Beyond strictness: Mainline protestant religious participation

Introduction

The long reigning wisdom in the social scientific study of religion has been that strict churches are strong. In 1972, Dean Kelley offered a controversial explanation for an interesting trend in religious participation. There was an observed variation in growth rates between liberal and conservative mainline denominations: liberal churches were shrinking while conservative churches continued to grow. Kelley (1986 [1972]) suggested that the reason for the differences between these growth rates had to do with variation in traits between liberal and conservative churches. His explanation was that conservative churches were growing because of the demands they made on their members; conservative churches made greater demands than liberal churches especially in the areas of loyalty, belief, and lifestyle.

Following Kelley (1986 [1972]), Iannaccone (1992, 1994) found that strictness increased participation. In this approach, religion is seen as a form of collective action and strictness then is a solution to the collective action problem of free-riding. Iannaccone (1992, 1994) demonstrated that strictness among religious groups helps to solve the free-rider problem in two ways. According to Iannaccone, following Olson (1965), an ideal response to this problem would be for congregations to subsidize individual participation, however, this is not only costly but also problematic because the external aspects of the behavior that congregations would like to reward are difficult to monitor. The “second-best solution” is for congregations to penalize alternative activities that compete for members’ resources. One way of achieving this is to require members to make large one-time sacrifices. Second is to demand from their “members some salient, stigmatizing behavior that inhibits participation or reduces productivity in alternative contexts” (Iannaccone, 1992: 275). Thus, high startup costs (sacrifice) prevent people with a preference for low participation, or an inclination to free ride, from joining the group in the first place. This raises the average commitment level of the group, leading to higher rates of participation. Second, the average commitment level of the group is raised by increasing the costs of activities (through stigma) that would compete against religious activities for the member’s time, energy, and other resources. Since Iannaccone (1992, 1994), scholars studying participation and congregational vitality have had to focus on strictness/high tension. This has ensured that most religious participation research has almost entirely neglected to consider how Mainline protestant congregations can increase religious participation, since these congregations tend to be more liberal and less demanding.

In fact, previous research on vitality in Mainline Protestantism has been scarce. Wellman (1999) examines a Mainline Protestant megachurch and argues that their success can be understood due to a distinctive institutional identity. Similarly, Evans (2003), following Smith et al. (1998), argues that Mainline congregations can thrive if they create a distinctive subcultural identity. Limited efforts have been made to apply a strictness perspective to mainline congregations because it is a hard case to argue that liberal congregations can be strict. One notable exception is Wellman and Corcoran (2013) who argue that strictness should be understood in a relationship between a congregation and its regional context and that given this, even a liberal congregation could be viewed as strict in a highly secular local context.

It is, however, empirical evidence from Mainline congregational research—namely the existence of strong, healthy, mainline, liberal congregations (Butler Bass, 2006)—which calls into question how comprehensive this strictness explanation is in regard to congregational strength, or participation. Butler Bass (2006) set out to assess the key features of vitality in thriving mainline congregations. In her study, she had 50 congregations from mainline, Protestant denominations from all over the United States. Ten of these congregations were studied through in-depth observation and the other 40 were used to assess the validity of the findings from the core 10 congregations. One of the criteria used to define the sample was “transformation of the congregation” (p. 297) in the form of attendance, giving rates, and cultural change within the congregation (Butler Bass, 2006). In addition, Wellman (2008) identified 10 vital, liberal, Mainline congregations in his analysis of the liberal and Evangelical religious subcultures in the Pacific Northwest. While these congregations were much rarer and less stable (Wellman, 2008: 47) than vital Evangelical congregations in the same region, they do exist. ¹ These complementary findings raise the question—if strictness is the key to high participation and congregational strength, then how is it that some non-strict churches are able to achieve high participation rates?

