-sect scholars were typically related to differences in values, morality, and

personal salvation, rather than practices related to mission, outreach, and community service

(Bainbridge and Stark, 1980; Scanzoni, 1966). It might be suggested that the church-sect


distinction lacks relevance for a contemporary church whose relationship with society is

influenced by a higher commitment to serving the community (Chaves, Konieczny,

Beverlein, and Barman, 1999; Cnaan, 1999; Smith and Sosin, 2001)

Boling (1975) however, provides a particularly compelling reason why maintaining

the distinction between church and sect is still relevant, even though new typologies and

models have emerged. In a study comparing the differences between predominately white

churches and predominately black churches, he discovered that congregations with members

who are largely from lower socio-economic classes with lower levels of higher education

tend to hold religious views that are consistent with a sectarian approach to religion.

Members of these sectarian congregations had higher degrees of religiosity (as measured by

various religious practices), and were much more likely to adhere to very fundamentalist

views of theology and biblical interpretation. While this held true for both white and black

churches, African American congregations were significantly more likely to be sectarian in

nature. In addition, sects are characterized by a high degree of tension with secular society.

One of the reasons recognizing and describing a sectarian alignment is important

when considering church organization is that one characteristic of a sect is its self-imposed

separation from the wider community. Congregations that are sect-like have a tendency to

withdraw from society to a greater degree then more church-like communities, and exhibit

higher degrees of tension with the way “the world” operates. (Dynes, 1955; Johnson, 1957;

Liebman, 1966).

Since communities of color are disproportionately impacted by poverty and are often

most in need of the kinds of services that churches have been called on to provide, it seems

prudent to consider how their religious, theological, and doctrinal tendencies might impact


their ability to serve the broader community, to include who they serve, what services they

provide, and who they will choose to affiliate with as collaborators and partners (Baer, 1988;

Barnes, 2004; Barnes, 2005; Chaves and Higgins, 1992; DiIulio, 1999).

The importance of the church-sect distinction was highlighted during the early years

of the Faith-based and Community Initiative when one of the issues that was prominently

discussed was the concern that churches who accepted public money to deliver services to

the community would effectively lose their ability to stand in opposition to a government that

behaved in ways that were contrary to the beliefs and values of a the church (Chaves, 2001;

DiIulio, 2007). Some religious leaders felt that the church risked the loss of its prophetic

voice if it developed working relationships with public entities, exchanging its right to stand

against an emerging secular culture for financial resources it could use to care for people in

the community who were poor and marginalized. The public conversation that this dilemma

evoked brought the issue of sectarian tension into the forefront, clearly suggesting that the

church-sect distinction that had been maligned as irrelevant by many social scientists still had

something important to contribute to scholarship on the differences between churches and the

impact those differences make in determining how they organize themselves for service.

Classification by Church Type

Dudley and Johnson (1993) take a different approach to classifying congregations,

focusing less on what the congregation believes and how specific articulations of faith impact

their relationship with the community, and more on how the congregation presents itself and

its ministry to the community. In a related article describing the research that produced the

five church-types described in Energizing Congregations: Images that Shape your Church’s

Ministry, Dudley dismisses traditional methods of categorizing congregations by theological


type, stating that, “Popular wisdom suggests that churches are defined and divided by their

theology. Liberal churches are more socially concerned but less spiritual, it is said, and

conservative churches are more spiritual but less socially concerned. My observation of

scores of mainline and evangelical churches defies this stereotype” (Dudley, 1997).

Dudley and Johnson suggest that a congregation’s theological orientation has less

influence on how a congregation mobilizes itself for ministry to the community than the

image the church has created for itself. Congregational self-identification becomes the

vehicle that carries the church’s vision and mission into the community, informing what it

does and how it does the work it feels called to do. Importantly, how a congregation

describes itself to the community and the content of the stories it chooses to tell about itself

will impact how it lives out its sense of mission and vocation in the community.

Through a series of contacts and conversations with congregations, Dudley and

Johnson were able to identify five church-types that they suggest represent the primary ways

congregations self-identify. They take care to point out the types are not mutually exclusive.

Congregations may exhibit characteristics of more than one type at any given time, and may

also move between church types at different points in their institutional history.

The Pillar Church. The Pillar Church sees itself as an important and historical

institution in the community, with stories that refer back to important events and times in the

life of the church. It feels a particular responsibility to portray a strong sense of civic

responsibility, and understands itself as a leader in the community and an institution that

attracts the most important movers and shakers in the area.

The Pilgrim Church. The Pilgrim Church also has a strong sense of history, but the

stories it tells about itself focus on the physical and spiritual journey of its members. The


faith and culture that permeates the Pilgrim Church is inseparable. Members may have a hard

time distinguishing between their church life and their secular and cultural life. The church

becomes a venue where cherished histories are guarded and maintained, and as a result, the

congregation is typically fiercely loyal to its members, with a strong tendency to fight for the

rights of the people who associate with the community.

The Survivor Church. The stories the Survivor Church tells about itself are related

to the difficulties it has faced in the past, and its history of overcoming crisis. Dudley and

Johnson even suggest that the Survivor Church thrives on crisis and takes pride in an ethos of

survival. They live on the edge of constant emergency, but find a strange comfort in coming

together to overcome whatever problems they may face. A survivor congregation defines

itself as resilient and adaptable.

The Prophet Church. The Prophet Church takes pride in challenging the injustices

of the world with an almost quixotic sense of purpose and mission. They have a commitment

to social change, and are willing to put themselves and their institution on the line to serve

others and to overcome injustice and oppression. The Prophet Church finds energy in

mobilizing to challenge unfair and inequitable systems, and often make an impact in the

community that is proportionally greater than their size.

The Servant Church. Members of a Servant Church have a strong commitment to

helping individuals overcome difficulties and trials in their lives. They are motivated by

compassion, and tend to be less concerned with the systemic failures that may be responsible

for the suffering they seek to alleviate. The Servant Church identifies with the pain and needs

of individuals than societal issues.


Dudley and Johnson’s work is important on a number of levels, with particular

relevance for this study. They identify five church types, providing a narrative that explains

how the way a congregation defines itself and the stories it shares among its membership and

with the wider community impacts how it engages with others. A careful reading of their

research also reveals that church types can be associated with different missional orientations

that might impact which services a church provides to the community, and how those

services are delivered. Congregations are motivated by their desire to serve individuals, their

need to be compassionate, and a drive to overcome systems that they see to be oppressive

and unjust.

Classification by the Role of Faith in an Organization

One of the challenges facing those who wish to engage the faith-community in the

development and delivery of social services is the lack of a generally accepted definition of

what constitutes a faith-based organization. Several attempts have been made over the years

to craft such a definition, but most have come up short, by creating definitions that are either

unnecessarily complex or unhelpfully vague. Sider and Unruh take on the task of developing

a typology of religious characteristics in organizations that deliver social and educational

services.

Sider and Unruh justify the importance of their study by suggesting that an accepted

definition of what constitutes a faith-based organization is important because the “…lack of

clarity creates problems for studying, funding, and making policies regarding social service

and educational entities with a connection to religion” (Sider and Unruh, 2004, p. 100). A

thorough review of literature in the area of faith-based social service programming supports

this claim, with the issues surrounding the separation of church and state that occur when


public funding being particularly relevant. In addition to the need to define faith-based

programming for public policy purposes, issues of evaluation and accountability also rise to

the top of the list of reasons why Sider and Unruh’s study is so important. Comparing the

effectiveness of faith-based programs with secular alternatives is virtually impossible if one

cannot first define what differentiates the two.

Sider and Unruh begin their work with a thorough review of previous efforts to

classify and define faith-based organizations. They acknowledge the work of others,

highlighting the accumulation of knowledge over the years, but also pointing out the

inadequacies of the definitions and classifications offered by other scholars in the field. Their

review of previous work enabled them to establish a preliminary typology of faith-based

organizations that was organized along a continuum measured by the prevalence and role of

religion in both an organization as a whole and in the programs that an organization may

offer.

The continuum developed by Sider and Unruh includes the following six levels, 1)

Faith-permeated, 2) Faith-centered, 3) Faith-affiliated, 4) Faith-background, 5) Faith-secular

partnership, and 6) Secular. A quick reading of the continuum shows that Sider and Unruh

believe that there are organizations in the community that are intentionally organized around

a particular religious doctrine or faith-premise, and that at the opposite end of the spectrum

are those organizations that have no relationship or inclusion of religion at all. The six

classifications are useful as a tool for imagining the role that religion plays in an organization

and how it impacts the programs that are offered. However, Sider and Unruh then expand

their typology to include twelve additional dimensions that they use to define an

organization. In the article, they include a table entitled “Typology of Religious


Characteristics of Social Service and Educational Organizations and Programs” (Sider and

Unruh, 2004, p. 112). With a total of 72 different cells (six types and twelve dimensions), the

typology becomes unwieldy. It provides an interesting paradigm that can be used to consider

the characteristics of an organization, but there are too many variables included to make it

useful in clarifying how an organization might be defined.

After developing their proposed typology, the authors tested their proposed

classification scheme by developing fifteen case studies with congregations, organizations,

and programs in the Philadelphia area. The researchers developed an interview questionnaire

and survey form, and used them to gather information from the leadership of the

organizations that were selected for the study. The study by Sider and Unruh concludes with

brief descriptions of organizations that fit within each of the first five classifications in their

proposed typology. For the purpose of their research, secular organizations were not

included.

The usefulness of Sider and Unruh’s work lies less in its ability to provide a clear and

useable definition of faith-based organization, a task that the study only marginally succeeds

in accomplishing, and more in its ability to identify the importance of such a definition and

its implications for the future. Their six-point classification continuum does not vary

significantly from what has been posited in the past by others, though they do apply some

definitional concepts in new ways. And the authors recognize the difficulty of the problem

and the shortcomings of their effort to solve it.

But the article does help strengthen the argument for the continued need to grapple

with how faith-based organizations are understood and defined by identifying the areas

where success will be most valuable. In their final discussion, Sider and Unruh wrote, “The


typology has significant implications in at least three areas; public policy surrounding faith-

based initiatives, private funding for faith-based social and educational services, and further

research on faith-based organizations and programs” (Sider and Unruh, 2004, p. 130).

Classification by Organizational Characteristics

Jeavons (1998) provided important insight into how faith-based organizations

organize themselves as service providers, developing a model that included seven elements

he claimed were descriptive of faith-based organizations. Unlike Sider and Unruh, who

focused on the apparent role of faith in an organization as a way to categorize it, Jeavons

provided a list of characteristics that he felt defined a faith-based organization. These

elements, which are particularly salient for a study on how churches organize to serve the

community, are as follows:

• Self-identification as a religious organization

• Organization is comprised of religiously committed individuals

• Organization is resourced primarily by religious people or organizations

• Programming utilizes spiritual technologies (prayer, worship, teaching, scripture, etc)

• Decision making references spiritual or religious values

• The distribution of power within the organization is based on religious sources

The organization tends to interact predominantly with other religious organizations

Classification based on Differences with Secular Organizations

In response to the Bush administration’s emerging Faith-Based and Community

Initiative, Ebaugh, Pipes, Chafetz and Daniels conducted research into the distinguishing

characteristics of faith-based organizations. The purpose behind the study was to develop a

clearer understanding of what constitutes a faith-based organization or agency, and how they


differ from secular providers that offer similar services (Ebaugh, Pipes, Chafetz, Daniels,

2003). They recognized that this was a necessary first step in a process that would lead to an

effective process for evaluating the effectiveness of faith-based and secular programming.

The primary research questions revolved around the need to identify the

organizational characteristics that differentiated faith-based organizations from those that are

secular in nature. The authors identify how organizations are similar to one another, as well

as how they differ.

The study focused on eighty-nine agencies in Houston, Texas that were listed in the

2001 Homeless Services Directory. The executive directors of these agencies were asked to

complete a survey about characteristics of their organizations, with the goal of differentiating

between those that had a religious element and those that were secular. The results of the

survey were then compiled in order to answer the question, “Do faith-based organizations

differ from their secular counterparts in organizational structure, statement of mission,

sources of funding, leadership, everyday practices, and overall organizational culture?” The

study used a series of Likert-scale items arranged around four key dimensions: decision

making, resource preference, organizational culture, and organizational practices.

Not surprisingly, Ebaugh, et. al. concluded that faith-based and secular organizations

did in fact differ from one another on each of the four dimensions. They organized their

findings around the three topics, which included 1) Self-Identity and its Public Expression, 2)

Organizational Staffing and Funding, and 3) Religious Policies, Practices, and Organizational

Culture. Self-identity provided the strongest differentiation between faith-based and secular

organizations. A review of organizational names, mission statements, and marketing

materials usually provided significant clues to whether or not an organization was faith-based


or not. The “public presentation of self” was the most significant indicator of organizational

type.

Perhaps the most interesting finding in this study was the apparent lack of

differentiation in services provided by secular and faith-based groups. The authors report, “In

our sample of agencies that deliver social services to the homeless, faith-based and secular

agencies do not differ in the range of direct services delivered to clients” (Ebaugh et. al.,

2003, p. 423). This suggests that faith-based organizations have a tendency to imitate the

work of secular providers, offering the same suite of services from a slightly different

perspective. Though they did not delve into this phenomenon, the issue of isomorphism

deserves greater attention.

How Churches Provide Services to the Community

The Faith-Factors View

John DiIulio, a professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania and one of

the key architects of the Faith-Based and Community Initiative during the Bush

Administration, provides a unique perspective on how churches interact with their

communities and the role that faith can play in the delivery of social services. DiIulio

suggests that religion and faith do impact those in need in positive ways, but expands the

conversation by identifying what he describes as “The Three Faith Factors” (DiIulio, 2002).

These three factors, which he labels organic religion, programmatic religion, and ecological

religion, provide a framework for understanding how “…religion can improve individual

well-being and ameliorate specific social problems” (p. 50).

Organic religion refers to the relationship that individuals have with their church,

defined by the intensity of their participation and the extent of their commitment to the faith


community and its beliefs. Persons who maintain a high degree of organic religion attend

worship frequently, participate in church programs, and are generous in supporting church

needs and concerns. Organic religion is important to the discussion of how churches might

serve their community, because as DiIulio suggests, people who have a strong religious

commitment tend to live healthier lives and suffer from fewer adverse social problems than

those who would consider themselves nonbelievers.

While churches promoting membership is unlikely to be considered by most policy

makers or social service bureaucrats to be a true act of charity, the organic religion concept

offers a countering view that suggests that one way the church can reduce social problems

and promote healthier lives is by encouraging people to become active members of a

congregation. While this may not have much contemporary support, Cnaan (2002) points out

that through much of the early history of the church in the United States, evangelism was

indeed considered an act of charity. The concept of organic religion suggests that the

community experiences better social outcomes when more people are actively involved in a

church or other community of faith.

A second way in which churches can impact their communities is through ecological

religion, which DiIulio understands as the influence the church inherently has on members of

the community, even when they are not members of a church. DiIulio points out that the

ecology of life in many of America’s poorest communities, especially inner city

neighborhoods, is inherently religious. Faith communities continue to be important

institutions in these areas, particularly since most other historically important institutions

have fled to safer environments. Consequently, the church exerts a significant amount of


cultural influence, even with those who may have little formal interest in what the church has

to offer them.

The third faith factor in DiIulio’s “social trinity of spiritual capital” (p. 52) is

programmatic religion, which occurs when a congregation develops and delivers intentional

programs that are intended to address a specific community need. Tutoring programs, food

shelves, emergency shelter housing, and grief counseling are but a few examples of how

programmatic religion finds expression in the community.

Increased expectations by the community on what the church could and should be

doing to alleviate suffering has elevated the prominence of programmatic religion as more

churches deliver more and different services. Whereas organic religion is largely an internal

process that is completely under the philosophical and operational control of a church,

programmatic religion typically requires at least some relationships with stakeholders who

are not part of the worshipping community and who may impose requirements on a church in

exchange for a commitment of resources.

Programmatic religion has expanded significantly since the early 1980’s. In 1979,

churches in a study conducted by Davidson, et al (1979) revealed that only about twenty-five

percent of churches reported offering social services to the community. Only twenty years

later, however, the Cnaan and Boddie (2001) reported a three-fold increase, demonstrating a

willingness by churches to become more engaged in the community. The rapid growth of

programmatic religion, especially in urban centers, has created the need to examine the

efficacy of faith-based programming and the effectiveness of the organizational structures

churches use to provide these services.


The Emergence of Church-based Social Services: Two Key Studies

Church-based social services are not a new phenomenon. Throughout its history in

the many places around the world where the church has planted itself, serving the poor and

meeting the needs of those who suffer has been a constant expectation, an expectation that

has not always been met enthusiasm or success, but an expectation nonetheless. As earlier

sections of this chapter suggest, significant political, economic, and social changes have

produced an environment where churches are expected to be involved in addressing social

problems at significantly higher levels. This has spawned several studies that have examined

the various elements related to church-based social service provision. This includes what

services are offered, how the services are delivered, and how effective the services are in

meeting the goals and outcomes that were set for them. The diversity of the church,

ambiguity around what constitutes a social service provided by the church, and difficulties in

evaluating the success of faith-based programs in general makes it difficult to compare the

results of this research.

The Philadelphia Church Census (Cnaan and Boddie, 2001). Cnaan and Boddie

(2001) conducted one of the first comprehensive studies of church-based social service

programming when they surveyed 1,376 congregations in the Philadelphia area. Their study

reported that 88 percent of the churches responding to the survey reported providing at least

one social service to the community, with churches providing an average of 2.41 services.

Attributing this increased level of church involvement in the delivery of social services to the

community to governmental cutbacks in funding for welfare programs and an increased sense

of reliance on the church to care for those in need, Cnaan and Boddie examined the nature of

the services congregations were most likely to provide.


Interestingly, Cnaan and Boddie begin their discussion of their research methodology

by stating that one of the methodological problems they faced was the lack of a consistent,

recognized definition of what a congregation is, pointing out that “…a loosely defined entity

is difficult to measure” (p. 562). The implication is that certain church types are consistently

under-represented in research, a phenomenon that they were unable to adequately address.

A second definitional issue involved selecting which services a congregation

provided would qualify as social service programs. The authors chose to use a less restrictive

criterion, including all services identified by the congregation as social programs, but with

the caveat that only programs that were offered on an ongoing basis or regular basis were

included. Specifically, they defined social programs as “…an organized activity to help

people in need that the congregation discussed and in which it decided to assist” (p. 565).

They also note that while the programs that their research studied were considered formal

church efforts, the informal care that was delivered by the pastor, church staff, and members

of the congregation were vitally important and a key facet of the overall missions program of

many churches.

This raises an important issue related to the way churches provide services and do

outreach to their communities. It is easier to measure programs that have been formally

adopted by congregations because they have at least some level of support and public

exposure. Informal efforts are hare to measure, and the impact of services provided by

members of the congregation in less formal ways is exceptionally difficult to evaluate. The

extent and focus of informally provided services has yet to be determined through credible

research.


As a result of their research, Cnaan and Boddie were able to identify 215 different

service programs that were offered by the churches in their sample. The ten most frequently

provided services are listed below (p. 570):

1. Food Pantries 46.8%

2. Summer Day Camps 38.2%

3. Recreation for Children 35.0%

4. Clothing Closets 33.8%

5. Summer Programs for Teens 27.4%

6. Music Performances 26.2%

7. Soup Kitchens 24.1%

8. Educational Tutoring 24.0%

9. Mentoring 21.8%

10. Prison Ministry 21.2%

These findings appear to contradict the assumption that churches are most interested

in providing services that encourage personal transformation and provide long-term

relationships with people in need. Most of the frequently provided services either meet

emergency needs or are short-term in nature. An interesting question that Cnaan and

Boddie’s data fails to address is whether or not services provided by church members as

informal community care are also short-term and intermittent.

This study also provided an intriguing piece of data related to the number of church

members who participate in the delivery of formal church programs. Very few church

members are actively involved in church-based social service delivery. Churches reported

that on average, sixteen members of the congregation, including church staff, were involved


on a regular basis. With a reported average membership of 346, Cnaan and Boddie’s data

suggests that fewer than 5% of church members participate in the programs that their

congregation has created in order to meet community needs.

The General Social Survey (Chaves and Tsitos, 2001).

Chaves and Tsitos (2001) conducted a study on the role of the church in meeting

community needs that addressed four key questions (p. 661):

1. What kinds of social services do congregations do?

2. Do they engage in social services in particular ways?

3. Which congregations do more social services?

4. With whom do congregations collaborate in social service delivery and with what

consequences?

These questions are particularly relevant for this study, as they provide background

information and supportive data for the variables that will be examined.

Chaves and Tsitos specifically address the two claims that have been made most

frequently about the value that faith-based providers of social services, to include

congregations, bring to efforts to serve people in need. The first suggests that churches are

effective because they are particularly well suited to deliver programs that focus on personal

transformation and long-term solutions to the problems that poor people face. The second

suggests that churches provide a valuable alternative to secular organizations because of their

willingness and ability to provide services in a holistic way, addressing the whole person

rather than compartmentalizing need based on narrow outcomes and funding requirements.

Their study found no support for either of the claims that have been made about

church-based social services. They found that congregations typically provide services that


are, using their language, “short term and fleeting” (p. 669). In general, the churches they

studied did not choose to offer programs that required the development of long-term

relationships with clients, nor did they provide services designed to address the whole person

in comprehensive or integrated ways. Rather, they tended to focus their efforts on ministries

that responded to specific, short-term needs in ways that could be accomplished quickly, with

a minimum investment in the development of a relationship with the client.

Chaves and Tsitos suggest that, “Congregational social service needs are more

commonly characterized by attention to short-term emergency needs, especially for food,

clothing, and shelter, than by attention to more personal and intensive face-to-face interaction

or by holistic attention to cross-cutting programs” (p. 670). Similar to the findings in the

Philadelphia survey by Cnaan and Boddie (2001), the programs that were offered most

frequently by churches included food shelves, clothing closets, soup kitchens, and emergency

assistance with housing.

Member Involvement in Programming

The studies by Cnaan and Boddie (2001) and Chaves and Tsitos (2001) produced

very similar results with conclusions that are complementary of one another. Other

researchers have explored similar issues with similar results, though most of their research

was done with much smaller samples and a more limited scope of research (Dudley, 2002).

One of the most significant and consistent findings related to congregational

involvement in the delivery of social services to the community is the inability of most

churches to involve large numbers of church members in the programs that the church offers

to the community. Cnaan and Boddie’s research found that on average, only 16 members of

the congregations they studied participated as volunteers in church service programs. Chaves


and Tsitos report a median volunteer participation rate of about 10 per congregation. These

two studies suggest that the typical rate of participation in church-sponsored social service

programs ranges from as low as 5% to no more than 10%. Any assumption that churches are

filled with eager, committed, and passionate volunteers who are ready to step forward to

meet the needs of the community must certainly be called into question.

However, it is important to note that the participation rates reported by Cnaan and

Boddie and Chaves and Tsitos include only those programs that are formally adopted and

sponsored by a congregation. They do not include informal responses to community needs

that are initiated by individual church members or small groups or like-minded people. The

scale and impact of services that are offered by church members without formal church

recognition has not been sufficiently studied.

The Principle of Subsidiarity

In his influential 1931encyclical, “Quadragesimo Anno,” Pope Pius XI proposed the

Principle of Subsidiarity, a concept that would become an important component of Catholic

Social Teaching. In very clear and forceful language, Pope Pius XI established a preference

for grassroots, community-based efforts to meet the needs of communities, stating that,

“…just as it is wrong to take from the individual and hand over to the community what the

individual can accomplish by his own initiative and enterprise, in the same way it is an

injustice, a grave evil and a disturbance of the right order to transfer to greater and higher

society what can be effected and contributed by smaller and lower groups” (Quadragesimo

Anno, 79).

There is perhaps no more powerful example of the church claiming its right to care

for the people in its community than these words of Pope Pius XI. The Principle of


Subsidiarity recognizes that systems have a tendency to grow in ways that damage the

community’s ability to care for itself, and that the necessary remedy is to reserve power and

authority for the smallest, simplest, and most basic institutional units that have the capacity to

meet a particular community need. Sedmak (2002) provides an even stronger view of the

importance of subsidiarity, stating that, “Nothing should be done by a larger and more

complex organization that can be done as well by a smaller and simpler organization. It is not

only that the higher structure must not take over the functions of the lower structures; it is

also that the higher structure is incapable of doing so” (p. 123).

The emergence of what has frequently been referred to as the welfare state in the

United States and its increasing level of influence in how the needs of people who are poor,

hungry, homeless, and otherwise marginalized are met, suggests that the Principle of

Subsidiarity has a new relevance for the community, and is in need of a contemporary

interpretation that is applicable for the church’s current situation.

McKnight (1995) critiques how modern American society provides for those in need

in a way that provides at least implicit support for subsidiarity. In his discussion of the trend

toward the professionalization of social services, with the inevitable co-option of

responsibilities that have historically been performed by churches, families, friends, and

neighbors, he decries “…the gradual transformation of many lower-income neighborhoods

from citizen-powered communities to institutions without walls” (p. xii). Units of local

government, and their nonprofit proxies, have claimed responsibility for educating children,

feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, comforting those who grieve, and rehabilitating those

who run afoul of the law. The result has been a marginalization of the church and other


traditional caretakers, and a community that is in danger of losing its power and capacity to

care for itself (DiIulio, 1999; McKnight, 1995; McKnight and Block, 2010).

The Principle of Subsidiarity provides theological, political, and sociological support

for efforts to increase the involvement of local congregations in efforts to care for the

communities they have been called to serve. Its insistence that the community be held

primarily responsible for the health and welfare of its members, and the expectation that

government must allow services to be provided by the smallest, simplest, and most basic

organizational units with the capacity to be effective has significant implications for how

people in need will be cared for in general, and specifically, what the role of the church in

providing support to individuals and families who are struggling will ultimately be.

The Role and Impact of Religiosity

Religiosity is a term used to describe the religious behavior of both individuals and

discrete faith communities. Understanding religion in its is sociological context as “…a

cultural system of shared beliefs and rituals that offers a sense of transcendent meaning and

purpose…” religiosity can be defined as “…the way people and communities are influenced

by religious ideas and shape social reality accordingly…” (Darity, 2008, p. 162). The concept

of religiosity, which was first proposed by Max Webber and later refined by Charles Glock,

provides a set of constructs that can be used to describe how people react to the influence of

faith and religion and explain the relationship between belief and how it is expressed through

a variety of actions.

Faulkner and DeJong (1966) conducted a study of the five dimensions of religiosity

developed by Glock, who insisted that religiosity had five dimensions, 1) ideological

(beliefs), 2) ritualistic (attendance, church participation, 3) experiential (feelings, emotions),


4) intellectual (knowledge), and 5) consequential (effects in the secular world caused by the

other four). Glock’s work in the area of religiosity was groundbreaking at the time, since

most research in the field tended to focus on one or two dimensions of religious behavior,

failing to recognize the importance of a more comprehensive view of religiosity. In addition,

Glock’s categories provided a consistent process of understanding, measuring, and

interpreting the behavior of church members and congregations.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Faulkner and DeJong report that the ideological dimension,

which is closely associated with beliefs, values, and theology, was the most significant

predictor of behavior in a person of faith. They report that, “The ideological dimension was

unmistakably of pervasive importance” (p. 246).

The implications of this are important for this study. Clearly, ideology is a critical

element in understanding why congregations do what they do, yet far too many more

contemporary writings fail to acknowledge the place that ideology has in the organizational

development of congregations. One explanation may be that at least since the early 1980’s,

most of the conversation about church involvement in the delivery of social services has been

focused on strategies for including the faith communities as partners in the process of

providing services with government. The issue of the church-state relationship is highly

controversial and politically charged, so the issue of the importance of ideology as a

motivator of the church has largely been diminished. Since public funds cannot be used to

support religious beliefs, the assumption seems to have been that religious beliefs are not an

element of organizational development that needs to be discussed. As a consequence,

congregations have a tendency to organize for service in ways that are similar to secular

providers, effectively ignoring the influence and importance of their own ideologies, a trend


that was explained previously in the discussion of institutional isomorphism and the church.

While the ideological dimension produced the strongest and most statistically

significant relationships in Faulkner and DeJong’s study, it was the consequential dimension

that showed the weakest correlations. This was not unanticipated. In developing the

consequential dimension, Glock suggested that it was substantively different than the other

four. Attempting to measure how the ideological, ritual, experiential, and intellectual

dimensions acted to produce changes in how an individual interacted with the secular world

turned out to be a difficult proposition that failed to produce findings that were compelling.

Even though Glock’s Consequential Dimension may be the most difficult to measure

and explain, it offers an important construct that could be used to examine how culture,

history, and theology combine to motivate congregations to provide services to their

community. It brings new elements into the conversation, suggesting that the generally

accepted ways of understanding what constitutes organizational capacity may be insufficient

or inappropriate for the church. Experts in the field of nonprofit organizational development

may disagree on the specific characteristics that define a high capacity organization, but what

is clear is that none of them provide sufficient attention to organizational elements that are

suggested Glock’s five dimensions of religiosity. Various measures of organizational

capacity include recognition that culture, aspirations, and values are important for

organizations, but not to the level of detail that a reading of Glock’s Five Dimensions of

Religiosity suggests.

Lam (2002) concurs with Glocks’s understanding of religiosity, suggesting that

religiosity is a multidimensional concept best understood as a set of four related factors.

Lam’s religiosity categories include, 1) Participatory Dimension, 2) Private (devotional)


Dimension, 3) Affiliative Dimension, and 4) Theological (belief) Dimension. His

understanding of religiosity is important because, like Glock, he expands the number of

factors that need to be researched and understood for a fuller understanding of how

religiosity impacts the behavior of church members, and how it might influence a

congregation’s effort to organize itself to serve the community through social service

programming, missions, and outreach.

