Center for Social Research

Report on 2009 Sustaining Pastoral Excellence Survey

Since 2004, CSR has been supporting the Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRCNA) in its Sustaining Pastoral Excellence project, which has been funded by grants from the Lilly Endowment, Inc. Three waves of surveys have been conducted on an approximately biennial bases, in 2004/2005 (which we're now labeling "2005" for simplicity's sake), 2007 and 2009. A full report is now available comparing all three survey waves and including statistical models of pastors' self-reported pastoral health (vocational satisfaction and sustainability), leadership skills, and congregational fulfillment of the CRC's mission statement. The report finds statistical stability across all three waves--excellence is indeed being sustained. But we also identify many areas of concern with room for improvement, especially council support through systematic feedback on preaching. The statistical models suggest that programmatic interventions per se have mixed effects, but targeting leadership skill development could stimulate improvements in pastoral health. The following resources are available from CSR; also see the SPE project's survey page. Full report (11.2MB; 78-page color PDF, with extensive bookmarks and hypertext cross-referencing) Printable PDF questionnaires for pastors and clerks of council. Online web-based questionnaires for pastors and clerks of council (shown in preview mode; data is not collected). Charts and frequencies of multiple choice items for pastors (56-page PDF) and clerks of council (26-page PDF). Comments and critiques are welcome! Click "read more" below to see a sample finding from the 2009 survey. UPDATE 12/20: The CRC Newsroom has a story about the survey. UPDATE 1/15: The Grand Rapids Press has written a story about the survey.

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Calvin Economics blog

Don’t miss the Calvin Economics blog from our colleagues in the Department of Economics.

Explanations for Church Mobilization against AIDS in Africa

Despite local, national, and global attention to AIDS in Africa, an estimated 1.4 million Africans died of the disease in 2008, the same number as in 2001. As central institutions in many African societies, churches have responded to AIDS in various ways, from ignoring the disease, to providing care for the sick, to demanding state responses.

Using data from news articles and interviews with AIDS activists, church leaders, AIDS policymakers, and donor officials in Zambia, Kenya, the United States, and Ghana conducted between 2007 and 2010, Professor Amy Patterson, Political Science, presents an analysis of these church AIDS activities in Africa. She argues that church organizational structures, pastoral leadership, and the opportunities provided by globalization and the continent’s presumed “dependence” on the West shape African church mobilization on AIDS.

Please join CSR for Dr. Patterson's presentation and the ensuing discussion.

Thursday October 7, 2010 3:30 p.m., Meeter Center Lecture Hall Calvin College Refreshments provided

Farewell, Jim Penning

CSR staff and students are mourning the loss of our beloved director, Dr. James Penning. Jim left us for glory the evening of July 13. He will be sorely missed, as his warmth, humor and insight made our work a joy. You can read more about Dr. Penning’s character and achievements and the timing of services from the Calvin College news service. An obituary is online at the Grand Rapids Press.

Professor Jason VanHorn and Nathan Mosurinjohn publish paper on 3D GIS Modeling

The CSR is pleased to report the recent publication featuring the work of our very own
Nathan Mosurinjohn, along with Calvin’s Professor of Geography, Jason VanHorn. Professor VanHorn’s specialty is terrorism geography, and in the summer of 2008 he began working with Nathan on a methodology for safeguarding politicians and other VIP’s from sniper fire using 3D modeling.

GIS (Geographic Information Systems) are frequently used in crime prevention strategies, but many approaches only make use of 2D data. In this paper, Professor Van Horn and Nathan examined 3D modeling possibilities using the tools available in GIS and Google Sketch-Up. Their goal was to be able to calculate every position sniper fire could potentially come from a given particular VIP location.

To test this methodology, the burial site of President Ford, found at the Gerald R. Ford Museum, was selected, being a location that has hosted many prominent people in the past, including Vice President Dick Cheney at President Ford’s burial. Nathan first built a digital 3D model of downtown Grand Rapids using Google Sketch-Up. He researched aerial photographs, maps, and records containing specific heights of buildings to aid him in this task. Click here to see a video of this 3D model. Do you recognize downtown Grand Rapids?

Using this model, Professor VanHorn and Nathan were then able to construct a viewshed which shows all of the places from which a person could be seen if they were to be standing at a specific location. Nathan and Professor VanHorn also researched the maximum firing ranges of different weapons and built a model which demonstrated the maximum distance that a weapon would have to fire to reach a designated area (see image below).
This instrumental research gives an example of how 3D modeling capabilities can be used in terrorism research and personnel protection, and how useful it is to conduct these analysis in 3D instead of 2D maps.