Data and methods: congregational most-similar case study

Answering the question of how to explain the existence of thriving,liberal churches is the purpose of this research project. In order to do so, I employed a “most-similar” case study (Gerring, 2007) of two liberal mainline congregations: one, thriving and growing and the other, struggling and declining. In a “most-similar” case study, the cases should be as similar as possible along all dimensions except for the variable of interest (Gerring, 2007), in this case—congregation participation levels. This design is also known as the “method of difference” (Mill, 1872 [1843]). This design is ideal for testing hypotheses and locating causal mechanisms, since the cases are chosen or sampled on the basis of variation in the dependent variable and the cases can be compared for the presence, absence, and differences in the independent variables (Gerring, 2007), while holding the control variables constant. As with all case study techniques, one of the main drawbacks is that it is prone to the problem of non-representativeness; this can be minimized by selecting cases that are as “typical” as possible given the need for variation in the variable of interest (Gerring, 2007). In this case study, I did not select congregations on the extremes for the size measures, although I did sample from near the ends of the spectrum on participation levels.

I chose two congregations from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) located in a large metropolitan area. I chose the ELCA for a couple of reasons: it is one of the prominent mainline denominations in the United States, it has a strong historical presence in this area, one of the local congregations received national attention for being a thriving mainline congregation, and the ELCA synod makes congregational membership, attendance and giving data publicly available for all congregations in the synod. This created an ideal sampling frame from which to choose two congregations for the case study. The first congregation I chose was the thriving congregation with high participation rates; the second was more typical of congregations in the synod with declining participation rates. On all other traits, they were as similar as possible: the congregations were located in the same part of the city, had been founded within 2 years of each other (1915 and 1917), they had similar racial compositions (both mostly White with a handful of Asian/Pacific Islander members, even fewer African American congregants and one multiethnic congregant), and were similar in terms of average social class and educational level.

My case study research plan consisted of participant observation in worship services, attending meetings as an observer, interviews with pastors and lay leaders in both congregations; and collection of annual reports (going back 12 years), printed liturgical materials, sermons posted online, and content analysis of the congregations’ websites. I began the fieldwork in November 2009 and concluded in May 2010. At the thriving congregation, which will be referred to as Pleasant Valley Lutheran, I attended a total of seven worship services. Five of these were at one of their two morning services, one of them was a Sunday evening service, and the final service was the Easter Vigil service. I observed five meetings including the annual congregational meeting, a Men’s Breakfast Bible study, a new members class known as “the way,” a church council meeting, and a special weekend-long program called “Faith and Font” that was put on for congregational leaders and seminarians from all over the country. I also interviewed the lead pastor, assistant pastor, children and family minister, outreach minister, and five lay leaders.

At the congregation experiencing decline, from now on referred to as Cherry Tree Lutheran, I attended five of their primary worship services as a participant observer, observed four meetings including an Adult Education Committee meeting, Peace and Justice Committee meeting, a Church Council meeting, and the Annual Congregational meeting. I interviewed the head pastor and the assistant/children’s pastor and four lay leaders. Thus, the total number of observations at Pleasant Valley was 22 and 18 at Cherry Tree for a total N = 40 (Gerring, 2007).

The congregations

Pleasant Valley Lutheran has an average of 340 adherents on a typical Sunday. The church has two full-time ordained pastors and two more full-time ministers—a child and family minister and a social outreach pastor. They run the largest all-volunteer food pantry in the area and have an on-site child development center.

Pleasant Valley has just completed a renovation of the building, and the newly appointed sanctuary is comfortable and inviting with dark woods, stone, tiled floors, tall stain glass windows, and warm colors. There is no shortage of religious symbols: there are two large banners on either side of the stained window, as well as a carving on the altar itself. There is artwork on the cover of the bulletin and on the pages as well.

The first thing that stands out about Pleasant Valley is the children. There are a disproportionate number of children present in the Sunday morning service, especially for this area (Wellman, 2008). However, in addition to young families, the congregation is a good mix of older adults, some young adults, and mid-aged couples with older kids.

At Cherry Tree Lutheran, the congregants appear to be upper middleclass and upper middle-aged, but only a few elderly and a few teens. I noticed a young professional couple who come in late with their baby, but they are the exception rather than the norm. Cherry Tree averages around 100 adherents at the weekly worship service. The congregation has a strong commitment to social justice issues; notably, the congregation founded and supported a shelter and transitional housing program for homeless women. The congregation’s building is in need of renovation, although this is on hold until the outcome of a proposal to consolidate campuses with other local congregations has been resolved. The sanctuary is high and open, with support beams angling up to the peak, like the ribs of a ship. The architecture is comfortable, not too impressive or overwhelming. The color of the paint, wood, and carpet are all various shades of light brown and tan, all soothing and neutral. The sanctuary is very plain, devoid of imagery, with the exception of a banner hanging in the front of the sanctuary (to the right of the altar) that says, “Giving in Challenging Times.”

