Exploring the Dynamics and Challenges of Congregational Size

This article explores several dimensions of the current realities of size in US congregations. Drawing on the Faith Communities Today 2020 national research effort, the differences between various size groupings of congregations are explored. For each of the five size groupings, from under 50 attendees to over 1,500 worshippers, the article highlights survey results showing the benefits and challenges associated with each size cluster and implications for congregational flourishing. The article further examines the twofold dynamic of the rapid decline in smaller congregations and the increased consolidation of a majority of attendees in larger congregations. Using survey data, the article argues that this trend has resulted in considerable growth of the larger communities and rapid decline of the smaller ones.

Congregational Cohesion, Retention, and the Consequences of Size Reduction: A Longitudinal Network Analysis of an Old Order Amish Church

Congregations depend on their members for their success and survival. Yet there is a lack of research examining congregational retention or exit. Social networks are key to understanding religious group dynamics including retention; however, research on religious communities using network analysis is limited. We use Amish directories to compile longitudinal census data on intracongregational familial ties in our case study. We theorize and find that cohesion is inversely related to congregational size and positively related to retention. We find that splitting congregations reduces cohesion when members central to the network are removed even when congregational size is reduced. The findings may be particularly relevant for understanding retention and group dynamics in small congregations and ethnic congregations in which extended family ties more commonly form the membership base. The results demonstrate the utility of using social network analysis methods to test theoretical predictions drawn from the sociology of religion literature.

Survey Data Collection Methods and Discrepancy in the Sociological Study of Religious Congregations

Surveys of religious congregations are a mainstay of sociological research on organized religion in the United States. How accurate, reliable, and comparable are the data generated from the disparate methods used by researchers? We analyze four congregational surveys to show how two components of data collection—sampling design and survey response rate—may contribute to differences in population estimates between the surveys. Results show that in three populations of congregations (all religious traditions, Catholic parishes, and Hispanic Catholic parishes), estimates of key congregational measures, such as head clergy characteristics, congregational size, and Hispanic composition, are susceptible to differences in data collection methods. While differences in sampling design contribute to some of the variation in variable estimates, our unique analysis of survey metadata shows the importance of high response rates for producing accurate estimates for many variables. We conclude with suggestions for improving congregational data collection methods and efforts to compare survey estimates.

Gospels of Growth

This chapter examines one of the most visible institutional expressions of contemporary religious vitality, the American-style evangelical ‘megachurch’, which has proliferated globally since at least the 1970s—with the notable exception of the European continent. While it is tempting to attribute this disparity to a perceived mismatch between European cultural norms and the alleged ‘Americanness’ of the megachurch (i.e. the valorization of bigness, consumerism, and popular leisure aesthetics), there is an alternative historical explanation as well: the ‘gospel of growth’, a long-standing theological emphasis within American evangelicalism on the imperative need and divine sanction for strenuous evangelism and continual harvest of souls. Embraced by revivalists, social gospellers, fundamentalists, black evangelicals, pentecostals, Southern Baptists, and a host of others, the ‘gospel of growth’ outfitted many American evangelical subcultures with a characteristic emphasis on the importance of congregational size, an emphasis largely absent among their European evangelical counterparts.