In a study of 1,738 church-going Protestants, Park and Smith (2000) examined the

influence of religiosity, religious identity, religious socialization, and religious social

networks on local volunteer activity. One of the interesting aspects of their study is that they

differentiated between volunteering that church members did within their own local

congregation, and the work they did for non-church organizations. Identifying where church

members are most comfortable providing services to the community and how they are most

likely to be involved in serving others are important organizational elements that contribute

to the decisions churches will make about their mission programs. Wuthnow (1999) points

out that individuals have limited amounts of discretionary time that they can give back to the

community, and that increased participation in church activities may decrease the amount of

time a church member gives to non-church organizations.

Not surprisingly, the strongest predictor of church-related volunteering for Protestants

was church activity participation. Individuals who attended worship frequently, participated

in Bible study, attended Sunday school, and belonged to other affinity groups within the

congregation (i.e. Women’s Groups, Youth Groups, Choir) were more likely to volunteer to

support programs offered by the church. Their findings in this area were consistent with Lam

(2002), who also hypothesized that participation in religious activities would increase


participation in voluntary associations, though Lam did not differentiate between service in

the church and service in the community. In their study, Park and Smith do not distinguish

between different kinds of volunteer service. Volunteering to teach Sunday school and

volunteering at a church-run food shelf would conceivably come under the category of

church-related volunteerism. This does limit the ability to draw conclusions about how the

variables in their study might affect the development of social service programs since their

operational use of the concept of voluntarism is quite broad.

One feature of most research into the relationship between religiosity and

volunteering is that the studies focused exclusively on how religiosity might predicate

involvement with programs that were formally established, either by the church itself or a

community agency that was set up to utilize community volunteers. This methodology failed

to include examples of volunteer service that occurred in less formal ways. This is

problematic, since church members do provide services through community care

relationships that may not be associated with formal church programs or secular service

providers. Since community care arrangements seldom involve the use of public resources

from either government sources or private foundations, little has been done to investigate the

prevalence of informally provided social services or the impact that these services might be

making in the community.

The Church as Voluntary Association

The church is an organizational type that fits within the general rubric of voluntary

association, with many of the characteristics that are used to define voluntary organizations.

However, even though it shares much in common with secular organizations that organize

voluntarily, an argument can be made that the church is unique and must be viewed through a


different organizational lens if it is to be understood accurately. Harris (1998) suggests that

congregations are “…‘special case’ voluntary associations in which the actions of members

are limited in ways that would not normally apply in secular associations” (p. 620).

Understanding the special organizational elements that are characteristic of the church is

necessary for a thorough understanding of what motivates congregations to serve their

communities, as well as what motivates individual members of a congregation to participate

in the mission and ministry of the church.

There are four key elements of a voluntary association that are particularly relevant

for this study of how congregations organize to serve the community:

• Individuals may join or leave the organization freely, without coercion.

• The organization is free from external control.

• The purpose, goals, and mission of the organization are determined by its members.

• The organization provides a way for individuals to become involved in public life

beyond the privacy of home and family.

These elements are present in congregations in widely different ways, dependent upon the

denomination, tradition, and leadership of the church (Crossman, 2013).

Churches as Special Cases of Voluntary Association

Harris begins her discussion of what makes churches different from other voluntary

associations by suggesting reasons why churches tend to be similar to one another, even

though they may have very different cultures, traditions, and values. According to Harris,

congregations organize in similar ways because they 1) have broadly similar purposes, 2)

they are under pressure to adopt “…similar organizational mechanisms for implementing

their similar organizational purposes,” and 3) congregations in the same areas often chare a


similar, uncertain environment (p. 603). She suggests that organizational similarity cuts

across denominations and even different religions because even widely diverse congregations

share the distinction of being special case associations.

Harris’ study, which included a very small sample of only four congregations, does

provide interesting insight into how the congregation is different from other voluntary

associations. She reported significant consistency across the four very different churches

(Catholic, Anglican, Black Pentecostal, and Reformed Jewish) in the following ways:

• Congregations found it difficult to set goals and direction because of demands from

members to have specific needs met.

• Congregations reported pressure from the secular community that required them to

change their goals and programs.

• Congregations typically had to spend more time on institutional maintenance than on

the development and delivery of programs that were consistent with their vision and

purpose.

• Congregations felt that they were failing to meet their purpose, even when that

purpose may have been inherently unachievable given their particular circumstances.

Though the ability to generalize the results of this study are limited, it does provide

valuable insight into what influences the way congregations organize for mission, and how

those influences impact their ability to serve the community well. It points to the problem of

conflicting priorities, ambiguous mission, external pressures and expectations, and the

burdens of institutional maintenance.

The implications are important. The results of the study suggest that congregations

can no longer assume a uniform sense of purpose within its membership, with a majority of


members supporting the direction that leadership has set for the church. Church members are

asserting themselves in different ways than they have in the past, expecting greater input and

higher levels of responsiveness from church leaders. This trend is important because it could

impact how church members understand themselves as partners in the ministry of the church,

and how they respond to their own call to ministry and Christian vocation.

It also points to the impact that the wider community is having on the mission and

purpose of the local church, beyond the usual issues related to congregational development

and church growth. Harris’ study was conducted in the United Kingdom, so the political and

sociological issues are different, but the implications are similar in the United States. The

earlier discussion of how a changing political, economic, and social environment has

elevated expectations of what the church can and should do to serve the community is an

example of the pressure that external forces can have on institutional processes in the church.

Churches as Semi-Involuntary Organizations

Ellison and Sherkat (1999) discuss the nature of the church as a voluntary association,

concentrating specifically on how the African American church in the United States has

organized itself, and what makes it a unique organizational type, distinctive from other

traditions and faith-community expressions. Understanding the unique organizational

elements of the African American church is important because of its prominence in most

urban areas, and the disproportionate number of African Americans who are poor. Any

discussion of the church’s involvement in addressing poverty, hunger, homelessness, and

other social concerns would be inadequate if it did not take into account the specific strengths

and needs of the black church.


Ellison and Sherkat point out that the African American church was established at a

time when there were few secular institutions available for African Americans to exert

community leadership and social participation. As a result, the African American church was

called upon to perform a wider range of social functions than most predominately white

congregations. This led to the adoption of organizational models for the historic black church

that were very different than what was generally in use by either mainline Protestant or

Roman Catholic congregations. Ellison and Sherkat suggest that black churches are different

enough from other churches (a special case of special case, so to speak) that they should be

understood as semi-involuntary institutions. The cultural importance of the church to the

African American community, the multi-functionality of the institution itself, and the level of

importance that black church leaders have historically had in the community combine to

make it a less voluntary organization than many churches. As Ellision and Sherkat suggest,

decisions about whether or not to actively participate in the life of a congregation and what

form that participation will ultimately take is influenced not only by the parishioner’s

personal sense of spirituality, but also by the real or perceived judgment from other members

of the community. What church members prefer as far as their relationship with the church

and how that relationship is manifested are different.

The work that Ellison and Sherkat have done to identify at least the rural African

American church as a semi-involuntary organization is important because it begins to offer a

theoretical construct that can be used to understand what motivates members of a church to

become involved in the mission and ministry that the church offers to the community. In a

congregation that is more closely aligned with the values of a truly voluntary association,

members have the freedom to determine how they will participate in congregational life, and


what that participation will entail. As Ellison and Sherkat propose, some congregations have

an institutional culture that applies a level of pressure on members to conform to the

expectations of the overall community in general, and its leadership specifically. In a

congregation that has semi-involuntary organizational characteristics, members are

realistically not able to join and leave the church freely, as community expectations exert a

level of coercive influence that demands compliance to cultural norms. Members are

expected to support programs that have been formally presented and adopted by the

congregation, and can often expect little support if they have ministry interests that are not

fully aligned with the church’s goals.

Factors that Contribute to Voluntary Behavior in Churches

In a review of literature related to voluntarism and church membership, Lam (2002)

reports that the results of extensive research into which traditions tend to volunteer more

have been highly inconsistent, with different studies reporting contradictory results. For

example, some report that Protestant church members are more likely than Catholics to

volunteer in the community (Peterson and Lee, 1976; Smith and Sosin, 2001) while others

report the opposite result (Lam, 2002). Lam suggests that the real difference is not religious,

but rather, variations in volunteer behavior are more likely to reflect differences in income

and the community status of a church’s members. This is consistent with the work of Boling

(1975) who reported that churches with a lower income membership tend to align more

closely with the sectarian side of the church-sect continuum. Because of the inherent tension

that sectarian congregations have with society, their tendency to isolate themselves from the

wider community, and their suspicion of secular organizations, members of sectarian

churches are less likely to be involved in delivering services that are provided apart from


their faith community. Sectarian churches are also more likely to focus their efforts on

members of their own congregation, with fewer resources going to support the needs of those

who are not members.

One question that the research of Peterson and Lee raises is related to the influence

that denominational mission organizations have on the voluntary association behaviors of a

church. Peterson and Lee researched the difference between volunteering in Roman Catholic

and Lutheran congregations. Both of these faith traditions have strong denominational

missions organizations that are active in delivering services to the community. Catholic

Charities and Lutheran Social Services are influential organizations that are able to mobilize

an enormous amount of resource from churches, foundations, individuals, and government.

The extent to which the presence of such a dominant organization affects churches is unclear.

This suggests that the theological orientation of a congregation contributes to the

decisions a church makes about how it will serve the community and who will benefit from

the church’s benevolence and volunteer efforts. It also suggests that the elements of a

congregation’s theological orientation toward the community may be related to the aggregate

socioeconomic status of its members.

The impact of race. While socioeconomic status is likely to be an important

contributor to the volunteer behavior of church members, it may be that the racial

composition of a church is an even stronger predictor of a congregation’s relationship with

the community, and its willingness to participate in delivering services through collaborative

partnerships with secular nonprofit agencies and other faith-based groups. For the purpose of

this study, the most important racial distinction to be considered is the difference between


predominately white mainline Protestant congregations, and congregations that come from

black church traditions.

The African American church is unique in the United States for a number of reasons.

Throughout much of its history in this country, the black church has been the primary

institution in most, if not all, African American communities. Because it was often the only

institution that was readily accessible by African Americans, the church developed a

different set of roles and a different way of relating to its members than was present in white

churches. In many ways, black culture in both rural and urban settings was indistinguishable

from the church culture that was present in African American congregations (Alex-Assensoh,

2004; Barnes, 2005; Lewis and Trulear, 2008). The result is an institution that is able to exert

a level of control and influence over its members that most other Christian traditions cannot

match.

Little research has been done that specifically examines the relationship between a

congregation’s racial composition and the way it organizes to serve the community. Race is a

difficult issue to talk about in the United States, and it is a complex issue that includes a wide

range of cultural, historical, political, economic, and social variables that make it difficult to

determine where the real impact lies and how the many factors combine to influence

behavior.

Musick, Wilson, and Bynum (2000) provide an interesting example of how the racial

composition of a congregation may impact how a congregation organizes for mission and

outreach to the community. In their study of how religiosity impacts the strength of a church

and its membership as a social and cultural resource to the community, they discovered that

the strength of religious beliefs influence the volunteer behavior of black and white church


members in opposite ways. As the strength of religious belief increases, the volunteer activity

of white church members will also increase. However, increases in the strength of religious

belief results in lower levels of community voluntarism among black members.

Musick, Wilson, and Bynum argue that churches promote a culture of benevolence

and social action, and that they provide an institutional structure that offers opportunities for

formal volunteering to occur. This argument is sufficiently broad to preclude much

disagreement. The issue of interest is the focus of the church’s benevolence and action, and

the elements of its institutional structure. In white churches, it would appear that stronger

religious commitment leads to greater involvement with community organizations that are

already mobilized to meet specific needs. Church members with particular ministry interests

are encouraged to find opportunities to serve in the community, even when those

opportunities are external to the congregation. In black churches, increased religious

commitment may result in increased levels of commitment to their local church as an

institution. Rather than seeking out opportunities to serve through externally available

community partners, highly committed black church members increase their commitment to

their local congregation. They are concerned about the needs of others, but with a perspective

that focuses on what their church can do to serve the community.


CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Introduction

The purpose of this study was to test how a church’s structure, organizational capacity,

and theological orientation combine to influence the way it organizes itself to develop and

deliver social service programs to the community. Using a Mixed-methods research design

that drew on both qualitative and quantitative approaches to gain insights and test arguments,

the study:

• Developed organizational profiles of participating congregations that described the

basic characteristics of church membership, current organizing features, and the

existing organizational capacity of the church.

• Identified factors that motivate pastors, church staff, lay leaders, and members of the

congregation to engage in social service ministry.

• Determined what services a congregation provides to the community, what delivery

strategies are used to provide each service, and the strength of a service’s impact.

Using both qualitative and quantitative data analysis, the researcher tested the relationship

between the factors that impact organizational preference and the scope, scale and impact of

services provided by churches.

The research design and process used in this study is described in the following

sections of this chapter, which include, a) quantitative elements, b) qualitative elements, c)

research questions, d) hypotheses, e) variables, f) population, g) sample and sampling

techniques, h) instrumentation, i) data collection, j) data analysis, and k) limitations of the

methodology.


Quantitative Elements

The primary strategy for gathering quantitative data for the study was the Mission

Orientation Scale, a twenty-seven question survey that was administered to lay members of

congregations in the sample. Using a five-point Likert scale model, participants responded to

several statements that addressed personal values, beliefs, and ministry preferences. Survey

results were analyzed using frequency distributions, cross-tabular comparisons, measures of

central tendency, and the Chi-squared test for significance.

Quantitative data were also gathered during interviews with pastor. Descriptive data

supplied by pastors were coded to enable quantitative comparisons, and selected variables

were integrated into the Mission Orientation Scale data set. The coded value of a variable

provided by a pastor was assigned to each member of his or her church.

Qualitative Elements

Qualitative data were collected during the interview process with each of the twenty

pastors who participated in the study. The interviews were directed conversations that were

guided by the Pastor Interview Form, which provided the basic structure for the discussion.

Responses to the questions, which included both quantitative and open-ended elements, were

recorded for future analysis.

Research Questions

This study will address the following five research questions that examine the

relationship between a church’s structure, organizational capacity, and theological

orientation, and its ability to deliver social services to the community utilizing different

strategies.











programs?

5. How does a congregation’s missional orientation impact how it chooses to serve the

community and meet the needs of the people it feels called to serve?

6. Can churches be classified according to a typology that can be used to predict a

congregation’s missional effectiveness based on their structure, capacity, and

theological orientation?

Hypotheses

This study will test six hypotheses related to the research questions. Each explores

one element of the relationship between church structure, capacity, and theology and the

congregation’s ability to offer a range of services to the community using multiple delivery

strategies.

• Hypothesis 1: Congregations that identify themselves as conservative and

evangelical are more likely to provide services in ways that emphasize personal

transformation than congregations who identify themselves as moderate or liberal.


• Hypothesis 2: Congregations that identify themselves as liberal are more likely to

develop programs that address systems change and public policy than congregations

who are conservative.

Hypotheses 1 and 2 tested the relationship between a congregation’s theological

orientation and the services they decide to offer to the community. They predict that

conservative, evangelical congregations will focus more heavily on individual redemption,

while liberal congregations will focus on meeting the long-term needs of the community by

transforming unjust and inequitable system through public policy change and advocacy.

• Hypothesis 3: Congregations with lower-income membership are more likely to

report higher levels of sectarian tension with the community.

Hypothesis 3 explored the relationship between a congregation’s socioeconomic

status and the level of tension it has with the values, beliefs, and policies of the wider

community. It is essentially an examination of the theory set forth by Boling (1975) that

lower income faith communities tend to be in conflict with public standards at a higher rate

than communities that are more affluent.

• Hypothesis 4: Services that do not require the development of long-term

relationships with clients (i.e. food shelves, clothing closets, emergency assistance)

are more likely to be established as formal church programs than those that require

long-term commitments of volunteers and staff.

The relationship between the level of ongoing commitment required to deliver a

service and the preferred delivery strategy of a congregation was tested by Hypothesis 4,

which predicted that services that meet immediate emergency assistance needs are more


likely to be adopted as formal church programs, whereas programs that require volunteers to

commit to extended service are more likely to be informally delivered by church members.

• Hypothesis 5: Lay members who hold formal leadership roles in the church are more

likely to identify formal church programs as their preferred service delivery model

than lay members who do not hold such roles.

This hypothesis tested the relationship between the roles a church member has in the

congregation with their preferred strategy for delivering social services to the community.

The hypothesis is formed on the premise that individuals who have been selected for

leadership roles and service in the church are more likely to prefer formal church programs

than those church members who have less input in how service decisions are made.

• Hypothesis 6: Churches with smaller memberships are more likely to provide services

to the community using informal service models.

Congregations with smaller memberships typically have fewer resources that they can

utilize to establish and deliver service programs to the community. The assumption is that

even more affluent congregations who have access to higher levels of financial resources will

still struggle to provide volunteers to staff formal programs that are administered under the

auspices of the church.

Variables

The study examines how a church’s structure, capacity, and theological orientation

affect its choice of services, the service delivery strategies it uses, and the strength of the

impact of the services it provides. The model utilizes three dependent and three independent

variables.


Independent Variables

The study incorporated dependent variables that provided measures of four different

aspects of a church’s organizational structure. The four independent variables were:

1. Organizational Structure: This variable included characteristics of the church that can

be used to develop a church profile. Sub-measures for the variable were church size,

budget, polity, staffing, and member demographics.

2. Organizational Capacity: The church’s capacity as defined using five of the seven

elements found in the McKinsey Capacity Grid. The McKinsey instrument is widely

used to assess seven elements of a nonprofit’s organizational capacity. For this study,

five of the seven elements were chosen for use, including aspirations, strategy,

systems, organizational skills, and culture. The McKinsey tool is described in greater

detail in the instrumentation section.

3. Theological Orientation: A measure of the theological alignment of a congregation.

Each church was identified as having a theological orientation associated with one of

four categories, a) Conservative, b) Tends toward Conservative, c) Tends toward

Liberal, and d) Liberal.

4. Missional Orientation: A measure of the alignment of congregational members as it

relates to mission preference and motivation. Congregations were identified as having

one of three missional orientations, a) Redemption, b) Compassion, and c) Justice.

Dependent Variables

The study examined how church structure, organizational capacity, and theological

orientation – the three congregational characteristics defined in the independent variable ––


impact and shape how a congregation serves its community. The four dependent variables

were used to assess this relationship are as follows:

1. Current Church Services: An indicator of what social services the congregation is

currently providing to individuals and families in their local community. Services

were drawn from a list of the fifty-two social services most commonly provided by

churches.

2. Service Delivery Strategy: An identification of how social services are delivered by

the congregation. Services that were identified as being offered by the church were

classified using one of five service delivery strategies: a) formal church programs, b)

pastor-led services, c) member-led services, d) services provided through community

partnerships, and e) services provided through 501(c)(3) organizations established by

the church.

3. Target Population Served: An indicator of who were the primary recipients of the

services provided by the congregation. Target populations were defined as a)

primarily church members, b) primarily members of the community, c) both church

members and community members.

4. Strength and Impact of Services: A set of self-identified indicators that measure the

relative strength and impact of a service provided by the congregation using one of

the five delivery strategies described above. Services that pastors have identified as

provided by the church will be measured along these three dimensions: a) number of

church members involved in providing the service, b) financial commitment of the

church to the program, and c) the number of people in the community who receive the

services.


Population

This study focused on Christian congregations in the greater Minneapolis and Saint

Paul, Minnesota metropolitan area. The seven-county planning district, which has

traditionally been used to define the Twin Cities metropolitan area, encompasses a broad

range of communities, from typical inner-city neighborhoods to small, rural townships. For

the purpose of this study, only congregations that were physically located within the core

cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul and first-ring suburban communities were included.

While an accurate count of Christian congregations in the Twin Cities metropolitan

area is difficult to provide, denominational leaders and experts in church growth and

congregational development estimate that there are approximately 2,400 churches in the

seven-county metropolitan area (U.S. Religion Census, 2010). Within the core cities and

first-ring suburbs there are an estimated 600 to 900 congregations, though this number varies

greatly depending on the source that is used to make the determination. Estimating the

number of congregations in an urban center is challenging because many of the

congregations are small and organizationally unstable, and there are significant numbers of

nondenominational churches that are more difficult to count than those that are affiliated with

denominations.

Sample

Sample of Convenience

The study utilized a sample of convenience and a criterion sampling strategy designed

to select participant congregations that were most likely to inform the study and provide data

relevant to the research questions. A sample of convenience allowed the researcher to chose

survey participants who were accessible through existing relationships with pastors,


community leaders, and lay members of suitable congregations. Criterion sampling was

necessary to ensure that data collected from each participating congregation would be useful

to the study.

Using a random selection process to identify congregations to participate in the study

was not necessary, and would likely have added a level of complexity to data collection that

would have impeded the process significantly. Both the quantitative and qualitative aspects

of the study required a level of access to pastors and church leaders that would have been

difficult to achieve without at least some previous relationship between the church and the

researcher. A sample of convenience was developed that took advantage of the researcher’s

existing relationships with community pastors and denominational leadership.

Criterion Sampling

In order to produce a manageable sample for this study, the sample was constructed

based on the following criteria:

• The congregation self-identified as a Christian organization. For this study, only

Christian churches were selected.

• The congregation was located in an area that was identified as either an urban core

neighborhood or a first-ring suburban community. An urban core neighborhood is one

that is located within the municipal boundaries of either Minneapolis or St. Paul.

First-ring suburban communities are municipalities that are immediately adjacent to

either Minneapolis or St. Paul.

• The faith-based organization self-identified itself as a worshipping congregation. This

criteria excluded fellowships and loosely organized groups that had some of the


characteristics of a church as well as faith-based nonprofits that were organized

exclusively for the purpose of delivering social or educational services.

• The congregation had a clearly identified leader with the authority to speak for and

about the congregation. In most cases, this leader was the pastor.

• The congregation had at least one established social service program that was offered

to its own members, individuals from the wider community, or a combination of the

two.

• The congregation had been chartered or established for at least one year.

• The pastor agreed to participate in a 60-75 minute interview, and allow the

administration of a survey to lay members of the congregation.

Applying these selection criteria to congregations in the Twin Cities-Metropolitan

area reduced the number of eligible churches to approximately 600, from which the sample

of twenty participating churches was drawn.

Descriptive Characteristics of Participating Congregations

The sample for this study included twenty congregations. Nineteen of the churches

met all of the criteria for inclusion in the study. One congregation was not located within the

boundaries of Minneapolis or Saint Paul and it was not in a first-ring suburban community.

An exception was made in order to add variance into the sample, which initially did not

include a sufficient number of mainline Protestant churches.

When assembling the sample, an effort was made to introduce difference across a

number of congregational characteristics, to include size of membership, church budget,

socio-economic status of members, denominational tradition, and racial composition. Table 1

provides an overview of the church sample across a number of these key characteristics.


Special attention was paid when constructing the sample to include difference across three

particularly important characteristics: denomination/tradition, church size, and race/ethnicity.

Table 1 Characteristics of Churches Included in the Sample DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS Characteristic of the Church Minimum Maximum Median Mean Church Membership 20 5200 215.0 859.8 Worship Attendance 15 2300 125 366.1 Church Budget $1,500 $5,200,000 $242,500 $588,475 Members who Tithe 0.0% 95.0% 17.5% 22.5% Age of Congregation (years) 3 160 71.5 78.7 Years in Current Location 1 160 47.5 53.8 Members with College Degree 2.0% 95.0% 35.0% 40.5% Low-income Members 3.0% 100.0% 42.5% 43.5% Unemployed Members 3.0% 98.0% 12.5% 19.9% Members on Public Assistance 2.0% 70.0% 20.0% 26.9% Members Living Within One Mile 0.0% 75.0% 22.5% 25.3% Members – Less than a Year 0.0% 100.0% 5.0% 11.1% Members – More than 15 Years 0.0% 100.0% 52.5% 50.6% Retired Members 1.0% 75.0% 15.0% 24.1% Traditional Families 5.0% 90.0% 20.0% 39.7% Denomination/tradition. Congregations that participated in the study came from five

denominational traditions, and also included churches that identified themselves as

Table 2

Distribution of Sample Congregations by Denomination/Tradition Pentecostal Assembly of the World 2 Missionary Baptist Church 5 Assembly of God 1 United Methodist Church 6 Evangelical Lutheran Church in America 2 Presbyterian Church (USA) 1 Independent – Baptist Tradition 2 Independent – Apostolic Tradition 1 Total Churches Participating 20


independent or nondenominational, but with a clearly identifiable tradition. The Christian

denominations and traditions included in the sample with the number of congregations

aligned with each denomination are listed in Table 2.

Church size. As Table 3 indicates, church membership in the sample ranged from a

low of approximately twenty to a high of 5,200 members, with a median membership of 215.

Table 3

Distribution of Sample Congregations by Membership Membership Category N % Descriptive < 100 Members 5 25.0% N 20 100 – 250 Members 6 30.0% Range 20 - 5200 251 – 700 Members 5 25.0% Median 215 > 700 Members 4 20.0% For data analysis purposes, four categories of church size were developed, creating the

distribution of churches described in Table 3.

Race/ethnicity. Ten of the congregations had a membership that was at least 85%

African American, eight had memberships that were at least 85% White, and the remaining

two churches were multi-cultural, with no single race/ethnicity having at least an 85%

majority.

The racial composition of a congregation was typically closely aligned with the

denomination or tradition the church claimed. All of the Missionary Baptist Church

congregations were predominately African American, as were both congregations affiliated

with the Pentecostal Assembly of the World church. Eight of the mainline Protestant

churches were predominately White, with one African American United Methodist Church.

Descriptive Characteristics of Lay Members Surveyed

The pastors from each of the twenty congregations in the sample were asked to


provide access to lay members of their congregation so that a survey of individual church

members could be completed. Fifteen of the twenty congregations returned completed survey

forms, with a total of 258 lay members participating in the survey.

The method used by pastors to survey their members varied by church, with most of

them choosing to access members who were present at the church for various functions such

as Bible Study, committee meetings, and volunteer opportunities. The number of survey

responses from churches ranged from a low of five to a high of forty-two. The mean number

of surveys returned was 17.2, with a median of thirteen. The number of surveys returned by

congregations was not related to the size of the church. Consequently, smaller congregations

tend to be overrepresented in the sample of lay member responses as compared with churches

that have large memberships.

Survey respondents were not asked to provide much personal information that could

be used to develop an extensive profile of the lay members who returned completed

instruments. Descriptive data included age, gender, leadership roles held at the church, and

the number of years the individual had been associated with his or her particular

congregation.

Gender. 70.8% of survey respondents were women and 29.2% were men. While this

ratio may seem significantly skewed, it does approximate worship attendance in many

Christian traditions. Surveys of attendance by gender vary across traditions, but most indicate

that more than 60% of worship attendees in a typical service are women (Christian Century,

2011).

Age. The survey was administered to lay members of participating congregations who

were over the age of eighteen. Table 4 provides an overview of the distribution of the sample


by age. Nearly two-thirds of the respondents were over the age of fifty.

Table 4 Lay Member Sample by Age Age Category N % Descriptive < 30 years 22 8.5% N 258 30 – 39 years 32 12.4% Range 18 - 88 40 – 49 years 40 15.5% Median 54.0 50 – 59 years 73 28.3% Mean 52.4 60 – 69 years 31 20.2% 70 and older 8 12.0% Length of membership in the church. Those responding to the survey were more

equally distributed by the number of years the respondent had been a member of his or her

current congregation. Nearly a quarter (24.4%) of those responding to the survey had been a

member of the church for less than five years, a percentage that is similar to those who have

been members for more than twenty years (27.5%). This suggests that concerns about waning

denominational loyalty among active church members may have merit. An influential study

of religious behavior in the United States indicates that 44% of adults are currently attending

a church in a tradition that is different than the one they grew up in (Pew Research, 2011).

The sample may reflect the increasing mobility that has become characteristic of church

membership.

Table 5

Lay Member Sample by Years at the Church Age Category N % Descriptive < 30 years 22 8.5% N 258 30 – 39 years 32 12.4% Range 18 - 88 40 – 49 years 40 15.5% Median 54.0 50 – 59 years 73 28.3% Mean 52.4 60 – 69 years 31 20.2% 70 and older 8 12.0%


Instrumentation

Congregational Profile Form (Pastor Interview Form)

The Congregational Profile Form, developed by the researcher, is an instrument that

will be used with pastors to gather information about the membership of the church, its

organizational structure, current organizational capacity, and the social services that the

congregation delivers to the community. It is organized in three parts that will be delivered

consecutively during a one-on-one interview with the senior pastor of each participating

congregation.

Church structure. The Church Structure section of the Congregational Profile Form

used twenty-five short-answer questions to develop a profile of the church. These questions

addressed church size, demographic characteristics of the congregation (age, race, socio-

economic status, length of membership), and theological/missional orientation. Some of the

questions required a very specific answer (i.e. how many members does your church have,

what is your church budget), while others asked the pastor to identify a range that is

descriptive of the church (i.e. what percentage of your congregation has been a member for

over twenty years and what percentage of your congregation would you consider to be low-

income).

Organizational capacity. The second section of the Church Profile Form involved

conducting a brief organizational capacity assessment of the congregation using five of the

seven organizational elements from the McKinsey Capacity Assessment Grid. The full

McKinsey process was too extensive to use in this research setting, but did lend itself to

modification to meet specific data collection needs, a use that is encouraged by the original

creators of the instrument (McKinsey and Company, 2001).


The modified version of the McKinsey instrument that was used in the Church Profile

Form focused on five of the original seven elements: 1) Aspirations, 2) Strategy, 3)

Organizational Structure, 4) Systems, and 5) Culture. Each element section includes four or

five questions that uses a Likert scale with the following three responses, 1) The capacity

element is clearly in place in the congregation, 2) The capacity element is somewhat present

in the congregation, and 3) The capacity element is not present in the congregation at this

time.