These two congregations are moving in different directions as membership and attendance figures indicate. Pleasant Valley LC has had a steady increase in absolute membership, in confirmed-communing-contributing members, average weekly attendance (raw), and average weekly attendance ratio; whereas Cherry Tree LC has had a slow steady decrease in all the same areas. From 2001 to 2008, Pleasant Valley experienced a 5% change in membership size from 815 to 856 members; the number of confirmed-communing-Contributing members increased from 462% to 654%, a 41.6% increase; average weekly attendance went up by 15.4% from 306 to 353 members. In the same time period, Cherry Tree experienced a −28.6% change in membership from 451 to 322, in the number of confirmed-communing-contributing members, the change was only −6.7% from 300 to 280, but average weekly attendance dropped by −36.6%, down to 128 from 202 (Table 1).

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Table 1.

Congregational indicators.

Congregation	Year	Total membership	Confirmed, communing, contributing members	Average attendance
Pleasant valley	2001	815	462	306
	2008	856	654	353
Cherry tree	2001	451	300	202
	2008	322	280	128

Findings

The use of the most-similar case study methodology allowed me to identify a number of key organizational differences between the congregations that taken together can help explain the variation in their outcomes. These differences include differential use of staff and committees, variation in the religious nature of the goods, services and meetings of the congregations, the use of evangelism or multiple points of entry for unchurched adults, and the intentional creation of community. In the following sections, I will provide a summary of these findings and then discuss their importance for understanding religious participation and vitality in mainline congregations, as well as implications for theorizing about the religious participation.

Distinctive religious goods

Another key difference between the two congregations is that Cherry Tree Lutheran Church feels like an organization even in its worship, whereas at Pleasant Valley everything feels like worship, even its organizational meetings and practices. This contrast was noticeable at every level but stood out most clearly at the congregations’ annual congregational meeting.

At Cherry Tree Lutheran Church, the annual congregational meeting was held after service on one Sunday in the sanctuary, following a Sunday morning worship service. The meeting strictly followed the rules of order and there was a marked absence of any prayer or worship. It was, for all intents and purposes, an organizational meeting in which a budget deficit was presented. There were some minor disagreements that were constrained from turning into argument by the rules of order, and ultimately, the meeting ended rather abruptly as the budget was accepted.

In contrast, the annual congregational meeting at Pleasant Valley felt like attending a prayer service. It also followed the rules of order but in a looser fashion, they made room within the rules to turn an organizational meeting into a worship service. The meeting was held between the 8:30 am and the 11:00 am service. When it began, the pastor noted that it was technically called to order at the beginning of the 8:30 service and would be closed with the benediction at the end of the 11:00 am service. The meeting was intentionally integrated into the worship and ritual life of the congregation. Unlike Cherry Tree, when Pleasant Valley’s deficit was presented, it was not presented as something that was troubling or a problem for the congregation; in fact, it was spoken with a confident hope and expectation that the congregation could work together and eliminate the deficit. This was done through the collection of a special offering that felt like the offering during a regular worship service:

At the presentation of this year’s budget it is noted that the congregation is in debt about $8,600. The financial report is accepted without problem. Then there is a hymn sung during the special offering collected to make up the deficit. There is a plea to engage the prayer contained in the hymn in a robust way and to give generously in all ways so that they can close the budget deficit and put 2009 away. Plates are passed during the singing of the hymn and a good number of people give, most if not all people are singing as well. They are genuinely singing along, and worshipping in their annual budget meeting. The congregation is actively engaged in this process and the meeting is much more like a prayer service than a ‘company’ meeting. (Field notes)

