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Presbyterian Panel Survey, November 2017 - Congregational Vitality, Members

DOI

10.17605/OSF.IO/6G2XY

Summary

The Presbyterian Panel is made of up of representative samples of ministers of the Word and Sacrament and members of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) congregations who respond to quarterly surveys on topics that are important to the denomination. The November 2017 panel is part of an ongoing research project assessing the vitality of existing worshiping communities within the PC(USA), and is part of a collaboration with the Office of Vital Congregations.

Congregational vitality is a topic of interest to many mainline denominations. Within the PC(USA), current work on congregational vitality kicked off in September 2016 with a congregational vitality symposium, which was attended by members spanning all six agencies. Also in 2016, the Presbyterian Mission Agency established an Office of Vital Congregations, which is now testing its Revitalization Initiative. Finally, the Mission Agency adopted congregational vitality as one of its emphases for its 2019-2020 Mission Work Plan.

Prayerful discernment, which included a review of existing research on congregational vitality and the results of the 2016 symposium, elicited seven marks of congregational vitality. Research Services then collaborated with the Office of Vital Congregations to construct a survey to measure the seven marks of vitality. The aim was to combine survey questions into scales corresponding to each of the seven vitality marks. This Panel is a test to check the reliability and validity of the scales. Another goal of this panel is to get a better understanding of how Presbyterians are doing in regard to the seven marks. The first three marks all relate closely to Christian formation at the individual level. The final four marks relate more to structural issues that need to be in place before churches can really do a good job helping members grow as disciples. Through a combination of these individual and structural measures, we can gain a more robust understanding of not just whether a congregation is thriving, but also in what ways. The congregation can use this information to discern where it needs to focus more of its energies.

This dataset contains data from all sampled members.

Data File

Cases: 457
Variables: 101
Weight Variable: None

Data Collection

November 2017

Original Survey (Instrument)

The Presbyterian Panel, Congregational Vitality

Funded By

Congregational Ministries Division, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sampling Procedures

The Presbyterian Panel is made of up of representative samples of Ministers of the Word and Sacrament and members of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) congregations who respond to quarterly surveys on topics that are important to the denomination.

Principal Investigators

Presbyterian Mission Research Services

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