Vital Congregations
Lessons and Stories of Vital Congregations
Brief stories illustrating the many ways congregations become vital.
Looking for Stories of Holy Closure:
All congregations have a life span. At some point in every congregation’s life, a time comes to discern when it is time to conclude their ministry or make significant changes for a fresh start. Congregations that go through a healthy discernment process often conclude their ministry with dignity and members go on to bless other congregations. Those going through less healthy discernment and decision making often produce much suffering and may send wounded members into other congregations or out of the church entirely.
I am looking for stories of both healthy or unhealthy discernment/decision making around holy closure from a variety of denominations. Using my research skills I will qualitatively evaluate these stories and identify themes or lessons that can be learned and shared with the world.
If you have a story of holy closure, please email me at Linda@BlueVeilMinistries.com.
Resources for Congregations
What We Can Learn From Research
Vital Congregations: Comparing what it means to be vital across 10 faith traditions
What does a congregation mean when they describe themselves as spiritually vital? How does a congregation become vital? What is the relationship between vitality and sustainability? Does the answer depend on the faith tradition?
This study asked leaders from 10 different faith traditions to answer these questions. We found remarkable similarities across all traditions while also discovering the unique perspectives of each. Their answers illustrate distinct understandings about the way people interact with God and different perspectives of God’s promise of hope for the world.
Lessons learned from the Congregational Vitality Project
After years of research, I summarized some of the lessons learned about how congregations and denominations can cultivate vitality.
Lessons Learned from Synod Strategies.
This report shares the one year update from 12 separate synod strategies designed to improve congregational vitality.
Image by Bishop Jim Gonia
Faith Formation, Spiritual Growth and Faith in Action: Findings from the Congregational Vitality Survey
Vital congregations help create people who live out their faith in the world, right?
This study analyzes data from 30,000 individuals from over 490 congregations nation-wide to discover the surprisingly weak relationship between a congregation’s vitality and people’s spiritual growth. Yet even though strong congregations don’t necessarily create spiritual growth, the study shows that spiritual growth matters in how people live out their faith in daily life.