This feeling of being in a worship service was continued throughout the meeting—which was filled with the celebration of people’s service to the congregation, a birthday celebration of one of the social ministries—complete with the congregation singing happy birthday and prayer. At the close of the service, it was announced that those present had given enough money to eliminate the deficit altogether and in fact, there was a surplus. There was a loud round of applause and some cheering. Congregants walked out with smiles on their faces and an apparent feeling of accomplishment. I overheard one attendee greet someone who had missed the meeting and was coming in to attend the second worship service. His enthusiastic response to the question, “how did the meeting go?” was that “it was the best kind of annual meeting—warms the heart and puts the mind at ease.” This highlights the fact that even the congregation’s largest and most important “business” meeting provides the participants with a distinctively religious product. This is not one more business meeting that participants have to attend after a long work week; rather, it is a worship service that “warms the heart and sets the mind at ease.”

This difference can also be seen in the number and nature of other types of groups and meetings held by the two congregations. Most of the groups, activities, and meetings offered by Pleasant Valley are intended to meet the spiritual needs of the congregants, such as a men’s bible study breakfast on Saturday mornings or a women’s reading group that meets mid-day on Wednesdays. There are a wide variety of activities, small groups, and meetings that happen in people’s homes or at the church, led by lay leaders or pastors, and almost all of them are efforts to provide spiritual or religious goods to congregants. The opposite is true at Cherry Tree where there is a paucity of groups that are geared toward providing members with actual religious goods. Most of the scheduled meetings are committee meetings in which members meet to coordinate the provision of goods; very rarely does a group meet and receive religious goods. In fact, there was one bible study group that I inquired about, and the pastor told me not to waste my time, that there were usually only two or three elderly people who attended and that it was not that exciting.

Evangelism/pathways to participation

One difference between the two congregations is in their annual membership change numbers. From2001 to 2008, Cherry Tree had an average membership change among contributing members of −29%, Pleasant Valley’s for the same time period was + 7%. The year 2006 was a typical year for both congregations: Cherry Tree had a net membership loss of 25 members and Pleasant Valley had a net gain of 20 members. Both congregations lost members due to transfers to other congregations and death: Cherry Tree lost 6 and 4 members, respectively, and Pleasant Valley lost 6 and 12 members, respectively. Both congregations also gained as a result of transfers from other congregations: Cherry Tree gained 11 members this way and Pleasant Valley gained 9. So far, there are not any major differences between the congregations’ membership change figures for 2006. The major change came in the area of new members through baptism and affirmations of faith. Cherry Tree gained only 2 adult members through baptism in 2006 and they had no baptisms of children or adult affirmations of faith, whereas Pleasant Valley gained 10 members through the baptism of children and they had 18 affirmations of faith from the return of lapsed Christian adults. This is especially important for continued congregational vitality because the adult converts tend to have high participation levels. So the question is, “What accounts for this dramatic difference in conversion and re-affirmations between the two congregations?”

Pleasant Valley Lutheran Church has a number of intentionally designed avenues for the recruitment of adult converts. These include “the way,” the Childhood Development Center & Bread for Life, the food bank, and the hospitality center during an annual neighborhood event. One highly involved lay person I spoke to told me her own story of how she and her husband met and became involved in the congregation because of the childhood development center. She was a lapsed Christian and they both had young children that were in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and they became involved with other parents and ultimately the congregation that way. One way she says this commonly happens is by the children at the CDC participating in the congregation’s children’s choir. Choir practice for all of the choirs happens on Wednesday nights at Bread for the Journey, and as a result of participation in Bread for the Journey, the parents get to know congregants and come to feel like the congregation is a key part of their community (Table 2).

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Table 2.

Membership change in pleasant valley and cherry tree, 2006.

	Pleasant valley	Cherry tree
Loss through transfers	10	6
Loss through deaths	8	4
Other loss	0	28
Gains from transfers	9	11
Gains through adult baptism/affirmation of faith	18	2
Gains through children’s baptism/affirmation of faith	10	0
Other gain	1	0
Total membership change	20	−25

I met and got to listen to the testimony of another woman who was a non-Christian, who came to the church seeking forgiveness and meaning for her life. As an independent, artistic, educated, and successful woman, she was not interested in pat answers or “cookie cutter Christianity.” On her first visit, the pastor greeted her, made her feel welcome, and invited her to that night’s meeting of “the way.” She went and she liked it. But ultimately, she stopped going. She dropped out of “the way” three times in total. But each time, the pastor sought her out as did her sponsor for membership and drew her back into the community. It was the open dialogue, relational, questioning nature of the catechumenate process and the care of church leaders that ultimately kept her engaged and created an avenue for her to become a Christian and member of the congregation. She is now a regular small group discussion leader in “the way.”

