“Responding to Neighborhood Change: CRC Congregations in Southeast Grand Rapids, 1970-2000”
How do congregations from a white ethnic denomination respond to growing urban diversity? Sociology professors Dr. Mark Mulder, Calvin College, and Dr. Kevin Dougherty, Baylor University, examined 30 years worth of change (1970-2000) in 14 Christian Reformed congregations in Southeast Grand Rapids, Michigan. They tracked neighborhood composition, residential patterns of congregation members, and congregation membership totals. As white residents declined in urban neighborhoods, congregations from this historically Dutch denomination had difficulty sustaining themselves as neighborhood churches.
CSR and Calvin’s Dept. of Sociology and Social Work will co-sponsor a talk by Drs. Mulder and Dougherty, in which they will discuss how congregations respond to neighborhood change.
Thursday April 23, 2009
7:00 p.m.
Calvin College Meeter Center Lecture Hall
The image below shows the increasing radius of members’ residences at one congregation:
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