Current social service programs. The final section of the Church Profile Form will

address the social service programs that the congregation currently provides to the

community. A list of fifty-two social services that are among the most frequently provided by

churches (Chaves and Tsitos, 2001l; Cnaan and Boddie, 2001) were read by the researcher,

with the pastor asked to identify which services the congregation currently delivers. If a

service was identified as one the congregation is involved in providing, the pastor was asked

to define how the program was organized within the church, using one of the following five

categories, 1) formal church program, 2) pastor-led service, 3) member-led service, 4) service

through community partnerships, and 5) services through a separately established 501(c)(3).

Initiatives identified by the pastor as formal church programs were explored in greater

detail in order to determine the extent of the congregation’s commitment to the program. A

series of supplemental questions were asked that covered budget, staffing, governance,

program delivery, accountability, and service impact.

Additional questions were included to determine the level, frequency, and impact of

services provided using the remaining four delivery models for all programs that are

identified by the pastor as present in the congregation.


Mission Orientation Scale (Lay Member Survey)

The Mission Orientation Scale is a researcher-developed survey instrument that was

designed to measure elements of a church member’s understanding of the congregation’s

responsibility to serve the community. It also includes a brief introductory section that

gathered basic demographic information about the respondent.

Member information and demographics. The Mission Orientation Scale asked

participants to provide descriptive information about themselves. This information was not

used to identify individuals, and was limited to gender, age, years in the church, and current

leadership roles held within the congregation.

Role of faith in service design and delivery. Christians who are involved in

outreach, missions, and the delivery of social services to the community are motivated to do

so for different reasons. This element of the Theological Orientation and Organizational

Preference Scale will classify an individual’s motivation to serve based on his/her personal

theology of mission. Using twelve Liker-scale questions, the survey will produce a missional

profile that classifies a respondent as having a theology of service that is aligned with one of

three missional orientations, 1) Redemption, 2) Compassion, and 3) Justice. A clear picture

of a congregation’s collective missional orientation provided important insight into how the

church should approach ministry and partnerships in the community.

Congregation/community relationship. This element of the survey borrowed

heavily from historical theory related to the differentiation between church and sect

(Bainbridge and Stark; 1980; Dynes, 1955; Iannocconne, 1988; Johnson, 1957). Using ten

Likert-scale questions, the survey produced data related to perceived tension with societal

norms and values and the degree of separation from the wider community that the respondent


felt was appropriate. Participants were asked to identify their own preferences regarding a

faithful relationship with the community, other churches, and secular providers of social

services to people in need.

Church member/congregation relationship. The final element of the scale asked

respondents to consider their own relationship with their church and its mission programs.

The primary purpose of this section was to identify how well the individual’s own sense of

missional vocation aligned with the programs offered through their church. Using eight

Likert scale questions, the respondent identified personal levels of participation, satisfaction

with church ministry offerings, and preferences for serving others.

Data Collection

Data were collected from twenty participating congregations through an interview

with the church’s pastor and a survey administered to lay members. The initial contact with

the church was the pastor’s interview, which was used to collect specific information using

the Church Profile Form. The data collected were related to church structure, organizational

capacity, and existing social service programs offered through the church to the community.

At the conclusion of the interview, each pastor was asked to identify members of his

or her congregation to complete the Mission Orientation Scale. Pastors were asked to

distribute the survey to a diverse cross-section of their congregation, seeking variance in

gender, age, leadership, and length of membership in the congregation.

Data Collection Process: Pastors

Data collection at each church began with an interview with the senior pastor or a

designated associate pastor. Eighteen of the twenty interviews were conducted with the


senior pastor of the church, one was conducted with the mission pastor, and one church

provided a lay pastor as their representative.

In each case, the interview was conducted at the church. The length of the interview

ranged from fifty-five minutes to just over two hours, with most interviews taking slightly

more than an hour to complete. The interview began with a brief introduction to the study

that described its purpose, outlined what was needed from the church, and an explanation of

how the data collected from the congregation would be used. Pastors were given the

opportunity to ask questions about the process, and were allowed to opt out of participation if

they felt uncomfortable with the study.

Following the introductory explanation, pastors were guided through the completion

of the Church Profile Form. The pastor was given a copy of the form to follow along with

during the interview. The researcher read each question on the form, and responses were

recorded. The decision to use a directive interview approach was made to ensure accurate

and consistent information across participating congregations. The Church Profile Form uses

language and terminology that has different meanings and connotations across faith

traditions, and it was important to give pastors the opportunity to ask clarifying questions

before answering, if needed.

Each section of the Church Profile Form – Congregational Information,

Organizational Capacity, and Community Service and Local Mission – included open-ended

questions that gave the pastor an opportunity to describe their congregation more completely.

The researcher read each question, and asked follow-up and clarifying questions as needed,

recording the pastor’s responses on the form.


Data Collection Process: Lay Members

Each participating congregation was asked to provide survey responses using the

Mission Orientation Scale form lay members of the church. Completed survey forms were

received from fifteen of the twenty churches.

An envelope with blank survey forms was left with each pastor following the

completion of their interview. Attached to each survey was a short description of the form

with instructions on how it was to be completed, how the data would be used, and assurances

that the data would remain confidential. It also indicated that only adult members of the

church were eligible to participate in the study.

The Mission Orientation Scale was designed to be self-administered; guidance on

how to complete it beyond the instructions on the accompanying sheet was not provided.

How the survey was distributed to lay members varied from church to church, as did the

setting in which respondents completed the survey. Pastors reported using two strategies to

administer the lay member survey:

• The survey was distributed to lay members with the expectation that it would be

completed and returned at a later date. Eight of the twenty congregations reported

using this approach.

• The survey was distributed to lay members who were present at a church meeting or

church function and collected immediately after they were completed. Settings

included bible studies, committee meetings, and the time immediately before mid-

week worship services began. Twelve congregations utilized this approach to

gathering survey data.


The amount of time needed to complete the survey varied by individual, but it was

reported that it generally took between fifteen and twenty minutes. Completed survey forms

were collected by the pastor or an appointed representative and returned to the researcher

who picked them up at the church.

Data Analysis

Qualitative Analysis

Qualitative data were collected during each pastor’s interview using open-ended

questions and directed conversation. This data was analyzed using an independent coding

process. Three volunteers were recruited to read each pastor’s responses to these questions,

and were asked to assign a code based on a set of rubrics provided by the researcher. The

researcher also coded each question for each pastor, with values assigned by the three

reviewers ranging from 1 to 3. If at least three of the four reviewers assigned the same code

to a question, the agreed upon value was assigned to the question. If this level of agreement

was not reached, the question was assigned a value of 0.

Converting the narrative responses to a numeric value enabled the researcher to use

statistical tests with the data. This process was advocated by Creswell (2009) as a way to

convert qualitative data into a form that could be analyzed using a variety of statistical

methods.

In addition to the open-ended questions on the Church Profile Form, the researcher

used additional qualitative information provided by pastors. This included brochures,

newsletters, other written material and review of the church’s website. Many of the smaller

churches were unable to provide these kinds of materials, making comparisons between

congregations difficult.


Quantitative Analysis

Data from both the Church Profile Form (completed by pastors) and the Mission

Orientation Scale (completed by lay members) were analyzed using tests of frequency,

distribution, and statistical significance. The primary statistical tests used were cross-

tabulations and the Pearson Chi-Square test.

Analysis of church data. Twenty congregations are represented in the sample of data

provided by pastor interviews, recorded on Church Profile forms. Whenever analysis was

done that used only data collected from pastors, the entire sample of twenty congregations

was used, to include those churches that did not return any Mission Orientation Scale surveys

from lay members. Hypotheses 1, 2, 4, and 6 used data provided by the Church Profile Form

as primary proxy measures for the independent variables of church structure, organizational

capacity, theological orientation, and missional orientation. Analysis used to draw

conclusions of these three hypotheses used data from all 20 churches.

Analysis of church and lay member data. Whenever analysis involved comparing

data from each pastor’s responses on Church Profile form with data provided by lay members

on the Mission Orientation Scale, information from the five churches that did not provide lay

members surveys was excluded. Hypotheses 3 and 5 used proxy measures for the

independent variables that as based on responses drawn from the Mission Orientation Scale.

Analysis related to these two hypotheses did not include church data from the congregations

that did not have lay member surveys in the sample.

While the primary proxy measures for independent variables in Hypotheses 1, 2, 4,

and 6 were from the Church Profile Form, supporting analysis was done using alternative


proxies from the lay member surveys. In these cases, analysis only included data from the

fifteen churches that provided lay member surveys.

Church Sub-Groups

The sample of twenty congregations included two distinct sub-groups: 1) Baptist-

Pentecostal, which included Missionary Baptist, Pentecostal Assembly of the World,

Assembly of God, and nondenominational churches, and 2) Mainline Protestant, which

included United Methodist, Lutheran, and Presbyterian congregations. The Mainline

Protestant group had nine congregations, with the Baptist-Pentecostal group comprised of the

remaining eleven.

Analysis of data for each hypothesis was typically run on each sub-group separately,

with a combined total of the two groups.

Statistical Methods

Frequency distributions. The first step in the quantitative analysis of the data was

the development of frequency distributions for each variable. This analysis included

descriptive statistics that measured central tendency (mode and median) as well as dispersion

(range and standard deviation).

Data categories. The data collected using the Church Profile Form were converted

into categories in order to facilitate effective analysis. After the data were entered, a

frequency distribution was run for each variable and a category code was assigned based on

where the church’s response was located in the distribution. Most variables had category

codes that ranged from 1 to 3, with some having categories that ranged from 1 to 5.

Appendix D contains tables defining the categories used for each of the variables on the

Church Profile Form.


Chi-squared tests. Most of the data collected on the Church Profile Form, and all of

the data collected from lay members using the Mission Orientation Scale were categorical in

nature. The appropriate statistical test for significance when analyzing this kind of data was

the Pearson Chi-Squared test, which is used to investigate whether distributions of

categorical variables differ from one another. The Chi-Squared tests the null hypothesis that

that the frequency distribution of a sample is consistent with a theoretical distribution. The

analysis used for this study focused on the Chi-Squared test’s ability to determine whether

paired observations based on two variables are either dependent or independent of one

another.

Significance using the Pearson Chi-Squared test was defined as a value of .05 or less.

Values that ranged between .05 and .10 were described as tending toward significance.

Limitations of the Methodology

The research methodology that will be used in this study has a number of limitations

that need to be recognized. Limitations that will be discussed include limitations of the

sample, the use of self-reporting in data collection, exaggeration of impact, and the ambiguity

of concepts.

Limitations of the Sample

The church is a unique organizational type that is present in the community in

remarkably diverse ways. With literally thousands of denominations worldwide serving

every ethnicity and culture on the planet, the institution of church is present in too many

iterations to count. Consequently, any attempt to explain an aspect of the church as a

community institution will be limited to those traditions and organizational types that are


included in the study. The scope of this study’s methodology is limited by the narrowness of

the sample.

Use of Self-Reporting for Data Collection

Perhaps the most significant methodological limitation of this study is its use of self-

reporting as a strategy for collecting data about the church from pastors. This limitation will

be particularly relevant when pastors are asked to report on the existing organizational

capacity of their church, as well as when they identify the social services that are offered by

the congregation. While interview and survey questions will be designed in ways that will

limit ambiguity and misunderstanding, it can be expected that different pastors will interpret

their churches capacity and service programs in different ways. This will limit the ability of

the study to make comparisons between churches and across traditions.

Exaggeration of Impact

One of the concerns raised by the methodology used by the study is that pastors,

church staff, lay leaders, and church members will represent an exaggerated view of the

church’s work and impact in the community. Congregations tend to recognize that churches

are expected to serve the community in meaningful ways, and that the expectation that they

will do so is increasing. The result may be an overstatement of what the church is doing to

serve its community and an overestimation of the impact of their programs. Churches have a

tendency to present themselves and their programs in a positive light, which often results in

congregations making claims that are difficult to substantiate.

Ambiguous Concepts

The sample for the study will include congregations from four different

denominational traditions, each of which has its own language for describing theological and


ecclesiological constructs. Providing standard definitions of key terms to participants is one

way to mitigate the differences, but this strategy is unlikely to eliminate the differences in

understanding that will inevitably occur. This limitation applies institutionally to language

used by churches, as well as individually with language used by church members. Expecting

a common vocabulary and usage of key terms across all study participants is unreasonable.

Potential for False Positives

Because of the large number of associations tested, it is possible that the use of a p

value of .05 will lead to the identification of one or more relationships that, while judged to

be significant, may in fact represent false positives. This can result simply by chance when a

substantial number of relationships are tested. However, since only those relationships

represented by study hypotheses have been tested, and the dissertation findings do not rest on

any single relationship, there is little potential that such a false positive finding would cause a

misinterpretation of the overall findings or hypotheses.


CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS

Introduction

The church as an organization and community institution has the potential to be an

important provider of social services in the community, meeting the needs of children,

families, and adults who are too often forgotten or underserved by systems that frequently do

not understand their unique needs and concerns. Unfortunately, many congregations are

neither prepared nor organized to take advantage of the potential they do have to serve

others. The purpose of this study was to test how various organizational elements in a church

influence how a congregation organizes for ministry.

The study was designed to answer the principal research question, How do the

structural and cultural elements that make up the organizational profile of a church impact

how the congregation serves its community? Additional research questions examined the

influence of organizational capacity, church culture, and theological beliefs. On the basis of

the data, six hypotheses were tested in order to draw conclusions on what factors most impact

how church chooses to serve others.

Review of the Methodology

The study employed a Mixed-method approach that combined a qualitative analysis

of the data collected from interviews with the pastors and a quantitative analysis of lay

member responses to the questions presented on the Mission Orientation Scale. In addition,

some of the data from the pastor survey were coded to allow them to be incorporated in the

Mission Orientation Scale dataset, allowing statistical testing to be used to compare

information provided by pastors with the survey responses of their members.


The first section of the analysis examined the responses of pastors to interview

questions that covered church structure, member demographics, elements of organizational

capacity, and current local missions and service programming. The purpose of the analysis

was to discover trends and patterns in the responses that could suggest how each of the

interview components might impact the decisions churches make about how to organize to

serve the community. The interview process collected more data than could be incorporated

into this study, so the qualitative analysis focused on the characteristics of the pastors

interviewed, the structural profile of the church, theological orientation, and missional

preferences.

Quantitative analysis focused primarily on data provided through lay member

responses to the twenty-seven questions on the Mission Orientation Scale. This survey was

designed to test lay member preferences for mission and service, with an emphasis on what

factors might impact how their church served the community and what delivery models and

strategies would be most closely aligned with member values. Analysis of the data included

frequency distributions, the use of cross-tabular comparisons, and Chi-squared tests for

significance.

Qualitative Analysis: Interviews with Church Pastors

Data collection for the study began with interviews of the senior pastors of the twenty

congregations that agreed to participate. In two cases, interviews were conducted with

associate pastors who were assigned to represent the congregation. In one case, the senior

pastor was too ill to interview, and in the second instance, the associate pastor interviewed

was the staff member responsible for the missions and community outreach programs of the

church.


Interviews typically lasted for about an hour, though some of the interviews took as

long as two hours, depending on the level of detail that pastors went in to when they were

asked to respond to the open-ended questions.

Characteristics of Pastors Interviewed

During the construction of the sample for this study, care was taken to ensure that

there was as much variability in participating congregations as possible. Churches from a

wide range of traditions were recruited, with attention paid to many different elements of

church organization. Since the church’s pastor is usually the most visible representative of a

congregation, it is not surprising that there was a great deal of diversity among the clergy

interviewed as well.

Gender. Of the twenty clergy members interviewed, six were women and fourteen

were men. Of the six women interviewed, one served an independent Baptist congregation,

one served an independent church in the apostolic tradition, three were United Methodists,

and one was the delegate appointed by the pastor of the Assembly of God congregation. It is

important to note that five of the churches in the study were Missionary Baptist

congregations that do not normally permit the ordination of women as pastors of local

churches.

Tenure of pastorate. The tenure of pastors at each of the twenty churches varied

significantly. One of the congregations was a new church start, so the pastor had only been

with the church for about a year, while five of the pastors were able to claim pastorates of

over twenty years. The church polity that informed how pastors were assigned, appointed,

called or hired to serve their churches was quite different across the congregations as well.

Many of the churches used the call process, where the congregation essentially conducted an


executive search for their pastors, while others received their clergy through an appointment

process, where decisions on pastoral assignments were made by leadership at a higher

judicatory level.

Authority. A key characteristic of the pastors interviewed for the study was their

perception of authority in the church. During the interviews, each pastor was asked to

identify where the authority to make decisions concerning programming and ministry was

located in their church. Of all the questions asked during the interview process, this seemed

to be one of the easiest for pastors to answer, with each of the twenty having a very clear

understanding of how decisions were made in his or her congregation. Analysis of the

responses from each pastor indicated that decision-making authority in the church typically

falls into one of three categories:

Authority with Pastor. Ten of the pastors indicated that the final authority to make

decisions in the church rested with the senior pastor, and in most cases, the pastor was quite

emphatic when discussing his or her authority within the church. Authority in the church is

an important organizational element that impacts how a congregation organizes for ministry.

Clergy who claimed authority for themselves often reported the ability to make decisions

quickly as the most important reason why authority was reserved for the pastor. As one

pastor remarked, “If I had to wait for a committee to decide about something, we’d never get

anything done or meet any community needs.” All ten of the congregations where primary

authority resides with the pastor were from the Baptist-Pentecostal tradition.

Authority with Governing Board. Seven of the pastors indicated that decision-making

authority was reserved for the church board or formal governing body. Pastors coming from

traditions that assigned decision-making authority to lay members within the church were


just as convinced that the model used by their church or tradition was the right one. One

pastor essentially summarized the values behind this model of decision-making when she

commented, “The church has to be able to decide what it cares about and how it wants to live

out its call to ministry. I could decide for them, but then members won’t have any

commitment to the work.”

Authority as Combination of Pastor and Committee. The third model of decision-

making that was articulated by three of the pastors interviewed is probably more accurately

descriptive of what actually takes place in most churches than the other two. These clergy

indicated that even though the church has a process in place to engage lay members in

making decisions, usually through formal committees and other groups, the reality is that

pastors make most of the decisions, at least at the tactical, day-to-day level. As one pastor

said, “I know what the church wants to do. We talk about it all the time. But when something

needs to get done, I decide how we move forward. It has to be that way, or we’ll just stand

around and wonder what to do next.”

How decisions are made in the local church reflects its traditions, theology and

values. Ultimately, it will impact how churches choose to organize to the serve its

community.

Section One: Church Profile

The purpose of this study was to test how a congregation’s structure, organizational

capacity, and theological orientation combine to impact the decisions it makes about how it

will serve the community by developing and delivering social service programs that meet

defined needs. Interviews with pastors addressed the organizational characteristics of a

congregation, to include structure, capacity, and theological orientation.


Congregational information. The first section of the pastor interview addressed

characteristics of the church that are commonly identified in research that addresses

congregational development and church growth. The full range of questions can be seen in

section one, Church Profile, of Appendix A, which contains the complete interview form.

The data collected provided much insight into how congregations from very different

traditions are constituted. Analysis of these data will focus on a few of the most important

elements that are likely to have the greatest impact on questions related to the organizational

models churches use to develop and deliver services the community they feel called to serve.

Size of the church. Church size is the organizational characteristic that is probably

referred to most often when congregations are discussed. Denominations, congregations, and

members alike are typically very concerned about gaining new members, and the discipline

of Church Growth has emerged as an organizational movement that has captured a lot of

attention.

The first question asked of pastors in the interview was, “How many members does

the church have?” Any assumption by the researcher that this would be an easy question to

answer was eliminated very quickly when the first pastor interviewed responded, “Do you

want adult members, those who are on our roles through their baptism but haven’t been

confirmed, those who have been provisionally accepted into membership? What are you

looking for?”

Membership is a concept that varies widely across traditions, and even within

churches that belong to the same denomination; the notion of membership is often applied

inconsistently. Congregations do not count members in the same way, and the rights and

privileges of being a member are also very different, depending on the church someone


attends. In some traditions, the sacrament of baptism confers membership on a person, where

in other congregations, individuals seeking membership are required to participate in a new

member process that can be quite extensive. In this study, church membership ranged from a

new church start that had fifteen or twenty members to an established congregation with over

5,200 members on their roles.

Smaller congregations tend to find it easier to assign a number to their membership.

During one interview, the pastor of a very small congregation was not immediately sure what

the official membership number was, but she was able to make a determination by counting

families and individuals in her head. Another pastor of a very large congregation responded,

“I don’t know. We probably have 1,500 official members on our roles, but I think we serve

more like 3,000. We don’t pay much attention if someone is a member or not.”

Because of the wide differences in how congregations define membership, it became

clear that membership is a poor statistic to use when making comparisons between churches.

Other measures for church size that can be applied more consistently across churches are

needed.

Worship attendance.

A second measure of church size that pastors were asked to identify was worship

attendance. Attendance is a more efficacious measure of active church participation and less

likely to overstate the size of a church, which might occur if inactive members are kept on

church roles, which six of the pastors identified as a common occurrence in their own

tradition. In this study, worship attendance was defined as the number of persons who

attended the primary worship services of the church. Congregations that offered more than

one service on Sunday were able to count all attendees, though pastors were asked to exclude


mid-week worship services or special events, reducing the chance that individuals would be

counted twice.

Worship attendance is less ambiguous than membership, so pastors were able to

provide numbers that could be used to compare church size more accurately. The result of

this comparison shows a wide range of attendance, with the smallest weekly attendance being

reported as fifteen, and the largest at 2,300. Interestingly, while the use of worship attendance

instead of church membership as a measure of church size did not change which church was

the smallest and which was the largest, it did cause a reordering in the middle. Several

congregations that reported larger memberships subsequently reported smaller worship

attendance, which meant the argument could be made that they are in fact smaller churches.

It should be noted that worship attendance continues to be the measure of church

vitality that is most frequently expressed by church leadership. One pastor was particularly

excited about a recent increase in worship attendance, stating, “God is doing great things

here. We’ve seen our worship attendance increase by over twenty percent during the past

year.” In addition, when pastors talked about other churches in the community, the

benchmark they used most frequently to gauge congregational health was the number of

people in the pews on Sunday morning.

Church budget and finance. The church budget and finance section of the pastor

interview explored how churches managed their financial resources, where their resources

came from, and how the churches chose to spend their money.

It is important to note that church budgets are not merely records of past, present, and

future transactions. In many ways they are what Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners once


described as “moral documents” (Wallis, 1994). They reveal what the church values and

provide important insight into a congregation’s theology and beliefs.

The assumption that all churches have a budget was quickly dispelled when a pastor

responded to the question about the size of his church’s budget with the comment, “We don’t

have a budget. We let God decide how we spend our money.” When pressed a bit to think

about how much it cost to cover certain ongoing operational expenses of the church, he

indicated that the church treasurer took the Sunday offerings, decided what bills could be

paid that week, and spent whatever he had available to him.

A second pastor revealed a similar budgeting strategy at his church. In response to a

follow-up question that asked if he had a salary that had been approved by the church board,

he replied, “My salary is three Fridays and a Sunday.” This meant that compensation for his

pastoral services was the offering from three of the four Friday evening worship services

each month, and one Sunday offering.

At the other end of the spectrum, there were also churches that had very formal

budgeting processes and financial policies in place to track expenditures and revenue in great

detail. When asked about how budget and finance was handled at his church, the pastor of a

large mainline congregation pulled out a folder with a series of spreadsheets. They provided

information on current giving, how the receipt of gifts compared with the same time period

over the past five years, and anticipated revenue from pledges that were likely to be paid in

the last quarter of the current fiscal year.

An additional question was added to the interview, asking pastors to confirm whether

or not the church had a formal budget in place that had been adopted by the congregation or a

delegated board of church leaders. Sixteen of the twenty churches reported having a formally


adopted budget. Churches that did not have a formal budget were asked to estimate how

much money they spent in a year, which served as their substitute for a budget amount. All of

the congregations without budgets belonged to the Baptist-Pentecostal sub-group of

churches.

Churches manage their money in very different ways, and a range of factors impacts a

congregation’s relationship to money. The theological implications of budget and finance

became apparent very quickly, but this study was not properly equipped to delve too deeply

into how values and beliefs impacted a congregation’s capacity to raise, spend, and manage

money.

Size of church budgets. Like other descriptive variables in the study, the size of the

church budgets varied significantly across the participating churches. The smallest budget

belonged to an emerging Pentecostal church. The pastor estimated it to be no more than

$1,000 to $1,500 per year. The largest annual budget was slightly more than $5.1 million.

The median budget of the 20 churches was $242,500.

Sources of church revenue. For each church in the study, tithes and offerings from

members provided most of the revenue that the church received during the year. This was

expected, and is likely true of virtually every congregation in the country. However,

congregation also reported receiving revenue from sources other than tithes and offerings

from members. Table 6 provides an overview of the sources that churches rely on to provide

the financial resources they need to accomplish their missions.

Only one of the churches reported relying exclusively on tithes and offerings for their

church revenue, with 16 congregations having between two and four additional revenue

types. Of more interest, however, is the fact that so few congregations receive funding from


Table 6 Revenue Sources Revenue Source Current Year Previous Years Never Federal Government Grants 0 3 17 State Government Grants 1 3 16 Local Government Grants 2 6 12 Foundation Grants 2 10 8 Support from Denomination 2 6 12 Individual Donors (not members) 13 4 3 Businesses: Cash or In-Kind 10 5 5 Special Offerings 18 1 1 Fundraising Events 19 1 0 government or foundation sources. Despite attempts by government agencies to more fully

engage churches in the delivery of social services, as described in chapters one and two,

congregations in the sample were not receiving public funds to do their work. Nor was there

any strongly expressed desire to enter into the public funding process. None of the pastors

indicated any plans to actively seek government funding, citing burdensome regulation and

limitations for their hesitancy to apply for funds. Throughout the entire sample of churches in

the study, there were only three active government contracts in place, with one congregation

having two of them. Neither church receiving public funding anticipated a contract extension

when their current commitment ended.

Importantly, three of the participating congregations had specific provisions in their

church constitutions that prohibited them from receiving money from government sources.

One Baptist pastor summed up the feelings of all three when he stated, rather emphatically,

“We won’t take money from the government because then we couldn’t be the church – and

that is what God called us to be. Not a social service agency.” The refusal to take public

funds should not be construed as disinterest in meeting critical community needs or caring


for others. Rather, it highlights the importance that many of the churches place on

maintaining the integrity of their primary mission, which is to be a witness of Christ’s love in

the world.

Most of the revenue that churches raised beyond the tithes and offerings of members

was limited to taking special offerings to meet emerging or defined needs, and holding

special events to raise money for specific purposes. Again, the range of opinion was great.

One pastor noted that “We couldn’t survive as a church without our annual rummage sale”

while another replied that he refused to allow anything to be sold on church property,

because “I don’t want my church to become a den of thieves and money changers” – clearly

a reference to the story of Jesus chasing merchants and bankers out of the Temple in

Jerusalem.

Financial commitment of members. A final characteristic of the church related to

budget and finance is the commitment level of church members toward meeting the

congregation’s financial obligations. The measure used to gauge member commitment was

the percentage of members who tithed to the church, those that contributed at least 10% of

their income to the congregation. The range of responses was about as broad as it could be,

with one pastor reporting that he did not believe any of his members tithed, to a congregation

that tracked tithing and reported with confidence that 95% of its household met the

benchmark to be considered tithers.

Some of the pastors were clearly very comfortable asking their church members to

contribute generously to the church, while others indicated that asking for money was

something that had to be done very carefully in their own churches. This provided additional

support for the contention that church finance is very much connected to values, beliefs and


theology. One pastor, who was perhaps the most enthusiastic when it came to soliciting

contributions from his members, revealed one theological connection when he stated, “God

said we will be blessed if we trust Him enough to give back what He have given us. If I don’t

ask my church to give, I’m denying them a chance to be blessed.” Other traditions see giving

as a more personal matter that is between the individual and God. A pastor summed up this

position well when she stated, “We leave it up to each person to decide what they can afford

to give. We trust that they will make a faithful decision.”

Church theology: beliefs and values. One of the purposes of this study was to test the

relationship between what a congregation believes and how it chooses to serve its

community. Two separate measures of congregational beliefs and values were incorporated

into the pastor interview. The first, which will be referred to a theological orientation, asked

pastors to identify where the congregation aligned along a continuum with four responses, 1)

conservative, 2) tends toward conservative, 3) tends toward liberal, and 4) liberal.

The second measure of beliefs and values was the missional orientation of the church,

which was a way to identify how the congregation understood its mission, purpose, and

ministry emphasis. Pastors were asked to choose the descriptor that best defined how the

congregation understood the mission and purpose of the church. The choices included 1)

redemption, 3) compassion, and 4) justice.

Theological orientation. When asked to choose where on the theological continuum

most of the members of the church would fall, pastors were typically able to respond quickly

and with a high level of confidence that they were accurately representing the beliefs of their

members. This was especially true of the pastors who chose either conservative or liberal,

which were the two choices on the two opposite ends of the continuum. There was more


evidence of certainty at the extremes then there was in the middle, with pastors who chose

tends toward conservative and tends toward liberal having to think a bit more carefully about

their choice. Typically, pastors exhibited very strong preferences for the theological category

that would be used to describe their church, often assigning assumed or perceived values to

their choice. A pastor choosing to describe his congregation as conservative did so proudly,

proclaiming, “We are a conservative, evangelical, Bible-believing church – and we make no

apologies for it.”

Some of the pastors interviewed expressed discomfort with the categories, claiming

that they did not like to label congregations, because it had a tendency to separate churches

from one another. One pastor exclaimed, “We have to stop defining ourselves in ways that

highlight our differences.” He went on to acknowledge that churches were different, and that

the differences did matter in many ways.

Table 7 shows the distribution of responses given by pastors to the question on the

theological orientation of their congregation and its members. Two sub-groups of the church

sample were introduced to see how the responses were distributed by denomination or

tradition. The two sub-groups included a Baptist-Pentecostal group with eleven

congregations and a mainline Protestant group with nine churches represented.