When I asked a church council member and a regular sponsor in “the way,” if the congregation was intentional about evangelism, he responded in the affirmative. He said that Pleasant Valley wanted to be a presence in the community, and to draw people in and serve them. If this means they get food from the food bank, help from the outreach pastor, or just a chance to sit in the shade and have cold water during the summer neighborhood car show, then that’s what Pleasant Valley wants to give them. If they walk away feeling they have been served and treated well, then this was a positive impact, and if ultimately they liked what they felt and wanted more or they hit a rough point in their life and needed the support of the community, then hopefully, they would think of Pleasant Valley as a safe place and come back.

This focus on the importance of evangelism and having multiple intentional avenues for adult non-Christians to find their way in to the congregation is completely absent from Cherry Tree Lutheran Church. No one I spoke to was able to describe the evangelism efforts of the congregation beyond that it was a nice place to worship and that would draw people. Pr McHale told me that the outreach and evangelism committee had been without a committee chair for 3 years and as a result, nothing had been done in that time period. In recognition of their decline, the pastor told me that at one point in the past they had spent a good deal of money on sending postcards inviting everyone in their zip code to service on Easter in an effort to draw people in to the congregation. He said that in the rather anti-religious environment of the Pacific Northwest, this had actually backfired, and instead of getting visitors, they received a number of complaints from neighbors. Since then, they have been too afraid to do anything so public and have not been intentional in any other way. They just, sort of, hope people will show up and see how great it is and stick around. Thus, this difference in strategy and having intentionally designed pathways to draw in new and lapsed Christians is a key organizational difference between these two congregations that can begin to account for the dramatic difference in baptisms and affirmations of faith.

Creation of community

“The way” is Pleasant Valley Lutheran Church’s version of a new members’ class. However, the congregants and pastoral staff view it as much more than a membership class; they view it as the key process in faith formation and have modeled it on the early church’s catechumenate process:

The Catechumenate is an open-ended period of time during which catechumens explore more deeply the Christian faith through the reading of scripture, prayer, worship, and ministry in daily life. This period of reflection and study may last from several months to several years. (Division of Congregational Ministries, ELCA, 1997)

At Pleasant Valley, “the way” is a process that lasts for a single cycle through the church calendar from Advent to Easter. Starting in the Fall, on the first Sunday of Advent, participants meet every other Sunday for a dinner provided by the congregation and then for small group meetings. The early meetings explore topics of interest, such as scripture, the sacraments, and worship. In the winter, the participants continue the same process—exploring the presence of God in the world and in daily life. In early spring, the groups “dig deeper” into the Biblical stories that inform Baptism as they prepare to be baptized—or if already baptized, to re-affirm their baptismal vows—at the Easter Vigil service. Following the Easter Vigil, the focus of “the way” shifts outwards to the practice of Christian living and explores faithful responses to care for the earth, humankind, relationships, and work.

Through the period in which “the way” occurs, the congregation provides meals and free childcare if needed for all the participants. Each candidate is paired up with a member of the congregation. This person is his or her sponsor, someone who provides support through the process and “sponsors” his or her formal membership into the congregation. During the church’s season of Lent, in early spring, as the candidates prepare more intensely for baptism there are a series of public rites in which the candidates go with their sponsors before the congregation during the primary worship service.

