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Faith communities hit by economic downturn

11 Oct 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The psalmist this Sunday calls on the Lord to "prosper the work of our hands." Faith communities, however, are finding little prosperity from the effects of the economic recession, a new survey said. Hard times are forcing closures of congregations and schools and the downsizing of staff and ministry programs. "In 2010, I think we're going to see 10 or 15 percent of congregations saying they're in serious financial trouble," said David Roozen, a lead researcher for the Faith Communities Today multi-faith survey, which measures congregational health annually. "With around 320,000 or 350,000 congregations, that's a hell of a lot of them." Before the stock market tanked a year ago, 19 percent of U.S. congregations described their finances as excellent, down from 31 percent in 2000, according to the poll. Mainline Protestant churches were among the most vulnerable to the downturn. But Roman Catholic dioceses for years have been struggling with maintaining their aging churches, paying salaries and health insurance, and funding settlements over clergy sex abuse. With the hit to investment income and a drop in donations, they are now freezing salaries and cutting ministries and staff. The Archdiocese of Detroit, at the heart of the economic meltdown, had a $14 million shortfall in the fiscal year that ended in June 2008. The National Catholic Education Association is still measuring the toll on its schools but expects grim news from the hardest hit states after years of declining enrollment. "Some schools that were on the brink--this whole recession has just intensified that," said Karen Ristau, president of the association. Religious leaders said the next year or so will be key in determining which organizations survive the downturn intact. Even if the recession ends soon, religious fundraisers said the uncertainty donors feel will not lift immediately, prolonging the difficulties for congregations, schools, and ministries. Source: An article by Rachel Zoll for the Associated Press

ministry karen ristau national catholic education associatio archdiocese of detroit faith communities today david roozen congregations denominations churches recession church giving church schools

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Faith communities: embracing the culture

Short essays about observed trends in Roman Catholic life - Pastoral trends

No faith community can be a pure faithful remnant. It is sociologically impossible: It confuses a theological “ideal type” with the messiness of everyday human communities that are constantly changing. Any dynamic situation will have its ebbs and flows, its strengths and weaknesses, its advantages and disadvantages, its purities and impurities. That is why the present is a great time for the Catholic Church and for pastoral leadership: It is one of opportunities, of gains and possibilities as well as losses and declines. But when we start to identify only a subgroup with having the truth or being more pure in the faith, we become sectarian and move away from being church. If the church can be defined, as James Joyce famously put it, as “here comes everybody,” then we must truly live with everybody in various states and understandings. A church engages the culture, accepts the culture, even embraces the culture because only in that embrace can a true interaction leading to transformation take place. There is much, for example, to be said for the Amish way of life, but ordinary pastoral communities and leaders cannot truly approach their ministry from a sectarian point of view. Ordinarily parishioners and leaders themselves are deeply marked by the culture and think in terms of the culture. Our greatest values are tied to an achievement-oriented culture that prizes individual freedom and voluntary social ties. Many things that seem negative in our society simply come from the overenthusiastic application of these values. Perhaps instead of rejecting culture, faith communities can transform it by bringing the same level of enthusiasm to other values within our same culture. After all, these are the values and behaviors we’re best at. And many of them can be very gospel-affirming values indeed. © 2006, Bryan Froehle.

Authors Bryan Froehle

faith communities

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Parishes as faith communities, first and foremost

Short essays about observed trends in Roman Catholic life - Pastoral trends

Sociologists have seen a parish as many things over the years: as primarily a place of teaching or a place of cultural socialization or even as a ground for social movements and activism, or as a basis for social and political life. But what if they were all wrong? What if a parish is fundamentally a . . . faith community? Then, instead of focusing on organizational elements or socialization patterns or forms of teaching, we might take a look at the experience of faith within a worshiping assembly. We’d look at the kinds of cultural elements parishes bring into worship, the kinds of concerns and pressures leaders and parishioners experience. We would focus on that moment of worship and be careful about the assumptions we make about those at the worshiping assembly from one particular moment to another. A key focus, in fact, would be on the voluntary aspects of faith communities—no one is making people attend; ultimately they choose to do so, and to contribute to the life of the faith community. This sort of perspective is in fact increasingly common among many sociological thinkers—and yet oddly less so among leaders of faith communities themselves. How many times do pastors and other parish leaders focus on organizational questions or issues of teaching and education or even of social justice, without starting from and always coming back to the experience of faith within the community? Perhaps this could be put more sociologically: If a faith community cannot sustain the experience of faith within the community, it will not be able to sustain itself. © 2006, Bryan Froehle.

Authors Bryan Froehle

faith communities

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