As Table 7 indicates, fourteen of the churches in the sample were identified by the

pastors as having a conservative or tends toward conservative theological orientation, with

six self-identified as tends to liberal or liberal. It is interesting to note that all of the Baptist-

Pentecostal congregations were aligned on the conservative side of the continuum, with

72.7% defined as conservative. There was slightly more variance among mainline Protestant


congregations, but eight of the nine churches in these traditions chose the middle categories

of tends toward conservative and tends toward liberal.

Table 7 Theological Orientation of Participant Churches Baptist-Pentecostal Protestant Total-Combined Theological Orientation N % N % N % Conservative 8 40.0% 0 0.0% 8 40.0% Tends toward Conservative 3 15.0% 3 15.0% 6 30.0% Tends toward Liberal 0 0.0% 5 25.0% 5 25.0% Liberal 0 0.0% 1 5.0% 1 5.0% Total 11 55.0% 9 45.0% 20 100.0% The theological orientation of a congregation, as defined by the pastor, was probably

the most important independent variable in this study. It was used to test multiple hypotheses,

and was incorporated into the data set that was created to analyze the survey responses of lay

members on the Mission Orientation Scale. Due to the small number of pastors choosing the

liberal descriptor for their church, a variable was constructed that combined the conservative

and tends toward conservative descriptors into one category labeled conservative, and the

tends toward liberal and liberal descriptors into a category labeled liberal.

Missional orientation. Missional orientation was a second measure of a congregation

claimed to believe about itself, its purpose, its mission, and the importance of ministry in the

community. As was the case with theological orientation, pastors had very little difficulty

responding to the question, “Which of these terms best describes what your church sees as

the core of its mission to the community – redemption, compassion, or justice?” Table 8

provides an overview of pastor’s responses, breaking them down into the same two church

sub-groups that were used when describing theological orientation.


A two-cell iteration of Missional Orientation was created by combining the categories

of compassion and justice into a single category labeled service. The rationale behind this

was that congregations that understood their core mission to be either compassion or justice

emphasized service to the community in ways that were different from those churches that

were redemptive in purpose and mission.

Table 8 Missional Orientation of Participating Churches MISSONAL ORIENTATION Redemption Compassion Justice Church Sub-Group N % N % N % Baptist-Pentecostal 7 63.6% 4 36.4% 0 0.0% Mainline Protestant 0 0.0% 7 77.8% 2 22.2% Combined Total 7 35.0% 11 55.0% 2 10.0% One interesting theme that emerged was that pastors and congregations claiming

redemption as their core missional purpose tended to do so enthusiastically. Pastors from

redemptive congregations acknowledged that saving souls and introducing people to a

personal relationship with Christ was the primary mission of the church and the necessary

focus of their efforts. For each of the seven redemptive congregations, there was no question

about what the church should be doing first.

This was not necessarily the case for pastors who chose compassion as descriptive of

the core mission of their church. As one pastor noted, compassion is a word that has taken on

some political baggage in recent years, becoming analogous with providing resources to

people in ways that allow them to continue to be dependent on others. In these circles, justice

has emerged as the favored emphasis of a church’s missional responses, encouraging

congregations to work for systems change through political advocacy and activism. The


pastor of a small, liberal Mainline Protestant church reluctantly selected compassion as the

word that best described the core mission of the congregation, adding that, “I guess I have to

choose compassion. That’s where we’re really at right now. But we really want to be a justice

church.”

Relationship between Theological and Missional Orientations. A review of the

distributions shown in Table 7 and Table 8 show similar dispersion patterns, suggesting a

relationship between the Theological and Missional Orientations of a congregation. This

would be expected, since they are both measures of what a church claims to believe and the

values it holds.

Section Two: Organizational Capacity

The second part of the interview asked pastors to assess the current organizational

capacity of their congregations, using a modified version of the McKinsey Capacity

Assessment Grid. Twenty-three organizational capacity elements with particular relevance

for churches that were either developing or delivering social service programs to the

community were included in the interview. The researcher asked the pastor to assess the

current level capacity for each of the elements using a three-point scale. The options were, 1)

Yes, the element in currently in place, 2) The element is somewhat developed, and 3) No, the

element is currently absent.

The McKinsey Capacity Grid is more accurate if an experienced organizational

development consultant works closely with an organization to examine each element

individually. The instrument can also be used effectively as a strategic planning tool,

providing structure for planning teams to collaboratively assess an organizations capacity.


The context of this study did not permit such an in-depth analysis, so the data collected on

church capacity is best described as the pastor’s best estimate.

Table 9 provides an overview of the responses provided by pastors to each of the

twenty-three organizational capacity elements included in the interview. Qualitative analysis

of the distribution of responses, as well as analysis of responses to the open-ended questions

associated with the section on organizational capacity suggest that there are four key issues

that influence how a congregation develops the capacity it needs to be an effective provider

of critically needed community services. These key issues are best described as, 1)

Congregational capacity, 2) Strategic capacity, 3) Operational capacity, and 4) Isomorphic

influences on capacity perception.

Congregational capacity. Churches may have a long and storied history of providing

service to the community, meeting the needs of those who are poor, suffering, and

marginalized. Delivering social services is secondary to the primary mission of most

churches, which is to be a worshipping community of faith that provides an opportunity for

people to grow in faith and strengthen their discipleship. While each of the twenty

participating congregations live out this primary mission in very different ways, there was a

strong consensus that the church is not a social service agency, or even a community-based

organization. Rather, it is a unique institution that has accountabilities and responsibilities

that are determined by its values, beliefs, and theology. As one pastor commented, “We are

here to serve God. We serve the community because that is what Jesus tells us to do.” The

connection between what a congregation values and how it relates to the community is

strong, and was clearly articulated in most of the pastor interviews. Pastors that self-

identified their congregations as conservative or redemptive in emphasis made this


connection more explicitly religious than those who served liberal churches, who tended to

use the more humanistic language of compassion and justice to describe their service

motivations. The pastor of a liberal congregation described the church’s motivation to serve

others in this way, “We care about people. We try to meet the needs of others because

everyone deserves equal access to the good things the community has to offer.”

The implication for organizational development in churches and the organizing

decisions they make is that most churches organize themselves to worship, teach, preach, and

meet the explicitly religious needs of their members. Churches seem to have the

organizational capacity in place that they need to meet the needs of the congregation and

adequately support traditional church goals. Having the capacity to worship, preach, and

teach well does not necessarily translate into the ability to develop and deliver programs with

more secular outcomes. For example, during the interview one pastor commented on the

strength and effectiveness of the church’s Sunday school and Vacation Bible School, then

later lamented that the church had discontinued an after-school tutoring program because

they were unable to achieve the outcomes expected of the foundation that funded the

program. In short, the elements of organizational capacity that combine to create a strong

congregation capable of fulfilling its traditional mission are often different than what it will

take to become a strong provider of community services.

Strategic capacity. A common thread among churches participating in the study was

that each of them had engaged in the process of defining their vision, mission, and goals

through an intentional planning process. As Table 9 shows, nineteen of the twenty churches

had a mission statement in place, ostensibly for the purpose of guiding the ministry of the

church. Even the one church that did not was in the process of creating a new vision and


mission statement to replace one that had become, “…somewhat obsolete.”

Churches appear to be willing to invest the time needed to attend to big-picture

planning elements like mission and vision statements, even when the value of having such a

statement is unclear, even to pastors. As one pastor stated when asked if the church had a

mission statement, “Oh, yeah. We had to have one of those. The chair of our church board

made sure of that!” Fifteen of the twenty pastors were able to provide a copy of the church

mission statement, or directed the researcher to a website where it could be found.

Table 9 Organizational Capacity in Participating Churches

Element Somewhat Element Organizational Capacity Element in Place Developed is Absent 1. Mission statement 19 1 0 2. Clearly understood mission 13 6 1 3. Defined goals 9 11 0 4. Regular planning process 14 6 0 5. Defined plan to reach goals 9 9 2 6. Resource development strategy 8 6 7. Definition of success 9 9 2 8. Achievable, measurable program goals 7 6 7 9. Data collection process 5 4 11 10. Confidence in accuracy of program data 11 6 3 11. Sufficient staff in place to meet goals 6 5 9 12. Staff is appropriately educated 14 5 1 13. Staff is formally evaluated 8 2 10 14. Mission programs have own budgets 8 5 7 15. Regular financial statements 14 2 4 16. Defined finance policies in place 16 3 1 17. Adequate equipment and technology 8 7 5 18. Clear delineation of authority 14 6 0 19. Adequate space and facilities 13 4 3 20. Commonly held church culture 17 2 1 21. Programs are consistent with church values 15 4 1 22. Church is representative of the community 11 8 1 23. Strong collaborations and partnerships 13 4 3 Total for all Capacity Elements 261 121 78


The mission statements were very different from one another, reflecting a wide range

of theological positions, denominational traditions, and core values. In general, however, the

content of these mission statements support the earlier conclusion that churches organize

themselves for a core mission that focuses primarily – if not exclusively - on spiritual

development, discipleship, and transformation. Congregations understand that they exist to

“…glorify God”, “…introduce others to Jesus Christ”, “…serve as a source of inspiration for

new Christians”, “…serve as a beacon of hope”, and “…invite others into a saving

relationship with Jesus” – all phrases that come from church mission statements.

The implication is that congregations do have a strong tendency to think strategically

about the reasons they exist as an organization. When translate this into a sense of mission

and purpose, they typically understand their role in a traditional way. Most churches

understand themselves strategically as institutions charged with the task of sharing God’s

love with the community, through worship, education and outreach.

Operational capacity. Even though most churches appear to have taken the time to

address strategic organizational elements through intentional planning that produces mission

statements, goals, and outcomes, they are less attendant to the elements of organizational

capacity that are operational in nature. For example, most congregations may have developed

goals for their service programs, all twenty pastors indicated that defined goals were at least

somewhat developed for their programs, but fewer than half reported that they had data

collection processes in place that would enable them to gather the information needed to

make decisions about programming. Churches may have at least a rudimentary plan for how

they will reach their goals, as eighteen of the twenty pastors indicated, but they are less clear

about how to put that plan into motion. When asked to expand comment on the most


significant challenges his church faced when they tried to develop and deliver services to the

community, a pastor remarked, “We know what we want to do, what we want to see get

done. We don’t always know how to do what needs to be done to be successful.”

The ability to think broadly and strategically and the ability to imagine what might be

possible are skills that are present in many congregations. The ability to translate that vision

into an operational plan that addresses the many details required to ensure that the vision is

reached is a challenge that many of the churches in the study faced on a regular basis. One

pastor expressed with obvious frustration, “There are always plenty of people who can tell us

what the problem is, and tell us what we need to do to fix it. There just aren’t enough

members who will commit to the long haul.” Another pastor echoed this sentiment, “We

don’t have enough people in the church who are willing to follow through when we make our

big plans. So people get tired.”

Isomorphic influence on capacity perception. One observation made by the

researcher during the interviews was that organizational capacity appeared to be a highly

subjective concept when pastors were given the opportunity to self-identify the level of

capacity their church had in each of the twenty-three elements tested. This became evident

early in the study when the pastor of a very small congregation that had few formal

organizational systems in place assessed her church’s capacity much higher than the pastor of

one of the largest churches, who focused his attention on areas of concern that had been

identified by congregational leadership.

As a result, an additional question was added to the pastor interview for future

conversations, with a follow-up call to the three pastors who had already completed their

interviews. This question asked pastors to describe the leadership of their church, to include


where people worked, how long they had been with the congregation, and what levels of

education leaders had. The purpose of this additional question was to examine the claim

made by Stout and Commode (1998) that churches have a tendency to organize themselves in

ways that mimic the other important institutions and organizations that influence the lives of

their members. The question becomes, do the other institutions that church members are

associated with influence their expectations of how the church should be organized? If Stout

and Commode (1998) were correct, it would be reasonable to assume that churches with

members who have planning, assessment, and management skills would have different

organizational expectations than congregation with members who have less management or

administrative experience.

The implication here is that the churches and church leadership view the issue of

organizational capacity in ways that are likely influenced by a wide range of factors, some of

which have little to do with the actual organizational strength of the church. Without an

objective, third-party assessment of each congregation’s capacity to compare with the

pastor’s responses, it is difficult to comment on how these factors might influence a

congregation’s view of its own capacity. A subjective analysis by the researcher suggests that

churches whose leadership has less experience in strategic and operational planning are more

likely to identify themselves as a high capacity congregation than churches who have leaders

who have similar experiences in other settings to compare with.

Summary. Organizational capacity is a concept that has significant implications for

churches that are interested in offering services to the community, particularly if they would

like to use financial resources acquired from units of local government, private foundations,

or corporations. This study suggests that the processes and assessment instruments used to


make determinations about an organization’s capacity may not be appropriate for use with

churches without significant modifications.

Section Three: Community Service and Local Missions

The final section of the interview with pastors took a careful look at the programs and

services that were currently being provided by the church to meet community needs. Fifty-

two services most commonly provided by churches were listed on the interview form, and

the researcher read the list to each pastor, asking him or her to identify which of the services

the congregation were already being provided by the congregation. For services identified by

the pastor, a series of additional questions were asked related to the delivery model used to

provide the service, the population that benefited from the service, and the number of

volunteers the church typically mobilized to serve the community through that program.

Data collection challenge in research design. The initial research design had

anticipated gathering information about program budgets and the number of individuals

served by each program or service. It was quickly apparent, however, that this information

was not readily accessible by the majority of the pastors. In most of the churches, mission

programs were not budgeted separately, at least not in ways that made it easy to determine

how much money had been spent for a particular service. In those cases where funds for local

missions programming were segregated from the general church budget, they were usually

part of a larger, integrated missions fund that served all of the church’s service programs.

Consistent with the findings reported in the section on organizational capacity,

pastors reported that collecting the information needed to report on the number of people

served and how many volunteers were involved was a difficult challenge. Very few of the

churches had good data collection processes in place, and those who had attempted to


coordinate their information gathering found it difficult to maintain consistency over time.

As one pastor reported, “We rely on volunteers to do the work, and they don’t care that much

about counting how many people they served. And since they’re volunteers, we don’t have

too much leverage to make them do it.”

Emergency services. By far, the services that were most frequently provided by

churches fell into the emergency services category. Table 10 provides a list of the eight

services that were defined as emergency assistance along with the number of congregations

providing those services. Seven of the eight services were provided by at least half of the

churches. Congregations invested a significant amount of time and resource to meet the

immediate needs of people who come to the church looking for help.

Table 10 Churches Providing Emergency Services Emergency Service N % Food Shelf 14 70.0% Soup Kitchen 13 65.0% Food Vouchers 12 60.0% Clothing Closet 5 25.0% Rent Assistance 12 60.0% Utilities Assistance 13 65.0% Medical Bills 10 50.0% Bus Cards 13 65.0% Gas Cards 13 65.0% While the need for these services was obvious to most of the pastors, there was a

general consensus that meeting the immediate needs of the community drained resources,

both financial and volunteer, that the church would have preferred to use for other purposes.

As one pastor lamented, “So many really needy people show up looking for help. We don’t

have time to do what we’d really like to do. We don’t have the money to support


programming for young people, which is what we’d really like to do.”

Several pastors cited the economic crisis that began in 2008 as the reason their

churches have had to focus so heavily on emergency assistance. “People are losing their

homes,” commented the pastor of an inner city church, “and we can’t help everyone. It’s

really painful and very frustrating.” Pastors reported an increase in walk-in traffic at the

church, as members of the community sought assistance wherever it might be found. “People

come to the church because they’ve used up their visits to the food shelf,” explained a pastor.

“You have to set new priorities when people aren’t eating.”

This trend was not limited to congregations serving low-income communities. The

mission pastor of a large congregation in an affluent suburban community indicated that the

church was providing emergency assistance to its own members for the first time in recent

memory. “We have members who have lost good jobs, and find that they can’t pay their

mortgages. And that can be pretty hard to handle. Some of our members have pretty big

mortgage payments.”

Churches used different service models to provide emergency services to the

community. Table 11 shows how service models are distributed across each of the eight

emergency services on the interview.

The delivery of emergency services typically involves the distribution of resources to

people in need, and that is something that churches do pretty well. Though some

congregations have chosen to partner with other community-based organizations to meet

immediate community needs, most of the emergency needs are met in-house, either through a

formal church program, a pastor-led service, or a member-led initiative. Even the emergency


services delivered through a separately incorporated 501(c)(3) organization are usually

directly connected with the ministry of the local church.

Table 11 Emergency Assistance: Service Models Used Service Delivery Model Used

Church Pastor Member Emergency Service Program Led Led Partners 501c3 Food Shelf 3 0 4 7 0 Soup Kitchen 4 0 1 5 0 Food Vouchers 6 3 2 1 0 Clothing Closet 2 0 2 0 1 Rent Assistance 3 6 1 1 1 Utilities Assistance 2 5 2 3 1 Medical Bills 3 3 1 3 0 Bus Cards 6 3 1 1 2 Gas Cards 6 3 1 1 3 Total 35 23 15 22 9

Nearly half of the pastors interviewed identified meeting the needs of members as an

emerging trend in the delivery of emergency assistance through the church. This is

particularly true for the mainline Protestant congregations that have traditionally been called

upon to serve non-members with emergency assistance needs. This has been an

uncomfortable transition for some churches. A pastor articulated this when he commented,

“More of our own members are in financial trouble. It’s hard to justify using resources to

meet the needs of others when your own people are suffering.”

Table 12 shows how emergency services are distributed by preferred delivery model.

Despite the fact that an increasing number of their own members are in need of emergency

assistance, pastors indicate that most of their emergency services are available primarily to

persons in the community, or to both the community and church members.


Table 12 Emergency Assistance: Who is served by the Program Emergency Service Members Community Both Food Shelf 0 12 2 Soup Kitchen 0 6 4 Food Vouchers 0 3 9 Clothing Closet 0 3 2 Rent Assistance 9 2 1 Utilities Assistance 6 5 2 Medical Bills 5 2 3 Bus Cards 0 6 7 Gas Cards 0 6 7 There are a few exceptions to the tendency to serve both church and community.

Congregations tend to serve their own members more frequently when the service involves

the distribution of cash. Rent, utilities, and assistance with medical bills seem to be reserved

for church members. One possible explanation is that many of the other services in the

emergency services list can be addressed through the use of in-kind donations. Congregations

appear to be more willing to share food and clothing with non-members than they are

disbursing cash.

Services with long-term outcomes. One of the arguments that has been used to

justify expanding the engagement of the faith community in the delivery of services is that

churches are able to develop long-term relationships with individuals and families,

encouraging them to make the changes in their lives that will lead to personal transformation

and positive change (DiIulio, 2007). Conversation with pastors indicates that churches do

provide services that meet long-term needs leading to personal transformation. Churches are

actively involved in mentoring youth, tutoring children, nurturing young parents, and helping

people overcome the addictions that threaten their health and wreak havoc in their lives.


Churches do have the ability to establish the ongoing relationships that are needed to support

children, youth, and families through the most difficult times, and pastors report that much of

this work is being done. These critically needed services are being provided in surprising

ways that often contradict the standard organizational strategies that are considered best

practices. Table 13 shows the distribution of services provided by churches that address

problems that require long-term solutions.

In contrast to the emergency assistance services described earlier, there were no

services in this group that were offered by as many as half of the churches. Pastors

acknowledged that their congregations were unable to serve some of the most pressing,

intractable needs in the community because the churches were so deeply involved in meeting

more immediate needs. When asked what he considered to be the most pressing problem

facing his community, one pastor remarked, “Less than 40% of African American kids in

Minneapolis graduate from high school. And we just don’t have the resources to do much

about it.”

Congregations may not be developing many programs designed to address the long-

term needs that seem to be preventing the community from moving forward in sustainable

ways. But that does not mean that the church has ignored these needs. Rather than develop a

new program that may be difficult to manage and expensive to administer, congregations are

using alternative organizational models to help individuals and families move forward in

positive ways. Table 14 provides insight into how churches are responding to community

needs, using approaches that do not require the development of a formally adopted church

program.


Table 13 Programs Addressing Long-Term Outcomes Service Provided N % Childcare Center 3 15.0% Drug and Alcohol Programs 8 40.0% Mental Health Programs 3 15.0% Tutoring 9 45.0% Summer School 6 30.0% Family Literacy 1 5.0% Career Readiness 4 20.0% GED Preparation 2 10.0% Adult Basic Education 2 10.0% Mentoring Children 9 45.0% Mentoring Youth 7 35.0% Gangs and Youth Violence 7 35.0% Teen Pregnancy Prevention 6 30.0% Youth Parenting Groups 5 25.0% Parenting Groups 7 35.0% Early Childhood Education 2 10.0% Marriage Enrichment 7 35.0% Community partnerships. Churches are looking for new ways to provide services that

address long-term outcomes, and one of the strategies they are using is to develop

partnerships with community-based organizations that have demonstrated the ability to

provide effective programs that deliver excellent outcomes. In general, church leadership

recognizes the difficulties and challenges associated with the development of a social service

program, and the these challenges can be especially marked when the development of close,

sustained, long-term relationships is required in order to meet the goals and outcomes of the

program. One pastor remarked, “We used to offer our own after-school tutoring program, but

we decided it would be more efficient to direct our resources to someone who really knows

how to get it done.”


Table 14 Service Delivery Models for Programs Addressing Long-Term Outcomes Church Pastor Member Community Service Provided Program Led Led Partnership Childcare Center 0 0 0 1 Drug and Alcohol Programs 0 2 1 4 Mental Health Programs 0 0 0 2 Tutoring 1 0 0 6 Summer School 1 0 0 3 Family Literacy 0 0 0 1 Career Readiness 1 0 3 0 GED Preparation 0 0 0 1 Adult Basic Education 0 0 0 1 Mentoring Children 1 0 8 0 Mentoring Youth 2 0 5 0 Gangs and Youth Violence 1 2 0 4 Teen Pregnancy Prevention 1 1 2 1 Youth Parenting Groups 1 1 1 1 Parenting Groups 1 0 5 1 Early Childhood Education 0 0 0 1 Marriage Enrichment 2 1 3 1 Total 12 7 28 28 While community partnerships are an important strategy in general, and a preferred

strategy for some, it is by no means a unanimous choice. Some of the churches in the sample

were uncomfortable delegating responsibility to meet community needs to nonprofit

organizations, especially those that did not operate from a faith-based perspective, or that

were run by staff that was not representative of the people being served. “They don’t know

what our kids need, and they don’t know what they’re going through,” commented one pastor

in defense of his church’s decision not to collaborate with certain nonprofit organizations.

“We need to step up and take care of our own.”

Member-led initiatives. Of particular interest in this study was the number of long-

term services that are being provided informally by lay members of the church. More than


twice as many services were delivered informally than were delivered using the formal

church program model. Even this done not tell the whole story, because in many

congregations, there are multiple lay members who are reaching out to meet specific needs,

even when their church does not have a formal way for them to become involved.

During the interview process many of the pastors initially failed to acknowledge or

recognize that a service was offered informally by a church member. The bias appeared to be

toward either the formal church program or community partnership models. It was easy for

pastors to see services delivered in these ways as real ministries of the church. It frequently

took some prompting for them to recall what lay members were doing to serve the

community. For some reason – or more likely, a wide variety of reasons – informal ministry

is more difficult to recognize than something that is controlled more closely by the church.

Summary of Qualitative Results

Overview

Twenty interviews with twenty pastors from twenty different churches produced a

wide range of interesting data that can be used to test the argument that there are structural

and cultural characteristics that impact how a church organizes itself to develop and deliver

social services to their community.

Key Findings

Churches are different from one another. While this may appear to be self-evident,

congregations are often lumped together in categories that describe them in inappropriate,

inaccurate, and unproductive ways. Data collected from the pastor interviews reveal some of

the ways that churches are different from one another, as well as how these differences

impact the decisions a congregation makes about serving its community.


Differences may be demographic in nature. Despite efforts by many churches and

denominations to promote inclusiveness and multi-culturalism, congregations still tend to be

internally homogenous, which leads to a wide range of ecclesial expressions. Churches are

usually communities of people who are similar to one another, and this similarity impacts

how churches worship, conduct their business, and most importantly for this study, organize

to reach the people in need it feels called to serve.

Churches are different from community-based organizations. The field of

organizational development typically categorizes organizations by the sector they work out

of. Churches are often included in the nonprofit sector with a wide range of organizations

that meet educational, philanthropic, and social service needs. This categorization does not

serve the church well. Even the oft-used distinction, faith-based organization, which

recognizes the importance of faith as an organizational motivator, is inadequate.

Churches are very specific, nonprofit, faith-based organizations that organize in

unique ways. Data from the section on organizational capacity provide evidence of this.

Traditional capacity categories that may be useful in assessing other nonprofit entities lack

descriptive power when applied to churches. Organizational capacity elements that indicate a

strong secular community-based nonprofit will not lead to the same conclusion if applied to a

congregation. The uniqueness of the church as an organizational type requires a different

assessment strategy that must include congregational culture, history, denominational

tradition, values, beliefs, and a myriad of other factors that have little if any impact on other

kinds of nonprofits.

Theology matters. Finally, the most important finding from the qualitative

component of this study was that theology matters. Beliefs and values are important to the


church and its members, and they impact how a congregation organizes itself for ministry

more than any other organizational characteristic or element of capacity. A church’s

collective theology frames the way it understands itself and the people it feels called to serve.

It informs how members of the church relate to the wider community, and it creates the space

that allows people to work together with others outside the church and members from within.

Conversations with pastors suggest that the assumption that churches can and will make the

adjustments needed to accommodate secular partnerships and funding requirements is ill

informed. Churches recognize their uniqueness, and are careful to claim the place of values

and beliefs in their structure.

The data suggests that the theological orientation of a congregation and its members

is the most important and influential organizational characteristic of a church. What the

membership of a church believes will tend to impact the decisions they make about social

service ministry more than any other organizational element.

Quantitative Analysis: Mission Orientation Scale (Lay Member Survey)

Overview

Lay members from fifteen congregations completed the Mission Orientation Scale, a

brief survey that asked participants to respond to twenty-seven statements that related to their

values, beliefs, and preferences for social service ministry through the church. A total of 258

surveys were returned for quantitative analysis using a variety of statistical tests including

frequency distributions, cross-tabular analysis, and Chi-squared tests for significance.

Analysis of the data focused on four specific areas of interest that were likely to

impact how a church organized itself for ministry. This section presents the results of the

analysis, which explored, 1) the missional orientation of lay members and how it related to


the collective theological and missional orientation of their church identified by their pastor

in his or her interview, 2) lay member preferences related to the use of collaboration and

community partnerships as a strategy for meeting the needs of others, 3) the relationship

between the individual lay member’s sense of call to ministry and the mission and ministry

of his or her church, and 4) an exploration of what lay members believe about the church’s

responsibility to be accountable to the wider community and public institutions.

Survey Process

Each pastor that was interviewed was asked to identify lay members of the church

who would be willing to complete the Mission Orientation Scale, a short, 27-question survey

that explored the beliefs, values, and preferences of lay members as they related to missions

and community service. Fifteen of the twenty pastors were able to provide completed surveys

from church members. Three of the five pastors who did not submit completed surveys were

non-responsive to repeated requests for surveys. The other two represented small, less

formally organized congregations that made it difficult to find venues for members to

complete the forms

A total of 258 surveys were returned from fifteen churches. The number completed

by a church ranged from 5 to 43, with an average of 17.2 and a median of 13. Pastors used a

variety of strategies to get members to complete the survey. Some chose to pass them out to

members, asking that they be returned within a set amount of time. Others used regular

church meetings, including the survey as part of the agenda. One church kept a stack of

surveys on the counter next to the church secretary, who invited members who came into the

office to fill one out.


Surveys that were returned by a pastor were coded in a way that enabled the

researcher to identify which church a survey came from. This made it possible to perform

statistical tests that compared lay member responses with the data provided by the pastor

during the interview. Information from the pastor interview data set was integrated into the

lay member survey data set by coding pastor responses and assigning the same value for that

variable to each church member’s survey.

Analysis of the data focused in on the values held by lay members that might

influence their service preferences and the delivery strategies the church could use to provide

these services. Findings were broken down into the following four categories, 1) Missional

orientation of church members, 2) Preference for collaboration and partnership, 3) Lay

member’s relationship to the ministry of the church, and 4) the church’s responsibility for

accountability.

A summary of responses is presented in Appendix C, with responses are broken out

by two church sub-groups (Baptist-Pentecostal and Mainline Protestant) as well as a

combined total of all responses to the survey.

Missional Orientation of Church Members

This study was designed to test the assumption that a congregation’s shared culture,

which is an integral part of its organizational structure, will influence how the church

organizes itself for mission and ministry to its community. Missional orientation is a key

element of shared church culture, and was used as a measure of what the congregation

claimed to believe.

Each pastor interviewed chose one of three terms, redemption, compassion, or justice,

as the descriptor that they believed most accurately portrayed how the members of their


congregation understood the mission and purpose of the church. Their choice was then

designated as the collective missional orientation of the congregation.

The Mission Orientation Scale examined missional orientation at the individual lay

member level. There were three questions on the survey that asked participants to choose one

of three answers, with each choice being aligned with one of the three orientations described

previously. The questions explored the concept of missional orientation from three

perspectives: the ministry of the church, the purpose of the church, and the mission of the

church.

The ministry of the church. Question 4 examined missional orientation from the

perspective of the church’s ministry. The question read, “Which of the following ministries is

most important?” Three responses were provided, with instructions to select the answer that

best fit their beliefs about them ministry of the church. The choices were:

1. Witnessing to those who do not know about the love of Jesus.

2. Providing food and shelter to those who are homeless.

3. Working to make sure that the government treats everyone fairly and with equity.

4. A missional orientation score was assigned based on this choice, with response 1

coded redemption, response 2 coded compassion, and response 3 coded justice. Table

15 shows the distribution of responses by church sub-group.

