Center for Social Research

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.

1. Full report (11.2MB; 78-page color PDF, with extensive bookmarks and hypertext cross-referencing)
2. Printable PDF questionnaires for pastors and clerks of council.
3. Online web-based questionnaires for pastors and clerks of council (shown in preview mode; data is not collected).
4. Charts and frequencies of multiple choice items for pastors (56-page PDF) and clerks of council (26-page PDF).

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.