“The way” was started over 15 years ago by the previous pastor, who remains a member of the congregation, as part of an intentional effort to counter the growing crisis of congregational decline. It was instituted after the pastor attended a conference on the catechumenate process. He returned excited, claiming to have found “the answer they had been seeking for adult evangelism.” Within a year or two after that, the pastor was promoted to regional bishop and “the way” was left in the hands of the woman who is currently the assistant pastor. Under her supervision and with the full support and input of the new head pastor, “the way” flourished. In fact, it did work, both, to stem congregational decline and to serve as a means of evangelism. One of the functions that “the way” serves is as an avenue for adult converts and lapsed Christians to enter a new faith and participate in the life of the congregation. While attending the Faith and Font seminar, a seminar Pleasant Valley sponsors for church leaders and seminarians from all over the country on “the way,” I had the opportunity to hear the testimony of one woman who was an adult convert to Christianity and whose conversion resulted from participation in “the way,” and some of the current candidates that I met as a participant observer were lapsed Christians who were re-entering a life of Christian practice as well as people who had switched congregations and were seeking to make Pleasant Valley their permanent home.

In addition to being one of the “doors” through which new people enter this congregation, “the way” helps Pleasant Valley solve collective action problems through various mechanisms. First of all, this program helps to overcome one of the coordination problems faced by religious congregations and other voluntary associations—getting people involved beyond just simply occasional attendance at the primary worship service. “The way” works to create long-term relationships between new members and actively participating, long time members—the sponsors. This serves to embed the new members in the network of highly involved laity and to create an expectation of similar levels of involvement. Second, in the late stage of the process following the Baptism or renewal of Baptismal vows, during the season of Easter, the group meets and discusses living as faithful Christians. This period in their faith formation focuses on how they can respond and be faithful in their local context. The discussion serves to focus the attention of the participants on current issues faced by the local community or those in the congregation and elicits a personal response or perspective on the issue. This often leads participants in “the way” to active service or volunteer work in an area of interest or need that is being met by the programs, ministries, and services of the congregation. In addition, the opportunities for volunteer work or current areas of need are often explicitly presented to the new members at this time. In some iterations of “the way,” this has involved tours of the ministries and programs, such as the food pantry, housing program for mentally ill adults, and the social ministry. On these tours, the candidates are introduced to the people running the programs, see the facilities, and meet some clients. In other sessions of “the way,” these opportunities are simply discussed. This also happens less formally in the small group discussions among the new members and their sponsors, since many of the regular sponsors are also involved in other areas of congregational life and will discuss their service experience as they share about their faith experiences.

Discussion

Two of the key differences between the thriving and declining congregations in this research typify Community types of solutions: “The way” serves as an organizational response to collective action problems. Specifically, it functions as a community solution to both free riding and coordination problems commonly faced by religious organizations by creating mutual expectations for participation, and community ideals focusing on the value of service in which the costs are benefits (Chong, 1991; Kanter, 1972; Tarrow, 1991), and service and sacrifice are a vehicle for self-actualization (Elster, 1983). In addition, quality and distinctiveness of the religious goods provided by Pleasant Valley may be the case of an organization making the costs of production or the individual’s contribution as a reward or benefit in and of itself. This is a Community solution to collective action problems: to reframe the means as ends and the costs as rewards (Lichbach, 1996). In addition, Pleasant Valley’s reliance on heavy staffing can be viewed as a hierarchy solution since it involves the use of agents to coordinate and provide religious goods.

The findings from this research offer a way forward for thinking about ways that liberal, mainline protestant congregations can influence the levels of participation and their congregational vitality. Pleasant Valley was able to increase their participation levels over time by relying on staff for effective provision of key services, by offering distinctly religious goods and services, creating non-threatening mechanisms for evangelism and adult entry into the congregation, and intentionally working to create community and connections among congregants. All of these flowed from their congregational identity and fit their unique social and organizational context, and none of them required a change in identity or a movement toward strictness. This finding is essential because it pushes back on the notion that strictness or tension is a necessity for congregational strength and shows possibilities for increased vitality for mainline protestant congregations. These finding also point toward the possibility of bringing back an understanding of religion as collective action. Since nearly every one of these differences fits into some category of collective action solution, it may be useful for scholars of religion to revisit this approach.

Conclusion

This article offers the beginnings of a way forward for scholars of religion as well as religious leaders to think about organizational sources that can influence religious participation within mainline protestant churches, along with other types of liberal congregations for whom strictness is not an option. It also serves as a reminder that understandings of solutions to collective action problems in other branches of social science can still be informative for understanding religion at the congregational level. The hyper-focus on rationality and obsession with strictness was always a reduction of the complexity and depth of theoretical resources in this area.