Lay members from churches aligned with Baptist or Pentecostal traditions tended to

identify redemption as the most important ministry of the church, with 84.0% of the

respondents indicating that witnessing to those who do not know about the love of Jesus was

most important. Interestingly, only 6.2% of those responding to the survey selected the

option aligned with a justice missional orientation.


Table 15

Distribution of Responses to Question 4 Baptist Mainline Total Pentecostal Protestant Combined Orientation N % N % N % Redemption 126 84.0% 64 59.2% 190 73.6% Compassion 20 13.3% 32 29.7% 52 20.2% Justice 4 2.7% 12 11.1% 16 6.2% Total 150 100.0% 108 100.0% 258 100.0% The distribution of responses suggested a relationship between the denomination or

tradition of the church a lay member attended and his or her missional preference. A Chi-

squared test was performed to test this relationship, returning the result X2(2) = 20.712, p =

.000, indicating a statistically significant relationship between denomination or tradition and

missional orientation that is presented from a church ministry perspective.

Two additional Chi-squared tests were performed to see if the missional orientation

score assigned to lay members based on their choice of responses to question 4 was related to

the missional orientation or theological orientation of the church identified by the pastor.

Both tests returned statistically significant results, with the relationship between the answers

to question 4 and the pastor’s assessment of missional orientation returning the result X2(4) =

22.517, p = .000, and the test between question 4 and theological orientation test returning a

similar result, X2(4) = 32.897, p = .000.

In summary, when lay members are asked to identify the most important ministries of

the church, a large majority of them (73.6% overall) agree on the choice aligned with

redemption. Furthermore, the strength of this relationship increases for lay members who

belong to churches from Baptist or Pentecostal traditions, with the relationship between

missional orientation and church tradition being significant at the .000 level.


The purpose of the church. A similar series of tests were performed to test the

missional orientation of lay members using question 14, which asked respondents, “Which of

the following three words best describes the purpose of the church?” The choices were, 1)

Redemption, 2) Compassion, and 3) Justice.

Table 16 shows how lay members responded to question 14. The most notable

difference between the distribution of response for question 4 and question 14 is the

significant increase in the number of participants who selected compassion, with a

corresponding reduction in the number of redemption responses. When presented with a very

explicit choice, lay members identified compassion at a higher rate than when the missional

orientations are implied. A possible explanation may be that the term compassion carries

very positive connotations for people who belong to churches.

Despite significant changes in the distribution of responses, the relationship between

church tradition and missional orientation continued to be statistically significant. The Chi-

squared test examining this relationship returned the result, X2(2) = 7.835, p = .02.

Table 16 Distribution of Responses to Question 14 Baptist Mainline Total Pentecostal Protestant Combined Orientation N % N % N % Redemption 86 57.3% 44 40.7% 130 46.5% Compassion 60 40.0% 57 55.5% 117 45.3% Justice 4 2.7% 7 6.5% 11 4.2% Total 150 100.0% 108 100.0% 258 100.0% The strength of the relationship between a lay member’s missional orientation

and the collective missional and theological orientations identified by the pastor also


continued, with the pastor’s determination of the church’s missional orientation and the

church’s theological orientation being significant at the .000 level.

The mission of the church. The third question on the survey examined missional

orientation from the perspective of the mission of the church, asking respondents, “Which of

the following three choices best describes the mission of the church?” The choices were:

1. Helping people establish a loving and personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

2. Reducing suffering in the world by providing people with the help they need.

3. Promoting justice and equality for everyone.

Using a process similar to the analysis of question 4 described above, response 1 was coded

as redemption, response 2 was coded as compassion, and response 3 was coded as justice.

Unlike question 4, which offered specific services or programs to choose from,

question 27 takes a broader perspective, describing each of the three missional orientations in

less tangible or immediately identifiable ways. The result was an even greater tendency on

the part of lay members to select the response aligned with a redemption missional

orientation. For lay members in the Baptist and Pentecostal traditions, 94.7% chose the

option, “Helping people establish a loving and personal relationship with Jesus Christ.” The

redemption choice was also very prevalent among Mainline Protestant members, with 68.5%

choosing redemption as their missional orientation. Table 17 provides an overview of the

distribution of responses.

The relationship between church tradition and missional orientation as identified by

question 27 was statistically significant, with the result of a Chi-squared test being X2(2) =

31.956, p = .000. The relationship between the missional orientation lay members as defined

by responses to question 27 and the collective missional and theological orientations defined


by the lay member’s pastor was statistically significant, with a significance level of .000 for

each test that was performed.

Table 17 Distribution of Responses to Question 27 Baptist Mainline Total Pentecostal Protestant Combined Orientation N % N % N % Redemption 142 94.7% 74 68.5% 216 83.7% Compassion 6 4.0% 20 18.5% 26 10.1% Justice 2 1.3% 14 13.0% 16 6.2% Total 150 100.0% 108 100.0% 258 100.0%

It is interesting to note that the in all three instances (questions 4, 14, and 27) the

changes in distribution occurred between the redemption and compassion categories. Lay

members who were inclined to choose the justice orientation for one question were likely to

be consistent across all three perspectives.

Summary of lay member missional orientation. Missional orientation is a proxy

measure for what a church values collectively and what lay members believe individually.

Three questions on the lay member survey tested lay member preferences for church

ministry, church purpose, and church mission, and found that each of the three were

significantly related to the missional orientation preference identified by their pastor. In

essence, results suggest that lay members tend to share the same missional orientation as

their pastor, and conversely, pastors typically define the beliefs of their members in ways that

are consistent with how members define themselves. It would appear that churches form

around commonly held core values and beliefs that inform the congregation’s preference for

mission and ministry.


Preference for Collaboration and Partnership

A second organizational issue that the Mission Orientation Scale designed to test lay

member preference for collaboration and community partnership as a model for delivering

social services to the community. As was reported earlier, data collected from pastors

indicated that churches are involved in a wide range of service-related partnerships with both

faith-based and secular nonprofit organizations. Interview data provided insight into what

churches do. The lay member survey was intended to show what lay member preferences

were in regard to collaboration and partnership as a strategy for providing service to the

community.

Four questions on the Mission Orientation Scale addressed two issues related to

collaboration and partnerships, 1) expertise and effectiveness, and 2) preference for

volunteering. Respondents responded to the statements using a five-point Likert Scale, with

the available responses being 1) strongly disagree, 2) disagree, 3) neutral, 4) agree, and 5)

strongly agree.

Expertise and effectiveness. Question 6 asked survey participants to consider

whether or not churches have sufficient expertise to be effective providers of social services,

or whether effectiveness was contingent upon establishing partnerships with organizations

that had specific competencies in place. The distribution of responses to the statement, “The

church can’t be effective in providing social services unless it partners with other

organizations that have more expertise” is shown in Table 18.

More than half (55%) of those responding expressed disagreement with the statement,

with an additional 17.8% responding neutrally. The data suggest that lay members are not

convinced that the church lacks the expertise needed to be effective service providers. This


tendency was stronger in Baptist and Pentecostal congregations where fewer than one in four

lay members agreed that developing partnerships with community organizations was

necessary. One point of interest is that Baptist-Pentecostal members were more than twice as

likely to strongly disagree with the statement than members from mainline Protestant

churches.

Table 18 Question 6: The church can’t be effective in providing social services unless it partners with other organizations that have more expertise. Baptist Mainline Total- Pentecostal Protestant Combined N % N % N % Strongly Disagree 30 20.0% 10 9.3% 40 15.1% Disagree 59 39.3% 45 41.7% 104 39.9% Neutral 27 18.0% 19 17.6% 46 17.8% Agree 25 16.7% 31 28.7% 56 21.7% Strongly Agree 9 6.0% 4 3.7% 13 5.5% A second question, number 22, examined the issue of effectiveness and expertise

from a slightly different perspective, asking participants to respond to the statement, “It

makes more sense for a congregation to support the work of organizations that are already

meeting the needs of others than to start its own programs.” Question 22 added value to the

conversation by asking lay members to consider whether local church control of a program or

service was important enough to require the allocation of church resources to develop a

program, even when a similar effort was already present in the community. The distribution

of responses, as seen in Table 19, suggested that church members were still more interested

in maintaining church-based programs and services, even if it might mean allocating new

church resources for these new initiatives.


Lay members who either strongly disagreed or disagreed with the statement,

indicating a preference for local church programs, outnumbered those who expressed a

preference for working with existing agencies by a margin of nearly two to one. Members of

the Baptist-Pentecostal church sub-group had a stronger preference for working internally

through the church than did those who belonged to the mainline Protestant sub-group.

Table 19 Question 22: It makes more sense for a congregation to support the work of organizations that are already meeting the needs of others than to start its own programs. Baptist Mainline Total- Pentecostal Protestant Combined N % N % N % Strongly Disagree 12 8.0% 0 0% 12 4.7% Disagree 56 37.3% 43 39.8% 99 38.4% Neutral 47 31.4% 32 29.6% 79 30.6% Agree 27 18.0% 30 27.8% 57 22.1% Strongly Agree 8 5.3% 3 2.8% 11 4.2% To summarize the discussion of lay member preferences related to the expertise and

effectiveness that working with outside organizations might bring to the service efforts of the

church, the tendency is for church members to prefer working with programs that are

developed by and offered through their congregation. While the argument can be made that

community-based organizations have more capacity to serve the community in certain ways,

the argument appears to be lost on many of those who responded to the survey.

Preference for volunteering. A second issue addressed by the study was a

consideration of where lay members prefer to allocate their volunteer time and personal

resources. One argument in favor of increased church involvement in the delivery of social

services is that churches have access to a large volunteer poor that could be used to staff

programs and services that meet community needs. Many of the of the more recent efforts by


the federal government to engage churches in the struggle to overcome poverty, to include

Charitable Choice and the Compassion Capital Fund, have been predicated on the

assumption that members of churches will volunteer more readily the other members of the

community, and will be committed to serving others. This study tests that argument by

examining lay member preferences related to volunteer service.

Question 9 examines this issue by asking survey participants to respond to the

statement, “I am more likely to volunteer for a church ministry than I am for a program

offered by a nonprofit organization, even if they meet the same need.” The results, listed in

Table 20, show that there is a strong preference on the part of church members to volunteer

for programs that are offered as a ministry through the church, rather than volunteering

through a community organization, even when the needs that are met are similar. Lay

members report a preference for working within the church, as opposed to working with

outside agencies, by approximately a two to one margin. This tendency to prefer serving in-

house is consistent across both church sub-groups, as well as the overall combined total.

Table 20

Question 9: I am more likely to volunteer for a church ministry than I am for a program offered by a nonprofit organization, even if they meet the same need. Baptist Mainline Total- Pentecostal Protestant Combined N % N % N % Strongly Disagree 6 4.0% 5 4.6% 11 4.3% Disagree 37 24.7% 22 20.4% 59 22.9% Neutral 27 18.0% 19 17.6% 46 21.7% Agree 59 39.3% 50 46.3% 109 42.3% Strongly Agree 21 14.0% 12 11.1% 33 12.8% Relationship between collaborative and volunteer preferences. Two Chi-squared

tests were performed to measure the strength of the relationship between a lay members


preference for collaboration and community partnerships, and their preference for

volunteering through a church program as opposed to one provided by a community-based

organization.

The first test compared the responses to the statement in question 6, “The church

can’t be effective in providing social services unless it partners with other organizations that

have more expertise” with the statement in question 9, which read, “I am more likely to

volunteer for a church ministry than I am for a program offered by a nonprofit organization,

even if they meet the same need.” The result of this test was X2(16) = 48.585, p = .000. This

suggest that lay members who do not believe churches have to partner with community-

based organizations in order to serve others effectively are more likely to also prefer

volunteering with church ministries than serving with outside organizations.

A second Chi-squared test substituted responses to question 22, “It makes more sense

for a congregation to support the work of organizations that are already meeting the needs of

others than to start its own programs” for the responses to question 6. The results were

similar, with the strength of the relationship expressed as X2(16) = 35.441, p = .003. Lay

members who support starting new programs through the church even when alternative

efforts exist in the community, tend to prefer volunteering within the church.

Lay Member’s Relationship to the Ministry of the Church

A third organizational issue that explored by the Mission Orientation Scale was the

relationship between the individual interests and passions of lay members and the mission

and ministries that were offered through the church. The purpose of this thread of inquiry

was to determine the extent to which existing church ministries addressed the community

needs that lay members were most committed to and most passionate about.


Sense of Christian call and vocation. The first step in this exploration of call and

vocation involved identifying the level of commitment to the service ministries of the church.

Participants were asked to respond to the statement, “I feel a strong call on my life to do

something very specific for people in need” using the same five-point Likert Scale that was

described earlier. Key to this statement is the phrase, “for people in need,” which

differentiates it from a more general call to discipleship and inclusion in the church. The

purpose of the statement was to determine how strongly lay members felt called to meet the

needs of others.

Fully 73.6% of lay members responding to this question indicated that that they felt a

call to do something specific for people in need. Responses by church sub-group showed

similarity in the number of lay members who agreed with the statement; 46.0% of lay

members in the Baptist-Pentecostal group and 47.2% in the mainline Protestant group agreed

with the statement. What distinguished the groups from one another was the percentage of

Strongly Agree responses. More than twice as many Baptist-Pentecostal respondents strongly

agreed with the statement than did mainline Protestants, suggesting that Baptist-Pentecostal

members may feel their call to serve others more intensely than do mainline Protestants.

Table 21 Question 13: I feel a strong call on my life to do something very specific for people in need. Baptist Mainline Total- Pentecostal Protestant Combined N % N % N % Strongly Disagree 3 2.0% 1 0.9% 4 1.6% Disagree 4 2.7% 12 11.1% 16 6.2% Neutral 21 14.0% 27 25.0% 48 18.6% Agree 69 46.0% 51 47.2% 120 46.5% Strongly Agree 53 35.3% 17 15.8% 70 27.1%


A Chi-squared test was performed to measure the strength of the relationship between

church sub-group and responses to question 13. The result was X2(4) = 19.188, p = .001. The

relationship is significant at the .001 level, indicating that church members from Baptist and

Pentecostal churches tend to report feeling a strong call to serve others at a higher level than

church members from mainline Protestant congregations.

Value placed on collective action. Earlier analysis in this study examined lay member preferences for collaboration and

partnership with community-based organizations and agencies. The results indicated a

preference to work within the church. Analysis of responses to question 11, which read, “It is

more important for the whole church to work together on something together than for me to

be able to serve a particular need that I have a passion for” was designed to test whether lay

members prefer to work in partnership with others in the church, or if their own sense of

personal call is more important to them.

Approximately 52% of respondents from churches in the Baptist-Pentecostal sub-

group agreed with the statement presented in question 11, as compared with 35.2% of those

in the mainline Protestant group. The distribution of responses suggested that there is a

stronger preference for collective ministry in Baptist-Pentecostal congregations, even when

ministry decisions made by the congregation were not closely with the individual member’s

sense of call. The opposite trend appears to be working in mainline Protestant churches,

where 52.8% of the survey participants disagreed with the statement, thereby expressing a

stronger preference to be engaged in ministry that meets community needs the member cares

most passionately about. Lay members for Baptist-Pentecostal churches have a tendency to

value working together with other members of their church above fulfilling their own


personal ministry preferences, whereas mainline Protestants appear to value mission

opportunities that are consistent with their own call to ministry above working together

within the church.

A Chi-squared test was performed to test the relationship between an individual’s

personal sense of God’s call (as identified in question 13) and whether that individual

preferred working with others in the church, even if the service did not align closely with his

or her own call. There was a statistically significant relationship between the responses for

both sub-groups and for the overall lay member sample.

Table 22 Question 11: It is more important for the whole church to work together on something than for me to be able to serve a particular need that I have a passion for. Baptist Mainline Total- Pentecostal Protestant Combined N % N % N % Strongly Disagree 4 2.7% 6 5.6% 10 3.9% Disagree 37 24.7% 51 47.2% 88 34.1% Neutral 30 20.0% 13 12.0% 43 16.6% Agree 52 34.6% 27 25.0% 79 30.6% Strongly Agree 27 18.0% 11 10.2% 38 14.8% The result for the Baptist-Pentecostal sub-group was X2(16) = 37.097, p = .002. Based

on how response were dispersed when a cross-tabular analysis was done, it appears that lay

members from Baptist or Pentecostal churches who have the strongest sense of call to serve

others are more likely to agree that working with others in the church is the most important

ministry consideration. In other words, for lay members in this sub-group, a strong sense of

call has a tendency to be expressed through greater participation in and commitment to

existing church ministries that are done collectively as a group.


The Chi-squared test for the mainline Protestant sub-group returned the result, X2(16)

= 24.451, p = .037, indicating that there is a statistically significant relationship between the

strength of a lay member’s personal sense of call and how they prefer to serve the

community. Interestingly, the direction of the relationship for mainline Protestants is

opposite of the relationship present in the Baptist-Pentecostal sub-group. Mainline

Protestants with a strong call to serve others in a specific way were more likely to disagree

with the statement in question 11 that it was more important for the church to work together

than for an individual to be able to serve in a capacity that was entirely consistent with his or

her call to ministry.

Availability of preferred ministry opportunities. The first two questions in this

thread of inquiry explored the relationship between a lay members call to ministry and the

impact that their call had on their preferences for serving others. A third question adds to the

discussion by asking participants to assess whether or not their church offers a program or

service that meets the needs in the community that they care most deeply about.

Table 23 shows how answers to this statement are distributed. What is most

immediately apparent is the similarity of response rates between the two church sub-groups

across each of the five possible responses. Regardless of denomination or tradition, most lay

members surveyed indicated that their church offered a ministry to the community that met

the needs they cared most passionately about.

This similarity of the distribution of responses across church sub-groups raised an

additional question that needed to be tested. Do lay members who believe that the whole

church needs to work together to meet needs belong to churches that offer ministries

consistent with their own personal sense of call? In other words, is there a relationship


between the satisfaction a person feels about the ministry of their church and the support they

express for working within existing church program structures?

Table 23 Question 15: My church offers a ministry to the community that meets the community need I am most passionate about. Baptist Mainline Total- Pentecostal Protestant Combined N % N % N % Strongly Disagree 4 2.7% 2 1.9% 6 2.3% Disagree 17 11.3% 17 15.7% 34 13.2% Neutral 39 26.0% 28 25.9% 67 26.0% Agree 66 44.0% 50 46.3% 116 45.0% Strongly Agree 24 16.0% 11 10.2% 35 13.5%

To test this question, a Chi-squared test was performed that compared the responses to

the following two statements:

1. It is more important for the whole church to work together on something together

than for me to be able to serve a particular need that I have a passion for.

(Question 11)

2. My church offers a ministry to the community that meets the community need I am

most passionate about. (Question 15)

The result of the test for the Baptist-Pentecostal sub-group was X2(16) = 40.139, p =

.001, indicating statistically significant relationship between questions 11 and 15. Within the

sub-group, lay members who belonged to churches that offered the ministries they were most

interested in were more likely to agree that it was important for the church to work together.

This tendency did not apply to the mainline Protestant sub-group. Using the same

Chi-squared test returned the non-significant result X2(16) = 16.965, p = .388.


Church’s Responsibility for Public Accountability

The fourth key issue included in the Mission Orientation Scale examined what lay

members believed about the church’s need to be accountable to the wider community for the

work they do. One of the struggles that many churches have had when they try to establish a

more public presence is that they are not used to the expectations that accompany the use of

public funds and resources.

Accountability to God. In question 3, survey participants were asked to respond to

the statement, “The church is only accountable to God for the work that it does to make the

world a better place” using a five-point Likert Scale. Responses varied by church sub-group,

with lay members from Baptist-Pentecostal traditions agreeing with the statement at a higher

rate than mainline Protestants. Of interest in the distribution is that within the Baptist-

Pentecostal sub-group, the number of respondents who disagreed with the statement (46.75)

was about equal to the number who agreed (42.0%). This relative parity did not translate over

into the mainline Protestant sub-group, where 63% disagreed and only 20.3% agreed that the

church was only accountable to God for its work.

Table 24

Question 3: The church is only accountable to God for the work that it does to make the world a better place. Baptist Mainline Total- Pentecostal Protestant Combined N % N % N % Strongly Disagree 32 21.3% 26 24.1% 58 22.5% Disagree 38 25.4% 42 38.9% 80 31.0% Neutral 17 11.3% 18 16.7% 35 13.6% Agree 34 22.7% 15 13.8% 49 19.0% Strongly Agree 29 19.3% 7 6.5% 36 13.9%


These results generated the assumption that conservative church traditions – such as

Baptist and Pentecostal – are less willing to be accountable to public institutions then more

liberal traditions, which would be represented more completely by mainline Protestant

congregations. To test this argument, two Chi-squared tests were performed.

The first test used the pastor-identified measure for theological orientation as the

independent variable. The result, X2(4) = 8.899, p = .064, failed to meet the .05 benchmark

for statistical significance, but did suggest that the relationship between theological

orientation and beliefs about accountability was tending towards significance.

The second test substituted the pastor-identified measure for missional orientation as

the dependent variable. The test result was X2(8) = 13.839, p = .086. The relationship

between missional orientation and beliefs about accountability did not reach the level

required for statistical significance, though like the previous test, it did show that the

relationship between missional orientation and beliefs about accountability was tending

toward significance.

Table 25 provided a different perspective on the issue of accountability by asking lay

members to indicate whether they believed the church should avoid engaging in ministry if it

could not share the gospel freely with those who were served. Since proselytizing is one of

the most critical and controversial issues related to church engagement in the delivery of

social services, lay member beliefs about the role and place of religion in a social service

program are an important element of the discussion. As Table 25 shows, between 40% and

50% of all church members surveyed believed that sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ was a

critical element of any social service program.


Table 25 Question 18: The church should not do a ministry to serve others unless it can openly share the gospel of Jesus Christ. Baptist Mainline Total- Pentecostal Protestant Combined N % N % N % Strongly Disagree 11 7.3% 14 12.9% 25 9.7% Disagree 46 30.7% 44 40.8% 90 34.9% Neutral 23 15.3% 14 12.9% 37 14.3% Agree 43 28.7% 29 26.9% 72 27.9% Strongly Agree 27 18.0% 7 6.5% 34 13.2% Summary of Quantitative Results

A total of 258 lay members from fifteen congregations completed surveys that

provided information about their preferences for mission and ministry in the church. Their

data was combined with information about their churches that was extracted from interviews

with pastors. The data were analyzed to test how lay member values and theology might

influence how they believed the church should be engaged in ministry to their community.

Analysis of the data targeted four areas of interest with particular relevance for the

development of organizational models that will enhance the ability of churches to effectively

serve the community.

Missional Orientation of Lay Members. Quantitative analysis of survey data

confirmed one of the conclusions reached during the analysis of interview data from pastors:

theology matters. Theology, understood in this context as a systematic collection of beliefs

about God and the nature of God, is a highly influential organizational characteristic, a piece

of shared culture that informs the work and direction of the church. The survey explored the

personal beliefs and values of lay members, then compared them to what the pastor of their


church claimed was the collective theological and missional orientation of their particular

congregation.

The level of agreement among lay members on the mission, purpose, and ministry of

the church was surprisingly high. Though there were some differences between churches

from different denominations and traditions, there was general agreement among lay

members that the church was primarily responsible for sharing the gospel and the good news

of Jesus Christ with the community. Even congregations that self-identified as liberal had a

preference for the redemptive ministry of the church rather than ministries of compassion and

justice.

In addition, comparisons between lay member responses on questions related to

missional orientation and their pastor’s assessment of the theological and missional

orientation of the church suggested that there is generally a high level of consistency between

what pastors and members of their church believe. This relationship is strongest among

conservative congregations. Pastors who identified themselves as liberal were less aligned

with their members than pastors who were more conservative.

In summary, theology matters, and it impacts the church and its ministry in a lot of

ways. Understanding what a congregation believes and why they believe what they do is an

essential step in the organizational development of the church.

Collaboration and Partnership. The second key issue addressed through survey

data was the use of community collaboration and partnerships as a model for delivering

social services. Frequently, it is assumed that the most effective and efficient way to serve

the community is to use a collaborative process that builds networks of providers that bring

their own strengths and resources to the process. It is also frequently assumed that the


church, by its very nature, is a natural collaborator that will prefer partnerships to working

alone. Neither of these assumptions was supported by the results.

Lay members believe that their churches have the ability and capacity to serve others

without the need to rely on the expertise of nonprofit agencies that have specific

programmatic competencies. They also appear to reject the assertion that congregations

should support the work of existing organizations, rather than starting their own internal

service initiatives. They prefer working within the church, rather than seeking out

opportunities to serve in other places.

Importance of Ministry through the Church. One interesting trend in the data

shows that there are substantial differences between churches that come from different

denominations and traditions. Analysis of survey data included the use of two church sub-

groups. Congregations from Baptist and Pentecostal congregations had distinctly different

preferences in many areas, as opposed to churches coming from mainline Protestant

denominations. One of the most important differences discovered was that Baptist-

Pentecostal lay members tended to value collective action that involved working with other

members of their church, while mainline Protestants were more willing to work on their own

or with a small group of like-minded individuals.

The differences between traditions that were identified take on an additional level of

importance because they may also point to differences between racial groups. All of the

Baptist-Pentecostal congregations were predominately African American, whereas eight of

the nine churches in the mainline Protestant sub-group were predominately White.

Integrating race as a variable in the study of the church brings a whole range of new

considerations to data analysis.


Accountability. If churches are to take on a more active role in addressing

community needs, the issue of public accountability must be dealt with effectively. Analysis

of data regarding lay member beliefs about where the church is accountable for its work

varied. Half of Baptist-Pentecostal church members expressed the opinion that the church

was responsible only to God. Less than twenty percent of mainline Protestants expressed the

same opinion.

Conclusion: Analysis of Hypotheses

This study began with the intention of examining six hypotheses that tested the

impact of church structure, organizational capacity, and theology on how a congregation

organizes to serve its community. Analysis of data from interviews with pastors and lay

member surveys produced varied conclusions about the hypotheses.

Table 26

Theological Orientation and Programs with Long-term Outcomes % of Programs with Long-term Outcomes 0-29% 30% or More Total Theological Orientation N N N Conservative 5 9 14 Liberal 6 0 6 Total 11 9 20 Hypothesis 1

The first hypothesis argues that conservative congregations are more likely to provide

services that emphasize personal transformation than churches that identify themselves as

liberal. Cross-tabular comparison of a congregation’s theological orientation and the

percentage of services it provides that address long-term outcomes indicate that conservative

churches are more likely to include a higher percentage of transformational services in their


program mix. In the case of Hypothesis 1, theology does matter, and it impacts what kinds of

services a church is most likely to provide. Hypothesis 1 is supported.

Hypothesis 2

Hypothesis 2 looks at service delivery from the opposite end of the theological

orientation continuum, suggesting that liberal congregations are more likely to develop

initiatives that address systems-change than congregations that are conservative. Using cross-

tabs to compare theological orientation and the number of systems-change initiatives a

congregation is engaged in shows little difference between liberal and conservative churches.

Table 27 shows that when the proxy measure for church theology is a pastor-defined

descriptor, Hypothesis 2 is not supported.

When the proxy measure for church theology comes from the lay member survey, the

result is quite different. Using responses to the three questions (4, 14, and 27) that examine

the missional orientation of lay members, three Chi-squared tests were performed to see if

there was a relationship between the theology of members and the number of advocacy

services provided.

Table 27

Theological Orientation and Advocacy Initiatives Advocacy as % of Total Services Provided <10% 10-25% >25% Theological Orientation N N N Conservative 6 5 3 Liberal 0 2 4 Total 6 7 7

In two of the three lay member measures of theological orientation, there is a

statistically significant relationship between theology and the likelihood that a church will


develop systems-change initiatives. Consequently, Hypothesis 2 is supported.

Table 28

Lay Member Theology and Church Advocacy Initiatives Question 4: Ministry of the Church X2(4) = 6.72, p = .152 Question 14: Purpose of the Church X2(4) = 17.71, p = .001 Question 27: Mission of the Church X2(4) = 28.38, p = .000 Hypothesis 3

Hypothesis 3 predicts that lower-income congregations are more likely to exhibit

characteristics of a sectarian church than congregations with more affluent members. This

hypothesis proved to be a difficult one to test, since traditional measures of sectarianism did

not apply to most of the congregations in the study. One of the key indicators of a sectarian

church would be a tendency or preference to withdraw from society, seeking out ways to

isolate the membership from the wider community. Indicators of sectarian isolation were

absent from conversations were pastors, most of whom expressed a strong desire to be even

more fully engaged with the community.

A second cofounding issue was related to the independent variable, which was

defined as church income. Three measures were used during the pastors interview, 1)

percentage of members who were low-income, 2) percentage of members who were

unemployed, and 3) percentage of members who received public assistance. These measures

proved to be more subjective than was anticipated, with pastors asking numerous clarifying

questions. It became clear in the interview that the baseline definition for the socio-

economics status of their members that clergy used to assess their congregations was not

consistent enough to enable valid comparisons between churches. Low-income means


something very different to the pastor of a wealthy suburban church than it does to the pastor

of an inner-city congregation filled with members who are used to struggling financially.

Analysis of Hypothesis 3 produced very mixed results, with only occasional hints that

congregations with lower-income memberships are more likely to exhibit sectarian

tendencies. Consequently, Hypothesis 3 is cannot be supported.

Hypothesis 4

Hypothesis 4 argues that programs that address immediate needs (i.e. food shelves,

clothing closets, emergency assistance) are more likely to be developed as formal church

programs than those that require the development of long-term relationships with the persons

being served.

A review of data from interviews with pastors shows that the most frequently

provided services are those that meet emergency needs. Of the 219 services identified as

delivered through the church, excluding those that were done through partnerships, ninety-

five (or 43.4%) met immediate need. When combined with services defined as meeting short-

term outcomes, the total reaches 148, or over 67%. Church leaders and members clearly

have a preference for offering services that meet immediate needs or short-term outcomes.

Table 29 shows how the services provided by churches are distributed by delivery

model. Only those models internal to the church (program, pastor-led service, and member-

led initiative) are included in this analysis.

The analysis of Hypothesis 4 provided insight into the kinds of services that churches

are most likely to provide using each of the three service delivery models that are internal to

the church. When churches make the decision to formally adopt and develop a church

program to meet a need, they are more likely to choose to deliver programs that address


immediate needs or short-term outcomes. Services that address long-term outcomes that

require more intensive relationships with clients and that promote personal transformation

and changes are less likely to be implemented as church programs. This analysis indicates

that Hypothesis 4 is supported.

Table 29

Distribution of Services by Service Delivery Model Service Type – By Outcome Delivery Model Short-Term Outcomes Long-Term Outcomes Church Program 65 83.3% 13 16.7% Pastor-led Service 24 54.5% 20 45.5% Member-led Initiative 59 60.8% 28 39.2% Hypothesis 5

This hypothesis was included in the study to test the impact that holding a leadership

position in the church had on a lay member’s preferences for mission and ministry in the

church. The argument made by the hypothesis is that lay members who function in leadership

capacities are more likely to choose formal church programs as their preferred service

delivery model. The assumption behind this hypothesis was that individuals who are elevated

to positions of leadership would be more supportive of the institutional church than those

who are less involved in the organization.

Data for this hypothesis was collected from lay members using the Mission

Orientation Scale. Participants were asked to check all leadership roles held from a list of

nine, and were given the opportunity to identify additional roles they held if they were not on

the survey form.

Two methodological challenges emerged during the survey process that made

analysis of Hypothesis 5 difficult. First, there appears to be no commonly held definition of


what a leadership role in the church really is. Lay members from churches in the Baptist-

Pentecostal tradition were more likely to write in additional leadership roles, but they often

identified functions that many mainline Protestants would not see as leadership. Some

examples of leadership functions that were written in include usher, praise dancer, greeter,

and drummer.

The inclusion of usher as a leadership role was particularly interesting. Membership

on the usher board in a Baptist or Pentecostal church carries a very different meaning than

being an usher at most mainline Protestant churches. Being an usher in a United Methodist

Church or Lutheran congregation usually involves passing out bulletins and taking up the

collection. Being an usher in a predominately African American congregation carries

responsibilities that are very different. The implication here is that church leadership is an

ambiguous concept that makes comparisons across congregations difficult.

The second challenge was related to how some of the churches selected lay members

to fill out the survey. Several pastors chose to distribute survey forms at regularly scheduled

committee meetings because it was the most convenient way to find willing participants. This

created a sampling issue for Hypothesis 5, since more church leaders were represented in the

survey than in the general church population.

To test the relationship between church leadership and preferred service delivery

models, a Chi-squared test was performed for each of the nine leadership roles on the survey,

as well as a test using the total number of leadership roles held as the independent variable.

In every case, the test failed to return a statistically significant result, indicating that there is

no relationship between the leadership roles held by a lay member and his or her preference

for the use of formal church programs as a service delivery model.


Hypothesis 6

The final hypothesis argues that congregation’s with smaller memberships are more

likely to use informal models (i.e. pastor-led services and member-led initiatives) to deliver

services to others. Three measures of church size (church membership, worship attendance,

and church budget) were used as the independent variable, and were compared with how

often and in what proportion the church used each service delivery. Using the three different

measures of church size described above, no support for the hypothesis was found. Church

size does relate significantly to the use of informal service delivery models.


CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Introduction

Purpose of the Study

Part of the church’s mission has always been to care for those in the community who are

most in need, and it has a long history of serving others in important ways. The present time

is no different, as the contemporary church struggles to respond to a new environment that

has increased expectations of what the church can and should do to help reduce poverty,

eliminate violence, and overcome oppression. The community wants more from the church,

and the church is often willing to step forward to fill the cracks that far too many children,

youth, and families continue to fall through every day.

The argument is made that for the church to be as effective as it can be in developing

and delivering social service ministry to the community, it has to be able to align its service

efforts with organizational models that are consistent with its structure, capacity, and

organizational culture. Congregations may be willing to invest themselves in new efforts to

serve the community, but too often they do so using strategies and methods that are

inappropriate for their particular setting and misaligned with the strengths and assets that

they bring to the process. To put it succinctly, the church is not as successful as it could be

because it operates in ways that mimic other kinds of organizations instead of being true to

what it really ought to be.

Overview of Results

This study tested several organizational elements associated with the church in order

to determine what factors were most important to congregations when they decided how to

organize for outreach and missions ministry. Data collected from pastors and lay members of


participating congregations provided important insights into how churches organize. First of

all, the results indicate that value and beliefs are the most important element of a church’s

organizational structure. Theology matters more than any other characteristic of the church

when congregations decide what to do and how to do it. Secondly, providing services

through the local church is preferred over work that is done through partnerships with

community-based organizations. Church members are committed to their church and

typically feel more comfortable working within their congregation. Finally, data from the

study also suggested that congregations are better at delivering services to the community

than they are at running formal social service programs. Many of the needs that

congregations met in the community were done using informal service delivery models that

did not always follow normal program structures.

The results of the study have significant implications for both church leaders and

those in secular leadership positions who would like to engage with congregations to meet

certain social service goals and outcomes. The most important is that the church needs to be

given sufficient latitude to develop and operate programs using methods and strategies that

are aligned with its particular assets and strengths. The church is a unique organizational type

that has more to offer than a pool of volunteers who are often expected to do the work for

free. The church can be a valuable problem-solving partner, but it will be most effective

when there is an authentic mutuality at work in the partnership.

Summary of the Study

The purpose of this study was to test the impact of a church’s organizational

structure, capacity, and theology on how it organized to serve the community. It provided a

framework for exploring what pastors and lay members believed about the church, what


values they brought with them to ministry, and what their preferences were related to the

organizational models their congregation used to organize for mission and ministry in the

community.

Twenty pastors were interviewed in order to establish baseline organizational profiles

of their congregations, concentrating on the elements of church structure, organizational

capacity, and current outreach programs offered by the church. A total of 258 lay members

were surveyed to determine what values and beliefs motivated them to be involved in

ministry through the church, as well as their preferred strategies and methods for offering

service to others.

Data were used to test six hypotheses that tested the relationship between church

characteristics and the nature of the church’s service ministry. Analysis of the data provided

support for three of the six hypotheses, with the following conclusions:

1. A church’s theological orientation is significantly related to the kinds of services it

offers through its mission ministries. Conservative congregations are more likely to

provide services that address long-term outcomes with goals related to personal

transformation.

2. Services that address immediate needs such as emergency assistance are more likely

to be delivered using formal church programs than services that require the

development of long-term relationships with clients.

3. Smaller churches are less likely to use formal church programs as their preferred

service delivery model.

The study provided insight into the ways that the missional orientation of the church impacts

the focus and operational strategies used to deliver services. A congregation’s collective


theology is the most influential variable in determining how the church responds to

community needs. The study also explored church preferences for collaboration and

partnership, concluding that even though most churches rely on partnerships with other

nonprofits to deliver at least some of their services, collaboration is not the preferred strategy

for many lay members. Church members are typically more interested in working within the

church to serve others, and are more likely to volunteer within the church then they are at

community-based organizations.

For many years, in many different places throughout the country, the church has

silently served as an important partner in the struggle to care for those in the community who

are most in need. It has fed the hungry, housed the homeless, cared for the sick, and walked

with those who struggle with addictions. It has taught children to read, provided

companionship to those who are lonely, and stood up for equality and justice. It has been a

place of refuge and encouragement for families who have nowhere else to turn, a first stop

for some and a last resort for many.

The church has done a lot in the past, and is doing much in the present. There are special

times in history, urgent times, when the old ways are no longer sufficient and something new

has to emerge to respond to the critical needs of the moment. The ancient Greeks understood

this, and their concept of kairos, or the critical time, has special relevance for the

contemporary church.

There are times in history when key institutions in the community are called upon to

assume a new role, to shoulder a greater share of the burden, and to do more to ensure that

everyone is treated with compassion, equity, and justice. There are times when being what

you were in the past is not enough for the future. And for the faith community, that time


seems to have come. Expectations of the church have increased as elected officials, business

leaders, foundations, activists, and the community at-large look to congregations to provide

the services that public institutions can no longer afford to offer. Sensing that a new place at

the public table may be opening up for them, pastors and other church leaders have embraced

this change, recognizing that increased expectations are an opportunity to further its own

mission to be a community of disciples committed to serving God by serving others.

This raises a series of critical questions. Are the new expectations of the church by

the community consistent with what congregations believe they can do? And furthermore, is

what the church believes about itself actually aligned with its gifts, strengths, assets, and

aspirations? We should always be somewhat wary of changing expectations. Expectations

that are not grounded in what is real lead to disappointment.

Summary of the Findings

Missional Alignment and Consistency

An analysis of the data gathered from the interview with pastors and lay member

surveys leads to the profoundly obvious conclusion that the church is most effective when

what it does is consistent with who it is. For congregations to be effective providers of social

service, they need to remember who they are and organize themselves to serve accordingly.

A related conclusion is that community-based organizations, foundations, and units of

government that want church participation in efforts to meet specific goals and outcome must

be willing to make the policy and operational adjustments needed to give the church

sufficient flexibility to live out their mission to serve others.

Frequently, churches allow themselves to be influenced by factors that prevent them

from achieving the missional alignment and consistency that is needed for them to develop


and deliver effective, efficient, and accountable programs that meet critical community

needs. The church is a unique organizational type with the ability to make a significant

impact in the places where congregations are located. However, their power and potential is

diluted when congregations make decisions based on what they believe they are expected to

do and operate in ways that mimic other providers of social services in the community.

The Church as an Organization

Key to the conversation about how congregations might organize themselves to serve

the community is a careful examination of what makes the church a unique organization,

distinctive from other nonprofits in the community that may claim similar service outcomes

and goals. The results of this study provide insight into what factors impact how a

congregation chooses to organize, and how they work together to define a church’s mission

and ministry.

The church is organized around its beliefs and values. This study provides solid

evidence for the argument that theology matters. Churches make decisions about what they

will do and how they will live out their collective mission together based on a common

culture and a shared set of beliefs. For example, the most consistent response provide by

pastors during the interview process came in the section on organizational capacity. When

asked comment on whether or not there was a commonly held church culture, as expressed

through history, rituals, traditions, and stories, every pastor indicated that his or her church

had a set of beliefs and values that influenced the decisions they made together. With one

notable exception, the foundation of the congregation’s core values was explicitly identified

as Christian faith and faithful discipleship. One pastor of a very liberal congregation used

language of faith to describe his congregation’s core values, but was careful to point out that


his church was intentionally interfaith in its perspective, and chose to use more inclusive

language to describe their beliefs.

Even more importantly, pastors tended closely with the gospel message that

proclaims the love of Jesus Christ. Interviews were structured in a way that focused

conversation on the social service ministry of the church, so the researcher assumed that

pastors would adopt less religious language to talk about the ministries of their church since

secular media has emphasized the importance of maintaining a clear church and state

separation when it comes to providing social services to the community. Pastors chose to talk

about their church’s work in the community as a response to God’s call, as a way of being

faithful to Jesus’ commandment to love one another, and as an act of discipleship. Though

their theological motivations may differ, it was clear that there was more at work in every

church than a sense of civic duty and a responsibility to care for the needs of others.

If religion and faith are prime movers for pastors, the same is also true for the lay

members of their churches. Survey responses to questions that addressed theological and

missional orientation show that congregations are composed of individual members who care

deeply about their faith and see sharing it with others as the primary mission and purpose of

the church. How deeply faith and belief is integrated into each church’s ministry to the

community varies broadly. Some churches bring the gospel to the forefront in very

intentional – and often intense – ways. As one pastor remarked, “Our ministry is all about

redemption and salvation. If people aren’t saved, what good is anything else we do?”

Contrast this with the approach of another church whose pastor said, “We live out our

Christian faith in visible ways. The people we serve know we’re Christians, but we let them

make up their own minds.”


Regardless of what forms their faith, most of the lay members surveyed believe that

the mission of the church is to share the love of Jesus with others in order to help them

establish a loving relationship with Christ. The implication is that the church sees itself

primarily as a vessel of God’s grace in the community and the keepers of an important story

that needs to be shared. This is the essence of what churches believe they are all about, and if

it is true that the church is most effective when what it does is consistent with who it is, then

setting asides its primary mission and purpose to meet the expectations of others is a poor

organizational choice. The church cannot be effective if it chooses to adopt someone else’s

mission statement.

The church is a particular organization. The study also provided support for the

contention that the church is a unique organizational type that finds a wide range of

expressions throughout the community. Each congregation is a particular community of faith

that has been called by God to follow a particular purpose.

In chapter three, the discussion of the church sample showed how diverse the

congregations really were. They were diverse in membership, worship attendance, budget,

member demographics, and church culture. Churches are unique, and as a result they have

organized themselves in many different ways. Using language that appears to lump all

congregations into a single ecclesial category may be convenient, but it does not serve the

church very well. Churches are different, but they do share one thing in common. Every

congregation in the sample articulated a strong belief that they have been called by God to

serve in the place where they have established themselves.

One observation made during the interviews was that pastors tended to be very aware

of the community that surrounded the church. They knew who their neighbors were and


understood what the problems and challenges they faced, and often spoke passionately about

how their church wanted to be present in the community and how they wanted to be part of

the solution to the problems people faced. While some of the pastors were a bit pessimistic

about the future of the community, they typically perceived the people in positive and

compassionate ways.

The church’s perception of the problems facing the people in their community did not

always translate into ministry that addressed those problems. Though churches were

generally good at identifying what was needed, they seemed to have trouble aligning their

service efforts with those needs. For example, even though more than a third of the pastors

suggested that the most pressing need in the community was the low high school graduation

rate of African American students, none of the churches had programs designed to help

students succeed.

A lack of available resources for ministry was the most frequently identified barrier to

meeting the goals the church had set for itself, often forcing churches to engage in ministries

that were not their highest priorities. One pastor echoed the comments of others when he

said, “There is so much we would like to do. We just can’t afford it. We don’t have the

resources we need.”

Churches tend to use their money to address immediate needs, with many of the

churches concentrating their efforts on providing food, clothing, shelter, and cash assistance

to families in need. While most of the pastors were unable to provide specific financial data

about how much was spent to provide emergency assistance, their informal estimates suggest

that food and cash assistance compromise at least 50% to 75% of the money spent for local

missions. Furthermore, the formal programs that churches develop tend to concentrate on


meeting immediate needs, even though many of the pastors expressed a desire to move away

from what some referred to as “band-aid” services to initiatives that empowered, encouraged,

and nurtured people.

To compensate for a shortage of resources, congregations looked for other ways to be

in service to the community. The strategy most commonly used to provide services when the

congregation lacked financial resources or program expertise was to establish partnerships

with community-based organizations that were doing similar work. Partnership models

included complex working collaborations, providing volunteers to work for the organization,

and financial support for programs. Other service delivery strategies employed by churches

included pastor-led programming and informal member-led initiatives. Discussions with

pastors about the informal, behind-the-scenes work that church members do was particularly

interesting, and will be discussed in greater detail later in this chapter.

The challenges churches face when they develop responses to critical community

needs lends support to the argument that congregations are better at providing services to the

community than they are running programs. Formal programs that churches might develop

require infrastructure and organizational systems that many churches have difficulty

providing. An emphasis on delivering services opens up the use of informal strategies that

are particularly amenable to small congregations with limited capacity. Reliance on formal

program structures to deliver services will necessarily limit what any congregation can do. A

shift to a service emphasis opens up more opportunities that may only be limited by the

interests and passions of the lay members who are serving.

The church is a gathered community. Up to this point, the unit of analysis

discussed has been the congregation. This section recognizes that every church is a


community of faith that is made up of individuals who have their own sense of call, mission,

and purpose that is not always completely aligned with what the congregation claims.

Data from lay members was collected using the Mission Orientation Scale, which

focused on beliefs, values, and preferences for ministry. When analyzed alongside the

church-specific data provided by pastors, insight was gained into how congregations should

organize for ministry that both meets the needs of the community and takes advantage of the

gifts for ministry that individual church members offer.

A key insight was provided by analysis of lay member responses to the statement, “I

feel a strong call on my life to do something very specific for people in need.” Nearly 80% of

those in the Baptist-Pentecostal group and 63% of those who were mainline Protestant

acknowledged feeling called to serve others. Individual lay members feel a strong call to

service, suggesting that church leaders have an opportunity to strengthen the church’s

ministry if they are able to find effective ways to engage people in doing what they feel

passionate about.

Lay members were also asked to respond to the statement, “It is more important for

the whole church to work together than for me to be able to serve a particular need that I

have a passion for.” This expanded the analysis by comparing the strength of an individual’s

sense of call with one preference for living out that call in ministry. The results have

significant implications for church leaders.

Respondents from Baptist and Pentecostal congregations tended to believe that it was

more important to be engaged in ministry with the whole church, even if it meant

subordinating their own call to ministry to the collective mission of the church. Mainline

Protestants tended t express the opposite preference, believing that it was more important for


individuals to attend to their own discipleship than it was to work together as a faith

community.

One possible explanation for the variance might be found in different understandings

of the concept of vocation. Mainline Protestant traditions were informed by reformers such as

Luther and Calvin, who believed that God created each person with gifts and talents that

were to be used in response to God’s gift of grace (Palmer, 2005). For people who have

grown up believing that God’s call demands a response using God’s gifts, there is a

particularly strong motivation to serve in ways that are aligned with one’s vocation.

A second explanation acknowledges the racial differences between the two church

sub-groups. All of the Baptist and Pentecostal congregations were predominately African

American, representing historical church traditions that have played particularly important

roles. The church is what kept the African American community together, providing services

that were often denied to them by public institutions. Consequently, in many communities,

maintaining the integrity of the church is more important than fulfilling individual spiritual

needs.

The implication is that mainline Protestant congregations need to be attentive to the

personal calls to ministry that their members feel. While they may not be able to provide

programs and opportunities within the church for every member, they may be able to play a

ministry coordination role, connecting their members with programs and services in the

community that address the specific needs that a person feels called to serve. It also suggests

that organizations in the community that are hoping to recruit volunteers from churches to

serve in their programs may have better luck approaching mainline congregations for help.


In contrast, Baptist and Pentecostal congregations are likely to have members who

will choose to work within the church. These members will support the programs and

ministries offered through the congregation even if they are not consistently aligned with

their own personal interests. While this is likely to ensure a more stable pool of volunteers

for church programming, it also places a greater responsibility on church leadership to find

ways to expand what it does so that it can include more of its members in ways that help

them feel like they have been faithful to God’s call to service and invitation to discipleship.

For organizations that want to partner with African American churches or churches from the

Baptist and Pentecostal traditions, it may be necessary for them to conceive of ways to

incorporate their program goals and outcomes into a ministry offered through the church.

A brief story illustrates some of the issues related to the individual’s call to ministry.

After completing her lay member survey during a mid-week Bible study, a woman

approached the researcher and asked, “Can I tell you about what God has called me to do?”

For the next twenty minutes, she described her dream to open a shelter for young

women who found themselves isolated from their families because they were either pregnant

or had just had a baby. Her vision was for a loving, surrogate home where a young mom

could learn how to be a good parent for her child.

It was a beautiful idea conceived by a compassionate woman who obviously wanted

to make a difference in the lives of those who were facing a painful and difficult situation.

She asked the researcher to comment on her vision, clearly wanting his help to raise money

so she could start the shelter. Despite the strength of her commitment and the depth of her

passion, it was clear that it was unlikely that she would be able to raise the necessary funds.

She had no experience managing a nonprofit organization and lacked the formal credentials


that are typically required to operate such a program. She knew what she wanted to do, but

knew nothing about what it would take to get where she wanted to be. She had a half-million

dollar mission in mind, but an empty pocketbook and equally empty bank account.

Despite the obvious barriers, she was convinced that God would eventually provide

what she needed. She would continue to be faithful to God’s call on her life, “…despite the

barriers the world might raise up.”

The church is part of a larger service network. There may have been a time when

the church operated with relative independence as it worked to meet the needs of people in

the community. The world is a much more complicated place in the twenty-first century and

there are very few problems that exist in isolation from other challenges and difficulties. The

result is an enormous service delivery industry that exists to meet the needs of people who

are suffering from something. In The Careless Society, John McKnight offers a scathing

critique of this monolithic system, suggesting that in many cities, low-income neighborhoods

have been transformed into “institutions without walls” (McKnight, 1995). Like it or not, the

church is part of a larger network of agencies and organizations that exists to provide

services.

Churches choose to be part of this broader network in many ways. Some seek out

funding from government or foundations so they can develop formal programs that imitate

what secular nonprofits are doing. The more likely strategy used by churches is to establish

partnerships with community-based nonprofits as a way to join in wider efforts to solve

problems.

The efficacy of partnerships and collaborations as a service delivery strategy is

assumed much of the time. Funders want organizations to work together and occasionally


require applicants for funding to demonstrate they are collaborating with others. It is also

frequently assumed that the church is a natural collaborator that will welcome the

opportunity to join with others to address critical community concerns.

These may be reasonable assumptions and an appropriate strategy when a network is

made up of agencies that are similar to one another, collaboration may not work well for

churches. Even though every pastor identified having at least one community partnership in

place, collaboration and partnership is not the preferred service delivery strategy for lay

members. A majority expressed a preference for working within the church to serve others as

well as indicating that they would prefer to volunteer with a church program rather than

serving through a community nonprofit, even if the same needs were being met.

Lay members tend to have a strong commitment to their church and its ministries, and

are more willing to support its work than they are the work of other organizations. The

church is a gathered community with a purpose, and apparently one of the purposes of the

church is to provide a safe place for members to do ministry.

One implication of these findings is that an effective strategy for increasing the level

of volunteer participation, especially in Black and Pentecostal churches, would be to assign

more control of common good services and programs to the local church. Government

bureaucrats and foundation officers may be fighting against an immovable object when they

try to force partnerships and collaborations on the church when lay members seem to prefer

working in a different way. The key to increasing the effectiveness of the church in meeting

community needs may be to acknowledge that congregations want to work in different ways,

and one of those ways is to work alone.


One lay member provided an excellent concluding statement of this discussion when

she offered an unsolicited comment on the bottom of her survey form, “I love my church, my

church loves me, and we love people!”

Implications for Action

The application of organizational development theory and practices within the context

of the local church is still relatively new, and relatively little work has been done to

determine how churches can organize most effectively to serve their communities. The

results of this study suggest the following four courses of action that could be taken to

strengthen the social service ministries of congregations:

1. Evaluate the strategies and methods used by churches to deliver social services,

enabling the validation of best practices that are appropriate for congregations to

adopt.

2. Develop and encourage authentically mutual relationships between the church and

other organizations in the community that serve people in need.

3. Redefine key organizational terms, concepts, and constructs for use within a local

church context as a step toward the recognition that the church is a unique

organization.

4. Provide churches with greater access to public resources by encouraging foundations

and government agencies to fund impact rather than focusing on targeted outcomes

that may be impossible for congregations to achieve.

Validating Best Practices in the Field

Increasingly, those who control access to public resources are expecting applicants

for funding to demonstrate how the work they are proposing to do is aligned with a best


practice that has already been used successfully in another setting. Understandably,

foundations and government agencies want to make sure their money is being used

effectively and efficiently. This expectation is reasonable if the applicant pool is relatively

homogenous since it is easier to find an example of a successful program when other

organizations look like yours. For churches, this can be a difficult task: finding a successful

program that was delivered in a setting that mirrors a congregational context can be

challenging indeed.

During his interview, one pastor told a story about how his church had wanted to run

a summer recreation program for kids in the neighborhood, providing an “alternative to just

running the streets all day.” Their vision was larger than their own resources could

accommodate, so they applied for funds from a foundation that required the use of a best or

promising practice that had been used successfully by another organization. “We found a

program that looked kind of like what we wanted to do, so we adopted it,” the pastor noted.

“But it involved way more than what we could handle, so the whole thing kind of fell apart in

a couple of weeks.” The program they had tried to copy was one run by a very large

nonprofit that employed educated and trained staff with experience running a summer

initiative. The church tried to copy their approach using volunteers with little to no

experience offering recreation programs. Their subsequent lack of success was both

understandable and predictable. If the church is to become a successful provider of services

to the community, best practices need to be validated in the kinds of settings congregations

are most likely to use. Churches should be able to compare themselves with other churches

that have sufficient experience and demonstrated success to qualify as a legitimate best

practice in the field.


In Walk Out Walk On, a fascinating examination of how communities can learn to

care for themselves and others, Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze (2011) introduce an

important concept that might be used as an alternative to the pervasively applied notion of

best practices. They suggest that successful initiatives and innovative solutions can move

from place to place using a strategy they refer to as scaling across. Not to be confused with

replication, which suggests that an entire program can be transplanted from one place to

another, scaling across encourages communities to learn from what has been done in other

places, borrow what they think will work in their own setting, and add to it as necessary.

Scaling across is more organic than replication, and it honors unique settings more fully than

the application of a best practice that has been validated elsewhere.

Best practices are considered as such because someone invested the resources needed

to evaluate a program. Evaluation can be expensive and beyond the reach of most

congregations, so it is imperative that resources be found to validate best practices that have

been developed in church settings. Until this is done, congregations will continue to imitate

what others have done, with understandably limited success.

Encouraging Missional Mutuality

In times of shrinking resources and expanding needs, it seems like every social

service agency wants more volunteers to help them complete their mission and more

contributions to help them meet their budgets. Churches are inundated with requests for

assistance from organizations that meet diverse range of need. The lay leader of one

participating church commented on this trend, saying, ““They usually want money. But they

also want us to provide volunteers to do all kinds of things.” When asked to identify what

kinds of organizations were approaching the church, she responded, “Just about everybody.


I’ve heard from Habitat for Humanity, Neighborhood House, our local food shelf, and

schools. Lots of schools. But my favorite was the email from a group that wanted us to help

stop invasive aquatic species from taking over our lakes. Zebra mussels and Asian milfoil, I

think.”

It is not hard to understand why the church is a popular target for social service

organizations that are looking for both financial and volunteer support. It is assumed that

some congregations have discretionary money that can be donated to worthy causes, and it is

assumed that churches have an ample supply of committed and passionate members who are

motivated to volunteer in ways that meet community needs. Community-based nonprofits,

units of local government, schools, hospitals, and others look to the church, hoping to find a

partner that can help them serve their clients, achieve their goals, and meet their outcomes.

The issue is that these partnerships tend to flow in just one direction. While

congregations are expected to support the missions of community-based organizations, there

is little sense of reciprocity. No one is offering to support the mission of the church in return,

and a missional relationship that only acknowledges the goals of one partner is unhealthy and

ultimately unsustainable. Congregations may respond to calls for help for a time, but if the

partnership does little to advance their own missional goals, it will be difficult to maintain.

Churches do express a commitment to meeting the needs of others, but they also tend to

prefer offering programs and services that they have more control of. One-sided partnerships

will ultimately force many churches to decide between efforts to support the work of others,

and continued efforts to strengthen their own missional response. The data suggests that the

latter will usually win out in the end.


These one-sided relationships need to be replaced with authentic missional mutuality,

which happens when the vision, mission, and goals of both organizations in a partnership are

recognized. It means that effort and resources flow in at least two directions, with each of the

partners having an opportunity to define how the relationship will move forward. It is easy

for community-based organizations to imagine how the church can support the work they do.

It is more difficult to imagine how they can contribute to the mission and ministry of the

church. Authentic missional mutuality cannot happen unless each partner is valued and

supported.

Part of the answer is that those who want to partner with congregations should try to

understand the differences the church brings to the process as an opportunity to reach new

people in different ways. Units of government, school districts, foundations, and community-

based nonprofits need to be willing to allow the church to do important work in new ways,

even when the methods and strategies appear to be unproductive and unsuccessful. The

church is a unique kind of organization, and as it has been stated previously, it will be most

effective when what it does is consistent with who it is. The church has unrealized value to

add to efforts to solve some of the most intractable problems facing the community, but that

value will not be discovered if the church is required to act like every other organization.

Redefining Terms, Concepts, and Constructs

For churches to be effective as providers of social services, they need the freedom to

organize in ways that align with their unique organizational strengths and assets. With

limited models to choose from, congregations often find themselves adopting structures that

are not appropriate for their unique settings. New organizational models need to be


developed and tested that intentionally incorporate the elements that make churches attractive

service providers and partners in the first place.

A first step in the development of new organizational paradigms that will enhance the

church’s outreach ministry is an examination of key organizational development constructs,

concepts, and terms. The alternative to adopting standard organizational practices in order to

conform to community standards and expectations is to engage in the long and arduous

process of creating new organizational models that are appropriate for churches to use. It is

difficult to say what these models might ultimately look like since concentrated efforts to do

so are conspicuously absent in organizational development literature. Such an effort needs to

be undertaken by those who have a strong commitment in the fuller engagement of the

church in meeting the needs of the community.

Six of the twenty congregations in the sample had developed a separately

incorporated 501(c)(3) organization that they intended to use as a way to organize the social

service ministries. Two others had applications in process. This suggests that churches

understand the need to organize effectively for service, and it is also an indictor that they are

responding to external pressures to organize in standardized ways that meet a definition of an

effective, efficient, and accountable organization that has been established by someone else.

Interestingly, only two of these organizations were actually being used to manage services,

despite the cost and effort associated with the process of incorporation and recognition by the

Internal Revenue Service. As one pastor noted, “We started a 501(c)(3) because we were told

it was something we should do. But now, it seems like an unnecessary layer. It keeps the

church from feeling like it was really involved in ministry.”


Instead of allowing other entities to define the terms, concepts, and constructs that are

used to guide the development of organizational models for congregations, the church should

take responsibility for deciding how it wants to describe itself and the work that it chooses to

do. Constructs like effectiveness and efficiency need to be reconsidered from with a

congregational context, and the church needs to identify where its accountabilities should lie.

Most importantly, the church needs to take the time to decide what success looks like in their

context, and then determine what it will take to develop and deliver successful programs and

service initiatives.

Funding Impact, Not Outcomes

Access to resources is a powerful motivator for most organizations that are trying to

provide critically needed services to the community, and in this respect, the church is no

exception. Congregations that find themselves faced with ever-increasing needs are looking

for funding beyond the tithes and offerings of church members. In their interviews, pastors

consistently identified a shortage of resources as the primary barrier keeping their church

from serving the community as extensively and comprehensively as they would have liked.

As expectations of the church grow, there has been an increased willingness on the

part of funders to consider allocating resources to churches to deliver social services.

Churches are being given the opportunity to apply for grants and contracts at a higher rate

then ever, but there is an organizational cost associated with entry into these new funding

streams. Foundations and government agencies expect churches to serve the community in

the same way that other organizations have done so in the past. Funders recognize the

unparalleled access congregations have to hard-to-serve populations, and are intrigued by the

trust and confidence the community generally has for church, but they have yet to understand


or embrace the valuable differences the church brings to the social service process.

Unfortunately, the differences that make the church a valuable partner in addressing the most

difficult community problems will disappear quickly if congregations are expected to adopt

the same strategies and rubrics as secular nonprofits.

Thos who control access to public and private resources typically determine what

goals they want their funding recipients to adopt and what outcomes they expect them to

achieve. While this is considered a good way to ensure success and accountability,

standardized goals and outcomes that are intended to be adopted by service providers do not

always fit well with the value that the church has to offer. Expecting churches to operate in

the same way as every other organization in the applicant pool does little more than increase

competition for already scarce resources. Outcomes that expect a specific organizational

model be used, require credentialed staff, and demand the use of best-practices in the field

are inappropriate for most churches, and are likely to limit the possibility of success.

The solution may be for funders to allocate their available resources in ways that

encourage innovation and flexibility. They should make a shift from funding outcomes to

funding impact, recognizing that this is a dramatic change of emphasis that will require some

patience and a willingness to accept failures along the way. The church can do important

work. However, if it is to maintain its integrity and its own missional purpose, it must be

allowed the flexibility to work in ways that are consistent with its organizational and cultural

identity. It must be allowed to work towards a goal and outcomes that it helped create.

Summary

Review of the Study

This study was designed as a broad survey of the elements that contribute to the


decisions a congregation makes about how it will organize to provide services the

community. Using a Mixed-method approach that included interviews with twenty pastors

and surveys of 258 lay members, the study analyzed the impact of a church’s structure,

demographics, organizational capacity, values, and member preferences for ministry on its

service choices and preferred service delivery strategies.

Data collected provides support for the argument that the church is a unique

organizational type with key elements that influence how it organizes itself to develop and

deliver services that meet critical community needs. An important finding from the study

suggests that a congregation’s collective theology has the most impact on how it serves the

community. Secondly, the local church is the preferred location for service for many lay

members, suggesting that new models for partnership and collaboration may need to be

developed if community-based organizations want to engage the church in addressing shared

goals and outcomes. Finally, lay members in the church feel a strong call to serve others in

specific ways, and the church needs to develop new delivery strategies that support and

nurture this commitment, including the use of informal models that shift the emphasis on a

congregation from delivering programs to serving others.

Suggestions for Additional Research

Results from the study suggest a number of areas for future research:

Measuring the impact of service models on program effectiveness. Pastors were

asked to identify the models that were used to deliver various types of services through the

church. The models included formal church programs, pastor-led services, member-led

initiatives, community partnerships, and dedicated 501(c)(3) organization. While the data

allows conclusions to be drawn about what a church’s preference for delivery models might


be, the study did not test the impact of delivery model on the effectiveness of the services

provided. Research that explores the efficacy of delivery strategies on a range of

organizational and programmatic outcome is needed.

Exploring how vocational theology affects how churches organize for ministry.

Church members generally expressed a strong sense of personal call to ministry, regardless

of the tradition or denomination they came from. However, lay members from different

traditions responded to that call in different ways, with Baptist and Pentecostal members

showing a preference for working with the church, while mainline Protestants were more

inclined to work with community-based programs that met the specific need they were

interested in. Understanding how vocational theology impacts preferences for service will

enable community-based organizations to make better decisions about how to engage the

church.

Examining the impact of social location on how a church serves the community.

Scholars in the fields of theology and theological ethics use the term social location to

describe the many factors, elements, and variables that combine to create the social

perspective that an individual or organization uses to make decisions. Elements of social

location include race, socio-economic status, history, important events, culture, art, literature,

and personal or shared stories. These elements make up who an individual is and work

together to create collectively what a church is as well. A study of the elements of a

congregation’s social location would provide a way to understand what impacts their

organizational decisions.

Constructing a taxonomy of churches based on how they organize for ministry.

The church is a very complex organizational type, and there are many different elements that


contribute to how it chooses to organize to the community. This study provides a starting

point for classifying congregations based on the social service preferences. Congregations

were described using a measure of theological orientation (conservative, tends toward

conservative, tends toward liberal, liberal) as well as missional orientation (redemption,

compassion, justice). Additional characteristics need to be identified and organized in a way

that will help researchers, public policy officials, nonprofit leadership, and community

members understand what motivates congregations to serve and how they can be engaged

most effectively.


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Appendix A

SECTION 1: CHURCH PROFILE

A. CONGREGATIONAL INFORMATION

1. How many members does the church have? Confident

Unsure

2. Confident

Unsure

3. Confident

Unsure

4. How long has your church been in existence? Confident

Unsure

5. How long have you been in your present location? Confident

Unsure

6. 1 Congregational

2 Connectional

7. 1 2 3 4

Not Much Somwhat Fair Amount Great Deal

8. 1 2 3 4

Not Much Somwhat Fair Amount Great Deal

9.

10. 1 2 3 4

Con Tend C Tend L Lib

# FT PT Vol

11. Church Staff Senior Pastor

Associate Pastors

Program Staff

Administrative

Facilities

B. BUDGET AND FINANCE

12. What is your church's total annual budget? Confident

Unsure

13. Confident

Unsure

14. What % of your congregation tithes? Confident

Unsure

15. Confident

Unsure

16. Funding Sources Current Past Never

Federal Government grants or contracts 1 2 3

How many individuals/households give at least $2,500 per year to the church?

Do you have money in your budget specifically for local missions and outreach?

What is your combined average attendance at all Sunday services?

How many non-members are active in church activities and church ministries?

What polity best describes the way your church is organized?

How important is your denominational identity to the church? i.e. How important is it that you are _______?

How much does your denominational tradition influence the ministries of the church?

Where does the authority to make decisions about ministry reside in your church?How would you describe the theological position of your church and most of its participants?


State Government grants or contracts 1 2 3

Local Government grants or contracts 1 2 3

Private Foundation grants 1 2 3

Denomnational support 1 2 3

Individual donors - other than church members 1 2 3

Businesses - Cash and/or inkind 1 2 3

Special offerings 1 2 3

Special Events 1 2 3

C. MEMBER DEMOGRAPHICS

17. Confident

Unsure

18. What % of the church would you consider low-income? Confident

Unsure

19. Confident

Unsure

20. Confident

Unsure

21. Confident

Unsure

22. Confident

Unsure

23. Confident

Unsure

24. Confident

Unsure

25. Confident

Unsure

26. Confident

Unsure

27. Confident

Unsure

28.

28.

28.

29. How would you describe the community you are seeking to serve?

What adjectives would you use to describe your church?

Does the church report to a higher jurisidiction or church authority?

Which of these terms best describes what your church sees as the core of its mission to the community?Compassion Redemption Justice

What % of the adults in your congregation have a college degree?

What % of adults in the church are unemployed?

What % of the households in your congregation receive MFIP, Food Stamps, Medical Assistance, Childcare Subsidy?What % of the households in your congregation are "traditional families?"What % of your congregation's participants is retired?

What % of your church participants have been invoved with the church for less than one year?What % of your church participants have been associated with the church for 15 or more years?What % of of your church participants live within one mile of the church?What % of your church participants have to travel for at least 20 minutes to get to the church?What % of your church participants would you consider to be "Very Active?"


SECTION 2: ORGANIZATIONAL CAPACITY

A. MISSION, VISION, GOALS1.

2.

3.

B.

4.

5.

6.

C. EVALUATION

7.

8.

9.

10.

D. STAFFING

11.

12.

13.

E. BUDGET AND FINANCE

14.

15.

16.

F. ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

17.

The church engages in a regular and intentional planning process that results in relevant program goals, strategies, and outcomes.

The church has a clearly defined plan for reaching the goals its has set for itself.

The church has a strategy in place to secure the resources/funding needed to deliver its missions and outreach programs and activities.

We have a definition of "success" for each of the programs we offer.

Each program has a set of written goals that are achievable and measurable.

Each program has a process in place for collecting the data that is needed to effectively evaluate its success.

Staff members (paid and volunteer) have the education, experience, and skills needed to meet the requirements of the jobs they are assigned to.

Staff members ( paid and volunteer) are formally evaluated on a regular basis.

Mission and outreach programs have their own budgets that are used to make decisions about programming.

Financial statements are produced on at least a quarterly basis, and are distributed to those in leadership positions.

The church has a set of finance policies that ensure accountability, transparency, and provide a clear separation of duties.

Programs have the equipment and technology they need to be effective.

2

Somewhat

Church leadership has a high level of confidence in the accuracy of the statistics and data that are collected and reported by program staff.

The church has sufficient paid staff in place to manage and direct its outreach and service programs.

2 1

2 1

2 1

The church has a written mission statement that defines its goals, purpose, reason for existence.

Most of the members of the church understand our mission.

The church has clearly defined set of goals that are used to guide the direction of its community outreach and service.

2 1

2 1 0

Yes Somewhat No

0

Yes Somewhat No

2 1 0

Yes Somewhat No

1

0

Yes Somewhat No

2 1 0

Yes Somewhat No

2 1

0

Yes Somewhat No

2 1 0

2 1 0

Yes Somewhat No

2 1

0

Yes Somewhat No

Yes Somewhat No

2 1 0

Yes Somewhat No

0

Yes Somewhat No

0

Yes Somewhat No

2 1 0

Yes Somewhat No

2 1 0

Yes No

2 1 0

Yes Somewhat No

STRATEGY

2 1 0

0

Yes Somewhat No

Yes Somewhat No


18.

19.

G. ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

20.

21.

22.

23.

24. How do you manage/administer your local missions/outreach? Informally Organize

Outreach Committee

501(c)(3)

25.

26.

The church has strong collaborative relationships and partnerships with other organizations in the community that have similar goals.

The church is representative (or "mirrors") of the people it seeks to serve.

2

Lines of authority and decision-making in the organization are clearly defined.

Programs have adequate space/facility that is designated for their use.

There is a commonly held church culture (history, rituals, traditions, stories, etc) that are important to those who are involved in ministry.

Every outreach and missions program is developed and delivered in ways that are entirely consistent with the shared values of its members.

2 1

2 1

1 0

Yes Somewhat No

2 1 0

Yes Somewhat No

0

Yes Somewhat No

2 1 0

Yes Somewhat No

0

Yes Somewhat No

2 1 0

Yes Somewhat No

What would you consider to be the organizational strengths of your congregation?

When you think about your missions/outreach, what are your most significant challenges?


SECTION 3: COMMUNITY SERVICE AND LOCAL MISSIONS

1. Food Shelf 1 2 3 4 5

2. On-Site Meals/Soup Kitchen 1 2 3 4 5

3. Food Vouchers/Cards 1 2 3 4 5

4. Nutrition Education/Cooking 1 2 3 4 5

5. Assistance with Rent/Mortgage 1 2 3 4 5

6. Utilities Assistance 1 2 3 4 5

7. Shelter for Homeless 1 2 3 4 5

8. Own/Manage Rentals 1 2 3 4 5

9. Clothing Closet 1 2 3 4 5

10. Childcare Center 1 2 3 4 5

11. Provide Scholarships 1 2 3 4 5

12. Respite Care for Families 1 2 3 4 5

13. Parish Nurse 1 2 3 4 5

14. Health Education/Classes 1 2 3 4 5

15. Health Screening 1 2 3 4 5

16. Fitness Programs 1 2 3 4 5

17. Assistance with Medications 1 2 3 4 5

18. Drug/Alcohol Programs 1 2 3 4 5

19. Mental Health Assistance 1 2 3 4 5

20. Assistance with Medical Bills 1 2 3 4 5

21. Bus Cards/Tokens 1 2 3 4 5

22. Gas Vouchers/Cards 1 2 3 4 5

23. Rides to Appointments 1 2 3 4 5

24. Car Repairs 1 2 3 4 5

25. After-School Tutoring 1 2 3 4 5

26. Summer School 1 2 3 4 5

27. Family Literacy 1 2 3 4 5

28. Career Readiness 1 2 3 4 5

29. Collge Readiness 1 2 3 4 5

Serve Members

Serve Community

Serve Members

Serve Community

Serve Members

Serve Community

Serve Members

Serve Community

Serve Members

Serve Community

Serve Members

Serve CommunityCHILDCARE Formal

ProgramInformal

Pastor-LedInformal

Member-Led

HEALTHCARE - MEDICAL Formal Program

Informal Pastor-Led

Informal Member-Led

TRANSPORTATION Formal Program

Informal Pastor-Led

Informal Member-Led

Commnunity Parternships

EDUCATION Formal Program

Informal Pastor-Led

Informal Member-Led


Financial SupportHUNGER - FOOD

HOUSING

Formal Program

Informal Pastor-Led

Informal Member-Led


Formal Program

Informal Pastor-Led

Informal Member-Led


Financial Support

Financial Support


Financial Support


Financial Support

Financial Support


30. GED Preparation 1 2 3 4 5

31. Adult Basic Education 1 2 3 4 5

32. Recreation 1 2 3 4 5

33. Summer Programs 1 2 3 4 5

34. Kid's Groups 1 2 3 4 5

35. Mentoring 1 2 3 4 5

36. Recreation 1 2 3 4 5

37. Summer Programs 1 2 3 4 5

38. Mentors 1 2 3 4 5

39. Gangs/Youth Violence 1 2 3 4 5

40. Teen Pregnancy 1 2 3 4 5

41. Youth Parenting 1 2 3 4 5

42. Singles Groups 1 2 3 4 5

43. Programs for Seniors 1 2 3 4 5

44. Financial Literacy 1 2 3 4 5

45. Chores for seniors/disabled 1 2 3 4 5

46. Counseling 1 2 3 4 5

47. Parent Groups 1 2 3 4 5

48. Early Childhood Education 1 2 3 4 5

49. Marriage Enrichment 1 2 3 4 5

50. Domestic Abuse 1 2 3 4 5

51. Child Abuse 1 2 3 4 5

52. Immigrant/Refugee Families 1 2 3 4 5

53. 1 2 3 4 5

54. 1 2 3 4 5

55. 1 2 3 4 5

56. 1 2 3 4 5

57. 1 2 3 4 5

58. 1 2 3 4 5

59. 1 2 3 4 5

60. Housing 1 2 3 4

61. Transportation 1 2 3 4

Financial Support

Serve Members

Serve CommunityOTHER SERVICES Formal

ProgramInformal

Pastor-LedInformal

Member-LedCommnunity Parternships

ADVOCACY Formal Church Pastor Members Suppot Others

Serve Members

Serve Community

Serve Members

Serve Community

Serve Members

Serve Community

Serve Members

Serve Community

CHILDREN'S SERVICES Formal Program

Informal Pastor-Led

Informal Member-Led


YOUTH SERVICES Formal Program

Informal Pastor-Led

Informal Member-Led


ADULT SERVICES Formal Program

Informal Pastor-Led

Informal Member-Led


FAMILY SERVICES Formal Program

Informal Pastor-Led

Informal Member-Led


Financial Support

Financial Support

Financial Support

Financial Support


62. Healthcare 1 2 3 4

63. Childcare 1 2 3 4

64. Families 1 2 3 4

65. Children 1 2 3 4

66. Environment 1 2 3 4

67. Other 1 2 3 4

68. What does your church care most passionately about?


Appendix B

Some Information About You

a. Age b. Gender c. How many years have you been at the church?

d. Please check all leadership roles that you have at the church, if any.

Church Board Finance Committee Oversee a program areaTeacher Youth Leader TrusteeDeacon or Elder Minister Other

The Misson Orientation Scale

1.

2. My personal faith directs every decision I make.

3.

4. Which of the following ministries is most important? Please choose only one.

Providing food and shelter to those who are homeless.

Working to make sure that the government treats everyone fairly and with equity.

Witnessing to those who do not know about the love of Jesus.5.

6.

7.

8.

9.9.

10.10.

Turn Over to Complete Second Page of Survey

MISSION ORIENTATION SCALE - Lay Member Survey

The church should use most of its resources and energy taking of the needs of its members.

Strongly Disagree

Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree

I am more likely to volunteer for a church ministry than I am for a program offered by a nonprofit organization, even if they meet the same need.

It is better to provide some services to many people than focus long-term attention on just a few.

Strongly Disagree


Strongly Disagree


Thank your for agreeing to complete this survey, THE MISSION ORIENTATION SCALE. The purpose of this survey is to identify what church members and leaders believe about the role of the church in meeting the needs of people in the community, as well as their thoughts on some of the ways this mission can be accomplished. This will increase our understanding of how the church organizes to serve others .

Most of the following questions will ask you to respond to a statement. Indicate how strongly you disagree or agree with the statement by marking one of the boxes on the right side of the page. Your choices (from left to right) are Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Neutral, Agree, Strongly Agree. Please choose only one of the boxes, and please do not leave any of them blank.

A few of the questions will ask you to choose one of three answers to a statement or question that is provided. Again, please choose the answer that you think is the best one, even if more than one seems correct to you.

The church is only accountable to God for the work that it does to make the world a better place.

Foundations that provide funding for programs serving the community understand what the church really has to offer.

The church can’t be effective in providing social services unless it partners with other organizations that have more expertise.

I feel more comfortable working with programs in my church to meet the needs of others than I would working with other community organizations.

Strongly Agree

Strongly Disagree


Strongly Disagree


Strongly Agree

Strongly Disagree


Strongly Disagree


What I believe about God and Jesus is less important than how I treat others in my community. Strongly

DisagreeDisagree Neutral Agree

Strongly Disagree

Disagree Neutral Agree


11.

12.

13.

14. Which of the following three words best describes what the church is all about? Please choose only one.

Compassion Redemption Justice

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

I'm too busy with work, family, and other things outside the church.I'm already very involved in other church activities and programs.The church doesn't offer a ministry that meets the needs I am most passionate about.My call from God is in an area other than mission and outreach.

27. Which of the following three choices best describes the mission of the church? Please choose only one.

Helping people establish a loving and personal relationship with Jesus Christ.Promoting justice and equality for everyone.Reducing suffering in the world by providing people with the help they need.

28.

Which of the following choices is the biggest barrier that prevents you from being more involved in the church's mission and outreach? Please choose only one.

Strongly Disagree


It is more important for the whole church to work together on something together than for me to be able to serve a particular need that I have a passion for.

There are many others in my church who are interested in the same things I care most deeply about.

I feel a strong call on my life to do something very specific for people in need.

My church offers a ministry to the community that meets the community need I am most passionate about.

I would rather work by myself or with a few like-minded individuals than be part of a large program effort.

Strongly Disagree


Strongly Disagree


Strongly Disagree


Strongly Disagree


The church needs to focus more attention on meeting the physical needs of people who are suffering, and spend less time worrying about what happens after we die.

Neutral Agree

It makes more sense for a congregation to support the work of organizations that are already meeting the needs of others than to start its own programs.

Strongly Disagree

Disagree


Strongly Disagree


Strongly Disagree

Strongly Disagree

Disagree Neutral Agree

Strongly Disagree


Strongly Agree

Most of the people in the church are very willing to become involved in the church’s missions and outreach programs.

The church should not do a ministry to serve others unless it can openly share the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Just about everything we need to know about how to serve others is in the Bible.

The church shouldn’t do a ministry if it can’t follow the rules and expectations of funders.

Strongly Disagree

Disagree

Strongly Disagree

Disagree

Neutral Agree Strongly Agree

Neutral Agree Strongly Agree

In what ways might God be calling you to serve others?

My church is very committed to beginning new ministries to help people when needs in the community are identified.

Strongly Disagree


Strongly Agree

Strongly Disagree


My church supports members who want to start new ministries to meet the needs of others.

The only way a person can really have a better life is for them to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.


Appendix C

Baptist-Pentecostal: N=150 responsesMainline Churches: N=108 responses

LAY MEMBER SURVEY - SUMMARY OF RESPONSES

1. What I believe about God and Jesus is less important than how I treat others in my community.

Baptist/Pentecostal

Mainline

Combined Total

2. My personal faith directs every decision I make.

Baptist/Pentecostal

Mainline

Combined Total

3. The church is only accountable to God for the work that it does to make the world a better place.

Baptist/Pentecostal

Mainline

Combined Total

4. Which of the following ministries is most important? Please choose only one.

Witnessing to those who do not know about the love of Jesus.

Providing food and shelter to those who are homeless.

Working to make sure that the government treats everyone fairly.

5.

Baptist/Pentecostal

Mainline

Combined Total

6.

Baptist/Pentecostal

Mainline

Combined Total

Stongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree No ResponseN

0.0%

27.8%

4 2.7% 7 4.7% 0

%

106 70.7% 30 20.0% 3 2.0%

% N % N %

13.9% 0 0.0%30 41 38.0% 16 14.8% 13 12.0% 15

5.8% 0 0.0%

10 9.3% 44 40.7% 19 17.6% 31

136 52.7% 71 27.5% 19 7.4% 17 6.6% 15

29 19.3% 59 39.3% 27 18.0% 25 16.7% 9 6.0% 1 0.7%

58 22.5% 80 31.0% 35 13.6% 48 18.6% 34 13.2% 3 1.2%

N % N % N % N % N % N %

26 24.1% 42 38.9% 18 16.7% 15 13.9% 7 6.5% 0 0.0%

Combined TotalN % N %

32 21.3% 38 25.3% 17 11.3% 33 22.0% 27 18.0% 3 2.0%

Stongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree No ResponseN % N % N % N % N % N %

6 2.3% 17 6.6% 30 11.6% 108 41.9% 97 37.6% 0 0.0%

1 11 10.2% 20 18.5% 50 46.3% 26 24.1% 0 0.0%

N % N % N %

5 3.3% 6 4.0% 10 6.7% 58 38.7% 71 47.3% 0 0.0%

N %Mainline

The church can’t be effective in providing social services unless it partners with other organizations that have more expertise.

Stongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree No Response

N % N % N

Stongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree No ResponseN % N % N %


Foundations that provide funding for programs serving the community understand what the church really has to offer.

126 84.0% 64 59.3% 191 74.0%

20 13.3% 32 29.6% 52 20.2%

4 2.7% 12 11.1% 16 6.2%

42 28.0% 7 4.7% 4 2.7%15 10.0% 35 23.3% 47 31.3%

N % N % N %N % N % N %

21 19.4% 3 2.8% 0 0.0%4 3.7% 43 39.8% 37 34.3%

63 24.4% 10 3.9% 4 1.6%19 7.4% 78 30.2% 84 32.6%

39 15.1% 103 39.9% 46 17.8% 56 21.7% 13

28.7% 4 3.7% 0 0.0%

5.0% 1 0.4%

Baptist-Pentecostal

0.9%



7.

Baptist/Pentecostal

Mainline

Combined Total

8. The church should use most of its resources and energy taking of the needs of its members.

Baptist/Pentecostal

Mainline

Combined Total

9.

Baptist/Pentecostal

Mainline

Combined Total

10.

Baptist/Pentecostal

Mainline

Combined Total

11.

Baptist/Pentecostal

Mainline

Combined Total

12.

Baptist/Pentecostal

Mainline

Combined Total

N % N % N %N % N % N %Stongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree No Response

I feel more comfortable working with programs in my church to meet the needs of others than I would working with other community organizations.

36 24.0% 31 20.7% 1 0.7%8 5.3% 42 28.0% 32 21.3%

44 40.7% 9 8.3% 0 0.0%6 5.6% 29 26.9% 20 18.5%


80 31.0% 40 15.5% 1 0.4%14 5.4% 71 27.5% 52 20.2%

37 24.7% 6 4.0% 0 0.0%14 9.3% 56 37.3% 37 24.7%

N % N % N %N % N % N %

16 14.8% 2 1.9% 0 0.0%14 13.0% 53 49.1% 23 21.3%

52 20.2% 8 3.1% 1 0.4%28 10.9% 109 42.2% 60 23.3%


59 39.3% 21 14.0% 0 0.0%6 4.0% 37 24.7% 27 18.0%

50 46.3% 12 11.1% 0 0.0%5 4.6% 22 20.4% 19 17.6%

It is better to provide some services to many people than focus long-term attention on just a few.Stongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree No Response

109 42.2% 33 12.8% 0 0.0%11 4.3% 59 22.9% 46 17.8%

45 30.0% 19 12.7% 0 0.0%7 4.7% 41 27.3% 38 25.3%

N % N % N %N % N % N %

26 24.1% 5 4.6% 0 0.0%4 3.7% 28 25.9% 45 41.7%

71 27.5% 24 9.3% 0 0.0%11 4.3% 69 26.7% 83 32.2%

No ResponseN % N % N % N % N

Stongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree

34.0% 26 17.3% 2 1.3%

% N %

4 2.7% 37 24.7% 30 20.0% 51

10.2% 0 0.0%6 5.6% 51 47.2% 13 12.0% 27 25.0% 11

0.8%

There are many others in my church who are interested in the same things I care most deeply about.Stongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree No Response

16.7% 78 30.2% 37 14.3% 210 3.9% 88 34.1% 43

74 49.3% 26 17.3% 2 1.3%2 1.3% 12 8.0% 34 22.7%

N % N % N %N % N % N %

68 63.0% 16 14.8% 0 0.0%0 0.0% 5 4.6% 19 17.6%

0.8% 17 6.6% 53 20.5%

I am more likely to volunteer for a church ministry than I am for a program offered by a nonprofit organization, even if they meet the same need.

It is more important for the whole church to work together on something together than for me to be able to serve a particular need that I have a passion for.

142 55.0% 42 16.3% 2 0.8%2

ORGANIZING FOR MISSION 220 Baptist-Pentecostal: N=150 responsesMainline Churches: N=108 responses

13.

Baptist/Pentecostal

Mainline

Combined Total

14. Which of the following three words best describes the purpose of the church? Please choose only one.

Redemption

Compassion

Justice

15.

Baptist/Pentecostal

Mainline

Combined Total

16.

Baptist/Pentecostal

Mainline

Combined Total

17.

Baptist/Pentecostal

Mainline

Combined Total

18.

Baptist/Pentecostal

Mainline

Combined Total

N % N % N %

3 2.0% 4 2.7% 21 14.0% 69 46.0% 50

% N % N % NStongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree No Response


1 0.9% 12 11.1% 27

33.3% 3 2.0%

4 1.6% 16 6.2% 48 18.6% 120

0.0%25.0% 51 47.2% 17 15.7% 0

46.5% 67 26.0% 3 1.2%


4 2.7% 7

Mainline Combined TotalN % N % N %

86 57.3% 44 40.7% 128 49.6%

60 40.0% 57 52.8% 119 46.1%

6.5% 11 4.3%


30 20.0% 9 6.0% 3 2.0%16 10.7% 58 38.7% 34 22.7%

35 32.4% 5 4.6% 0 0.0%2 1.9% 35 32.4% 31 28.7%

Stongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree No ResponseI would rather work by myself or with a few like-minded individuals than be part of a large program effort.

65 25.2% 14 5.4% 3 1.2%18 7.0% 93 36.0% 65 25.2%

30 20.0% 9 6.0% 3 2.0%16 10.7% 58 38.7% 34 22.7%

N % N % N %N % N % N %

35 32.4% 5 4.6% 0 0.0%2 1.9% 35 32.4% 31 28.7%

65 25.2% 14 5.4% 3 1.2%18 7.0% 93 36.0% 65 25.2%

N % N % N %N % N % N %



57 38.0% 18 12.0% 3 2.0%6 4.0% 27 18.0% 39 26.0%

35 32.4% 5 4.6% 0 0.0%5 4.6% 37 34.3% 36 33.3%

Stongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree No ResponseThe church should not do a ministry to serve others unless it can openly share the gospel of Jesus Christ.

92 35.7% 23 8.9% 3 1.2%11 4.3% 64 24.8% 65 25.2%

41 27.3% 26 17.3% 3 2.0%11 7.3% 46 30.7% 23 15.3%

N % N % N %N % N % N %

29 26.9% 7 6.5% 0 0.0%14 13.0% 44 40.7% 14 13.0%

70 27.1% 33 12.8% 3 1.2%25 9.7% 90 34.9% 37 14.3%

Baptist-Pentecostal


13.

Baptist/Pentecostal

Mainline

Combined Total

14. Which of the following three words best describes the purpose of the church? Please choose only one.

Redemption

Compassion

Justice

15.

Baptist/Pentecostal

Mainline

Combined Total

16.

Baptist/Pentecostal

Mainline

Combined Total

17.

Baptist/Pentecostal

Mainline

Combined Total

18.

Baptist/Pentecostal

Mainline

Combined Total

N % N % N %

3 2.0% 4 2.7% 21 14.0% 69 46.0% 50

% N % N % NStongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree No Response


1 0.9% 12 11.1% 27

33.3% 3 2.0%

4 1.6% 16 6.2% 48 18.6% 120

0.0%25.0% 51 47.2% 17 15.7% 0

46.5% 67 26.0% 3 1.2%


4 2.7% 7


86 57.3% 44 40.7% 128 49.6%

60 40.0% 57 52.8% 119 46.1%

6.5% 11 4.3%


30 20.0% 9 6.0% 3 2.0%16 10.7% 58 38.7% 34 22.7%

35 32.4% 5 4.6% 0 0.0%2 1.9% 35 32.4% 31 28.7%

Stongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree No ResponseI would rather work by myself or with a few like-minded individuals than be part of a large program effort.

65 25.2% 14 5.4% 3 1.2%18 7.0% 93 36.0% 65 25.2%

30 20.0% 9 6.0% 3 2.0%16 10.7% 58 38.7% 34 22.7%

N % N % N %N % N % N %

35 32.4% 5 4.6% 0 0.0%2 1.9% 35 32.4% 31 28.7%

65 25.2% 14 5.4% 3 1.2%18 7.0% 93 36.0% 65 25.2%

N % N % N %N % N % N %



57 38.0% 18 12.0% 3 2.0%6 4.0% 27 18.0% 39 26.0%

35 32.4% 5 4.6% 0 0.0%5 4.6% 37 34.3% 36 33.3%

Stongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree No ResponseThe church should not do a ministry to serve others unless it can openly share the gospel of Jesus Christ.

92 35.7% 23 8.9% 3 1.2%11 4.3% 64 24.8% 65 25.2%

41 27.3% 26 17.3% 3 2.0%11 7.3% 46 30.7% 23 15.3%

N % N % N %N % N % N %

29 26.9% 7 6.5% 0 0.0%14 13.0% 44 40.7% 14 13.0%

70 27.1% 33 12.8% 3 1.2%25 9.7% 90 34.9% 37 14.3%

Baptist-Pentecostal


19.

Baptist/Pentecostal

Mainline

Combined Total

20. The church shouldn’t do a ministry if it can’t follow the rules and expectations of funders.

Baptist/Pentecostal

Mainline

Combined Total

21.

Baptist/Pentecostal

Mainline

Combined Total

22.

Baptist/Pentecostal

Mainline

Combined Total

23. The only way a person can really have a better life is for them to have a personal relationship with Jesus.

Baptist/Pentecostal

Mainline

Combined Total

24.

Baptist/Pentecostal

Mainline

Combined Total

3 2.0% 3 2.0% 9 6.0% 47 31.3% 85 56.7% 3 2.0%

Stongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree No ResponseN % N % N % N % N % N %

25.0% 0 0.0%6 5.6% 16 14.8% 20 18.5% 39 36.1% 27

1.2%


11.2% 86 33.3% 112 43.4% 39 3.5% 19 7.4% 29

29 19.3% 11 7.3% 0 0.0%21 14.0% 57 38.0% 32 21.3%

N % N % N %N % N % N %

25 23.1% 4 3.7% 0 0.0%14 13.0% 39 36.1% 27 25.0%

54 20.9% 14 5.4% 0 0.0%35 13.6% 96 37.2% 59 22.9%


76 50.7% 24 16.0% 3 2.0%2 1.3% 8 5.3% 37 24.7%

71 65.7% 12 11.1% 0 0.0%0 0.0% 9 8.3% 16 14.8%


It makes more sense for a congregation to support the work of organizations that are already meeting the needs of others than to start its own programs.

147 57.0% 36 14.0% 3 1.2%2 0.8% 17 6.6% 53 20.5%

27 18.0% 8 5.3% 4 2.7%10 6.7% 54 36.0% 47 31.3%

N % N % N %N % N % N %

30 27.8% 3 2.8% 0 0.0%0 0.0% 43 39.8% 32 29.6%

57 22.1% 11 4.3% 4 1.6%10 3.9% 97 37.6% 79 30.6%


33 22.0% 106 70.7% 3 2.0%1 0.7% 0 0.0% 7 4.7%

40 37.0% 27 25.0% 0 0.0%10 9.3% 13 12.0% 18 16.7%


73 28.3% 133 51.6% 3 1.2%11 4.3% 13 5.0% 25 9.7%

26 17.3% 15 10.0% 3 2.0%35 23.3% 47 31.3% 24 16.0%

N % N % N %N % N % N %

30 27.8% 8 7.4% 0 0.0%11 10.2% 32 29.6% 27 25.0%

Just about everything we need to know about how to serve others is in the Bible.

My church supports members who want to start new ministries to meet the needs of others.

The church needs to focus more attention on meeting the physical needs of people who are suffering, and spend less time worrying about what happens after we die.

56 21.7% 23 8.9% 3 1.2%46 17.8% 79 30.6% 51 19.8%



25.

Baptist/Pentecostal

Mainline

Combined Total

26.

I'm already involved in other church activities and programs.

My call from God is in an area other than mission and outreach.

No response

27.

Promoting justice and equality for everyone.

No response

My church is very committed to beginning new ministries to help people when needs in the community are identified.


61 40.7% 27 18.0% 3 2.0%4 2.7% 13 8.7% 42 28.0%

N % N % N %N % N % N %

53 49.1% 10 9.3% 0 0.0%1 0.9% 11 10.2% 33 30.6%

114 44.2% 37 14.3% 3 1.2%5 1.9% 24 9.3% 75 29.1%

48 18.6%

21 14.0% 29 26.9% 50 19.4%

Which of the following choices is the biggest barrier that prevents you from being more involved in the church's mission and outreach? Please choose only one.


82.2%

21 8.1%

Which of the following three choices best describes the mission of the church? Please choose only one.

Helping people establish a loving and personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Reducing suffering in the world by providing people with the help they need.

Mainline Combined TotalN %

I'm too busy with work, family, and other things outside the church.

The church doesn't offer a ministry that meets the needs I am most passionate about.

13 8.7% 8 7.4%

81 54.0% 52 48.1% 133 51.6%

4 2.7% 2 1.9% 6 2.3%

31 20.7% 17 15.7%

Baptist-Pentecostal

Baptist-Pentecostal

0 0.0% 0 0.0% 0 0.0%

6 4.0% 20 18.5% 26 10.1%

2 1.3% 14 13.0% 16 6.2%

N % N %

142 94.7% 74 68.5% 212


Appendix D

Frequency Distributions from Interviews with Pastors

Table 30 Church Membership Category N % Descriptive Statistics < 100 5 25.0% N 20 100 – 250 6 30.0% Range 20 – 5200 251 – 700 5 25.0% Median 200 – 230 > 700 4 20.0% Total 20 100.0% Table 31 Active Non-Members Category N % Descriptive Statistics 0 – 10 5 25.0% N 20 11 – 25 7 35.0% Range 5 – 1000 26 – 100 4 20.0% Median 20 101 or more 4 20.0% Total 20 100.0% Table 32 Average Combined Weekly Worship Attendance Category N % Descriptive Statistics < 50 4 20.0% N 20 51 – 149 7 35.0% Range 15 – 2300 150 – 400 6 25.0% Median 110 – 140 > 400 4 20.0% Total 20 100.0% Table 33 Number of Years Congregation has been in Existence Category N % Descriptive Statistics < 20 4 20.0% N 20 20 – 75 6 30.0% Range 3 – 160 > 75 10 50.0% Median 16 – 82 Total 20 100.0%


Table 34 Number of Years Church has been in its Current Location Category N % Descriptive Statistics < 15 6 30.0% N 20 15 – 49 4 20.0% Range 1 – 160 50 – 99 6 30.0% Median 45 – 50 100 or more 4 20.0% Total 20 100.0% Table 35 Church Polity Category N % Congregational 13 65.0% Connectional 7 35.0% Total 20 100.0% Table 36 Importance of Denominational Identity to the Church Category N % Not Much 4 20.0% Somewhat 6 30.0% Fair Amount 5 25.0% Great Deal 5 25.0% Total 20 100.0% Table 37 Theological Orientation of the Church Category N % Conservative 4 20.0% Tends toward Conservative 6 30.0% Tends toward Liberal 5 25.0% Liberal 5 25.0% Total 20 100.0%


Table 38 Missional Orientation of the Church Category N % Redemption 7 35.0% Compassion 11 55.0% Justice 2 10.0% Total 20 100.0% Table 39 Authority to Make Decisions about Ministry Category N % Pastor 10 50.0% Committee 7 35.0% Pastor/Board 3 15.0% Total 20 100.0% Table 40 Annual Church Budget Category N % Descriptive Statistics < $100,000 6 30.0% N 20 $100,000 - $200,000 4 20.0% Range $1,500 - $5,200,000 $200,000 - $500,000 5 25.0% Median $235,000 > $500,000 6 30.0% Total 20 100.0% Table 41 Budget Amount Per Church Member Category N % Descriptive Statistics < $400 4 20.0% N 20 $400 - $700 5 25.0% Range $75 - $2,650 > $1,000 6 30.0% > $500,000 5 25.0% Total 20 100.0%


Table 42 Budget Amount Per Worship Attendee Category N % Descriptive Statistics < $500 4 20.0% N 20 $500 - $1,250 5 25.0% Range $75 - $2,650 > $1,000 6 30.0% > $500,000 5 25.0% Total 20 100.0% Table 43 Percent of Members Who Tithe Category N % Descriptive Statistics < 10% 6 30.0% N 20 10 – 25% 9 45.0% Range 0 – 95% > 25% 5 35.0% Median 15 – 20% Total 20 100.0% Table 44 Percent of Adults with a College Degree Category N % Descriptive Statistics < 25% 5 25.0% N 20 25 – 60% 9 45.0% Range 2 – 95% > 60% 6 30.0% Median 35% Total 20 100.0% Table 45 Percent of Members who are Low-Income Category N % Descriptive Statistics < 15% 4 20.0% N 20 16 – 49% 6 30.0% Range 3 – 100% 50 – 75% 7 35.0% Median 35 – 50% > 75% 3 15.0% Total 20 100.0%


Table 46 Percent of Members who are Unemployed Category N % Descriptive Statistics < 10% 7 35.0% N 20 10 – 20% 8 40.0% Range 3 – 98% > 20% 5 25.0% Median 15% Total 20 100.0% Table 47 Percent of Members Receiving Public Assistance Category N % Descriptive Statistics < 10% 5 25.0% N 20 10 – 20% 5 25.0% Range 2 – 70% 21 – 50% 5 25.0% Median 15 – 25% > 20% 5 25.0% Total 20 100.0% Table 48 Percent of Members Living in Traditional Families Category N % Descriptive Statistics < 15% 6 30.0% N 20 15 – 50% 7 35.0% Range 5 – 90% > 50% 7 35.0% Median 20% Total 20 100.0% Table 49 Percent of Members who are Retired Category N % Descriptive Statistics < 10% 6 30.0% N 20 10 – 15% 5 25.0% Range 1 – 75% 16 – 50% 4 20.0% Median 15% > 50% 5 25.0% Total 20 100.0%


Table 50 Percent of Members – Less than One Year at the Church Category N % Descriptive Statistics < 5% 8 40.0% N 20 5 – 9% 4 20.0% Range 0 – 100% 10% or more 8 40.0% Median 5% Total 20 100.0% Table 51 Percent of Members – More than Ten Years at the Church Category N % Descriptive Statistics < 25% 5 25.0% N 20 25 – 50% 6 30.0% Range 0 – 90% 51 – 70% 4 20.0% Median 50% > 70% 5 25.0% Total 20 100.0% Table 52 Percent of Members Living within One Mile of the Church Category N % Descriptive Statistics < 10% 5 25.0% N 20 10 – 29% 6 30.0% Range 0 – 75% 30 – 50% 6 30.0% Median 20% > 50% 3 15.0% Total 20 100.0% Table 53 Percent of Members Living more than 20 Minutes from Church Category N % Descriptive Statistics < 5% 7 35.0% N 20 6 – 25% 5 25.0% Range 0 – 80% 26 – 40% 4 20.0% Median 15% > 40% 4 20.0% Total 20 100.0%


Table 54 Percent of Members Considered Very Active by Pastor Category N % Descriptive Statistics < 25% 5 25.0% N 20 25 – 49% 7 25.0% Range 7 – 100% 50 – 75% 5 25.0% Median 40% > 75% 3 15.0% Total 20 100.0% Table 55 Predominant Racial Composition of the Congregation Category N % Descriptive Statistics African American 11 55.0% N 20 Multi-Racial 2 10.0% White 7 35.0% Total 20 100.0%

Study Protocol for IRB Approval

Appendix E

STUDY PROTOCOL FOR IRB APPROVAL

Organizing for Mission: Testing the Impact of Structure, Capacity, and Theology

on how a Church Organizes to Serve its Community

Bruce J. Bjork

Creighton University

231


Background and Significance

As late as the 1970’s, the institutional church in the United States played a rather

minor role in the development and delivery of social services to the community. A study of

churches in Indiana and Illinois in 1979 suggested that fewer than 30% of local

congregations had intentional, formal church programs that were intended to meet the needs

of people who were poor or otherwise marginalized (Davidson, Hull, Elly, and Nead, 1979).

Some individual congregations and some faith traditions, particularly those from the African

American community, were more actively engaged, but the overall rate of church

participation was rather low (Barnes, 2005; Alex-Assensoh, 2004).

This began to change, beginning with the political philosophy of devolution during

the Reagan Administration in the 1980’s, which sought to transfer responsibility for

delivering public services from the government to private organizations and nonprofit

agencies. The public began to see the institutional church as a viable partner in the provision

of social services. By 2004, as a result of devolution, the Clinton Administration’s embrace

of Charitable Choice, and the impact of the Faith-based and Community Initiative launched

by President George W. Bush, the level of social service program delivery by churches had

skyrocketed to over 85% (Cnaan, 1999; Cnaan and Boddie, 2001). The institutional church

had moved from a rather obscure and insignificant social service provider to one that had the

potential to deliver important outcomes and wield significant influence. The church

suddenly found itself experiencing a new level of acceptance by both government and private

foundations, with access to resources that had previously been in accessible to them (Chaves

and Tsitos, 2001).

Yet despite increased expectations, increased access to public resources, and

increased opportunities to participate in partnerships and collaborations designed to solve

232


some of the community’s most difficult problems, the church has too often failed to produce

consistently positive outcomes. Little evidence has been produced that suggests that the

church is more effective than traditional secular programs, and faith-based programs have

been wrought with difficulties that have led to high rates of organizational failures (Chaves,

2001; DiIulio. 2007). In essence, the church is failing to live up to the expectations the

community has for it as a service provider, and the expectations it typically has for itself.

One possible explanation for the difficulties churches are having in the development

and delivery of effective, efficient, and accountable programs that meet critical community

needs might be the lack of alternative organizational models that are more closely aligned

with the strengths and capacities that are present in most local congregations. Government

and foundations are increasingly open to the participation of churches in service delivery, but

they typically impose the same organizational requirements and standards on churches that

they require of secular nonprofit organizations that have very different organizational

cultures and missions. The result is an institutional isomorphism that often requires changes

in the very characteristics that make the church effective in the first place (DiMaggio and

Powell, 1983).

Rationale for Proposed Research

Although there has been a significant shift in the public’s expectation of what the role

of the church should be in meeting critical social service needs, and even though church

leadership and church members tend to imagine themselves providing a broader range of

service than they have in the past, there are still few viable organizational models that

churches can use to provide the infrastructure and support they need to be effective. As a

result, congregations frequently choose to function in ways that mimic nonprofit

organizations, businesses, or even units of local government, forgetting that they come to the

233


social service process with a unique set of strengths, motivations, and cultural influences

(Stout and Commode,1998).

The institution of church has enormous potential as a provider of social services. Its

diversity and immersion in the community offers the ability to reach new people and

implement new ways of solving old problems that other organizations may have a difficult

time duplicating. Maximizing this potential, however, requires a careful examination of how

congregations prefer to organize themselves, what levels of organizational capacity they can

expect to achieve and maintain, and how the faith, beliefs, and theological orientation of

members impact who they will serve, how they will serve the community, and what impact

they will ultimately have.

Research Objectives

The purpose of this mixed-methods study is to test how a congregation’s structure,

organizational capacity, and theological orientation combine to impact the decisions it makes

about how it will serve the community by developing and delivering social service programs

that meet defined needs. It will examine how the structure a church adopts, either as a formal

organization or informal initiative, impacts the types of services it chooses to provide, the

strategies it uses to meet specific community needs, and the relative impact of the services it

offers to the community.

The primary question the research will address is as follows:



Three complementary questions will also be considered during the study, addressing

specific relationships between organizational structure and service choices. These questions

are as follows:

234









programs?

A final objective of the study is to determine if congregations can be classified in

ways that predict the choices they make to serve the community, and what combination of

organizational characteristics impact service effectiveness:

5. Can churches be classified according to a typology that can predict a congregation’s

missional effectiveness based on their structure, capacity, and theological orientation?

Hypotheses

This study will test seven hypotheses related to the research questions. Each explores

one element of the relationship between church structure, capacity, and theology and the

congregation’s ability to offer a range of services to the community using multiple delivery

strategies.

• Hypothesis 1: Congregations that identify themselves as conservative and

evangelical are more likely to provide services in ways that emphasize personal

transformation than congregations who identify themselves as moderate or liberal.

• Hypothesis 2: Congregations that identify themselves as liberal are more likely to

develop programs that address systems change and public policy than congregations

who are conservative.

235


Hypotheses 1 and 2 test the relationship between a congregation’s theological

orientation and the services they decide to offer to the community. They predict that

conservative, evangelical congregations will focus more heavily on individual redemption,

while liberal congregations will focus on meeting the long term needs of the community by

transforming unjust and inequitable system through public policy change and advocacy.

• Hypothesis 3: Congregations with lower-income membership are more likely to

report higher levels of sectarian tension with the community.

This hypothesis will test the relationship between a congregation’s socioeconomic

status and the level of tension it has with the values, beliefs, and policies of the wider

community. It is essentially an examination of the theory set forth by Boling (***) that

lower income faith communities tend to be in conflict with public standards at a higher rate

than communities that are more affluent.

• Hypothesis 4: Services that do not require the development of long-term

relationships with clients (i.e. food shelves, clothing closets, emergency assistance)

are more likely to be established as formal church programs than those that require

long-term commitments of volunteers and staff.

This hypothesis will test the relationship between the level of ongoing commitment

required to deliver a service and the preferred delivery strategy. The hypothesis predicts that

services that meet immediate emergency assistance needs are more likely to be adopted as

formal church programs, whereas programs that require volunteers to commit to extended

service are more likely to be informally delivered by church members.

• Hypothesis 5: Lay members who hold formal leadership roles in the church are more

likely to identify formal church programs as their preferred service delivery model

than lay members who do not hold such roles.

236


This hypothesis will test the relationship between the role a church member has in the

congregation with their preferred strategy for delivering social services to the community.

The hypothesis is formed on the premise that individuals who have been selected for

leadership roles and service in the church are more likely to prefer formal church programs

than those church members who have less input in how service decisions are made.

• Hypothesis 6: Churches with smaller memberships are more likely to provide services

to the community using informal service models.

Congregations with smaller memberships typically have fewer resources that they can

utilize to establish and deliver service programs to the community. The assumption is that

even more affluent congregations who have access to higher levels of financial resources will

still struggle to provide volunteers to staff formal programs that are administered under the

auspices of the church.

• Hypothesis 7: Congregations with higher levels of organizational capacity are more

likely to deliver services using formal church programs as the preferred delivery

strategy than congregations who have fewer formal organizational systems in place.

This hypothesis tests the assumption that churches that invest in the development of

formal organizational systems are also more likely to prefer formal church programming over

programs that are informally delivered, either by the pastor or lay member.

Statistical Analysis

Data collected from pastor’s interviews and surveys of lay members of participating

congregations will be analyzed using cross-tabular analysis and various measures of

statistical significance. Distribution will be measured using a chi-square analysis.

Potential Benefits

Benefits to Participants

237


The primary unit of analysis for this study will be the local congregation, so the

benefits to lay members of the church who participate in the survey will be minimal. Any

individual benefit will likely be limited to new insights that a participant might have as a

result of answering the survey questions. The same holds true for pastors who agree to be

interviewed. They may gain new insight into the organizational characteristics of their

congregations.

Benefits to Society

The primary benefits of this study will be related to an increased understanding of

how organizational elements my combine to produce organizational models that will increase

the effectiveness of the church as a provider of social services to the community. The

institutional church is incredibly diverse, with an enormous range of factors that influence

what it chooses to do, how it chooses to function, and what it understands success to look

like. A deeper understanding of the church as a provider of social services has significant

public policy implications, as it may affect how government and private foundations

approach the church to be engaged as partners in the provision of services that meet a

common good.

238


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Application for Determination of Exempt Status: Observation, Survey, Interview February 2013

1

Creighton University Institutional Review Board 2500 California Plaza, Omaha, NE 68178 ! Phone: 402-280-3074 ! Fax: 402-280-4766

http://www.creighton.edu/researchcompliance/institutionalreviewboards/about/index.php

Application for

Determination of Exempt Status (per 45CFR46.101 (b) 2/3): Observation, Survey, Interview (IRB-02 Social-Behavioral) For Office Use Only IRB #: (Assigned by IRB office at the time of submission) Contact and Study Information

Study Title: Organizing for Mission: Testing the Impact of Structure, Capacity, and Theology on how a Church Organizes to Serve its Community

Principal Investigator (include credentials): Bruce Bjork, Doctor of Education Candidate

Phone:

612-226-8548

Email: [email protected]

Department and School: Graduate School

Person who could answer questions about this application and the proposed research if other than the Principal Investigator: Dr. Jim Martin (Faculty in Doctor of Education program)

Phone (The number to best reach you if there are questions): 612-226-8548 E-mail: [email protected]

All other study personnel and their credentials (please check status of the individual and their role in this project such as mentor, advisor, consultant, investigator, etc.

Dr. Jim Martin Creighton Faculty

X Faculty Staff Student Graduate Student/Resident/Fellow Other

Role in Study: Committee Chair

Dr. Nicolae Roddy Creighton Faculty

X Faculty Staff Student Graduate Student/Resident/Fellow Other

Role in Study: Committee Member

Dr. Greg Owen Community member of committee

Faculty Staff Student Graduate Student/Resident/Fellow X Other

Role in Study: Committee Member

Faculty Staff Student Graduate Student/Resident/Fellow Other

Role in Study:


Role in Study:


Role in Study:

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2

Project Sites X Creighton University

Alegent Creighton Health; specific hospital(s)

Alegent Creighton Clinic; specific clinic(s)

X Other (please specify): Data will be collected from interviews and surveys administered at local churches in the

Minneapolis/St. Paul area. If the study is being conducted at a non-Creighton affiliated site that does not have IRB oversight, an

agreement between that site and the Creighton IRB must be completed prior to starting the project. (See the letter of agreement template)

Check type(s) of measures to be used:

Passive Observation of Public Behavior X Survey X Interview

Other (Describe)

Will information be recorded anonymously (i.e., no subject identifiers or codes that can be used to re-

identify subjects will be recorded)? No Yes X . Will “sensitive information” be recorded that could damage subjects’ reputation, employability, or financial

standing, or place them at risk for criminal or civil liability? No X Yes If yes, explain:

Will any information from this project be submitted to the FDA? No X Yes If Yes, STOP and contact the IRB at [email protected] if you have questions. Subjects

1. Who will be enrolled?

Senior Pastors of local churches, lay members of the congregation

2. How many subjects will be enrolled?

15 Pastors and approximately 150-175 lay members.

3. Will subjects under 19 years of age be studied? No X Yes If yes, to what extent will researchers interact with subjects?

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3

Note: This exemption is limited to individuals 19 years of age or older. Subjects under 19 can be passively observed in public places, but only so long as researchers do not participate in the activities being observed.

4. If children (under age 19) will be observed, complete the following section (a through f):

a. Provide a rationale for the specific age ranges of children to be included:

b. Describe the expertise of the investigative team in dealing with children of that age range:

c. Describe the adequacy of the research facilities to accommodate children of that age range:

d. Will sufficient numbers of children be studied to answer the scientific questions? No Yes Please elaborate.

e. Will the investigators interact directly with the child subject? No Yes Recruitment

1. How will potential subjects be identified and how and where will they be approached for

participation? I will contact clergy that I have met in the community for interviews. Pastors will identify 10-15 lay members to participate in the survey portion. I will be using a sample of convenience, which will enable me to construct a sample that contains the organizational elements I will be addressing in the study.

2. Describe the recruitment materials (ads, letters, recruitment script, e-mails etc.) to be used, if applicable, and attach a copy to this application: Initial contact will be by phone/email to clergy, followed up with a personal visit to describe the study and the expectations it will have of participants. At the personal visit, I will present the pastor with a document that describes the purpose of the study, how data will be collected, how data will be used, and how confidentiality will be maintained. Pastors who agree to be interviewed will be asked to select 10-15 members of their congregation to participate in an anonymous survey, which will be conducted using an online survey format (i.e. Survey Monkey). Prior to the beginning of the survey, participants will receive the same document that the pastors received describing the study, and will be informed of their right to withdraw from the survey at any time. If necessary, non-responding survey participants will be given the opportunity to complete a paper copy of the survey as a strategy for increasing response rates.

3. Attach the introductory script that describes the study and includes relevant elements of consent.

View the model information letter script on the IRB website. SEE ATTACHED SCRIPT Not Applicable

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4

If not applicable, why?

Methods 1. How will information be obtained (e.g., face to face, phone, mail, Internet)?

Interviews with pastors will take place in a face-to-face meeting. The meeting will be held at the pastor’s office or other location in the church. The meeting will be audio-recorded (with the pastor’s permission) for later transcription, and I will take notes during the interview. Surveys will be administered using an on-line survey instrument. Participants identified by their pastors who do not complete the survey on-line will be contacted by the researcher and given the opportunity to complete the survey using a paper copy.

2. How will anonymity of data be maintained?

(If using a web survey, IP tracking must be disabled when preparing the survey.)

Anonymity will be maintained through the use of survey instruments that do not collect data that could identify the respondent; only basic demographic information will be provided by participants, to include age, gender, length of membership at the church, etc.

The primary strategy for collecting survey data will be the use of an on-line survey instrument. The particular service chosen will include security settings that enable participants to submit data anonymously.

3. Who will collect data?

The Principal investigator (Bruce Bjork)

4. How often will subjects be contacted, and why? Pastors will be contacted initially to secure agreement to participate, with a follow-up meeting to explain the details of the research project. A third contact will be made to conduct the actual interview. Lay members who take the survey will be contacted by the pastor to arrange a time for the survey to be administered. A second contact will be made by the principal investigator when the survey is delivered. Upon completion of the study, I will offer to meet with pastors and lay members who participated in the study to share the results of the research.

5. How many attempts will be made to contact? (A maximum of 3 times will be allowed):

See the answer to question 4 for a detailed description of required contacts.

6. If subjects will be paid or otherwise compensated (e.g., extra credit), indicate how much they will receive, and how they will be compensated: There will be no compensation for participating in this study.

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5

7. If recruiting students or employees, how will coercion of the participant be minimized? X N/A

(not enrolling students or employees) I will not be including students or employees in this study. However, I will try to minimize any sense of coercion a lay member may feel when asked by the pastor to participate by, 1) Explaining the importance of voluntary participation in the study to the pastor prior to lay members being selected; and 2) Being clear about the participant’s right to withdraw from the study with no consequences (i.e. their non-participation will not be reported to the pastor).

Submit your study design/protocol OR complete the following section

SEE ATTACHED PROTOCOL 1. Background and significance:

2. Rationale behind the proposed research and potential benefits to participants and/or society:

3. Specific aims (research objectives):

4. Specify objectives and hypotheses to be tested in the research project:

5. Statistical analysis:

6. Potential benefits:

a. Potential benefits to participating individuals:

b. Potential benefits to society:

7. References:

Additional Information, Clarification, or Comments for the IRB Reviewer:

Principal Investigator’s Assurance The following signature certifies that the Principal Investigator (PI) understands and accepts the following obligations to protect the rights of research subjects. It is the PI’s responsibility to:

a. Ensure that the submitted protocol provides a complete description of the proposed research (contains adequate information regarding subjects’ rights and welfare and ensures that all applicable laws and regulations will be followed).

b. Ensure that, throughout the course of the study, all research personnel involved in the project conform to the applicable federal regulations and Creighton University IRB policies when conducting the research.

c. Secure all research-related records on file and acknowledge that the IRB may review these records at any time.

d. Promptly report any proposed changes to the research project (e.g., amendments, modifications, updates) to the IRB. Changes shall not be initiated until such changes have been reviewed and approved by the IRB, except to eliminate immediate hazards to subjects.

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6

e. Inform the IRB immediately of any information that may negatively influence the risk/benefit ratio for subjects enrolled in the study.

I understand that failure to comply with applicable federal regulations and Creighton University IRB policies and procedures could result in suspension or termination of the research project.

Signature of Principal Investigator Date (Must be signed by the PI, no designee)

252

November 1, 2013 Dear Participant: Thank you for agreeing to participate in this survey, which is part of a study that will explore how church’s organize themselves to provide social services to individuals and families in the community who are in need. You will be asked to share your thoughts on ministry through the church, what kinds of services you would like to be involved in providing, and how well you think the church you belong to is responding to the needs you see in the community. Though some of the questions may be difficult for you to answer or might make you feel somewhat uncomfortable, you will not be exposed to any situations that put you at any risk. The survey you will take is 20 questions long, and each question will ask you to choose one response out of four that best describes what you believe or how you feel. There are no right or wrong answers, and your responses will be kept completely anonymous. No information will be collected that might be used to identify you, so you should feel confident that your answers are confidential. You should be able to complete the survey in about 10 or 15 minutes, and you may withdraw from taking the survey at any time. Taking this survey should be considered entirely voluntary, and there will be no compensation available for those who agree to participate. Your participation in this survey will help us to understand how the beliefs and religious aspirations of individual church members influence how a church organizes to serve the community. A deeper understanding of what motivates individual members and larger communities of faith to serve people in need will provide a theoretical foundation that can be used to inform public policy and help public institutions develop ways to more effectively partner with churches in efforts to meet the needs of those who are struggling. If you have any questions or concerns about this survey or the overall study, please call me (Bruce Bjork) at 612-226-8548, or email me at [email protected]. You may also contact the Institutional Review Board at Creighton University with your concerns at 402-280-2126. Once again, thank you for your willingness to participate in this survey. I appreciate your help and will share the results of my study when all of the data has been collected and reviewed. Sincerely, Bruce Bjork Doctor of Education Candidate Creighton University

253