Center for Social Research

Calvin faculty study local congregational worship

The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship (CICW) has received a grant from the Lilly Endowment to better understand the transformative nature of worship. A team of nine Calvin College faculty and Center for Social Research (CSR) staff are working with John Witvliet and the Worship Institute staff to study issues of “Worship, Worldview and Way of Life.”

Five of these faculty members are working together and partnering with ten local congregations in Grand Rapids to do a series of studies. The ten churches represent both urban and suburban locations as well as a variety of denominations. These studies cover worship’s relationship to everything from conceptions of community to issues of race. In keeping with the Worship Institute’s practical goals, the aim is to help congregations become more reflective about how worship can empower congregants to be transformative agents in society. CSR staff and student research assistants are providing research support, especially Gwen Einfeld, who is organizing tracking of recordings and transcripts. Read on for details of these studies and biographical sketches of the faculty conducting them.

God and Nature:  Depictions of the Asian Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina in Worship
Dr. Janel Curry is conducting a project in the study group’s ten partner Grand Rapids churches. As available, transcripts of the three worship services following both the Asian tsunami (January 2, 9, and 16, 2005) and Hurricane Katrina (September 4, 11, and 18, 2005) from each church will be analyzed to see how relationships among God, nature, and humans are depicted. She will also compare sermons of the same time period from similar congregations posted on the web.

Janel Curry is Dean for Research and Scholarship and Professor of Geography at Calvin College. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Dr. Curry has held numerous leadership positions in the area of rural geography, including chair of the board of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University. Dr. Curry has published on the topic of community and natural resources in journals such as the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, The Geographic Review, Agriculture and Human Values, and Society and Natural Resources. Her recent book, published by Rowman and Littlefield, is titled Community on Land:  Community, Ecology, and the Public Interest. She is the recipient of the John Fraser Hart Award for Research Excellence, award by the Rural Geography Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers.

The Framing of Community and Faith:  A Rhetorical Analysis of Sermons
Dr. Kathi Groenendyk is studying twelve Sunday morning worship services, spanning one year, from each of the ten partner churches in urban and suburban Grand Rapids. In the first of a series of studies, she will examine the themes, language, and rhetorical appeals to individuals and communities made within the sermons.

Kathi Groenendyk is an Associate Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences and holds a Ph.D. from the Pennsylvania State University. She studies environmental communication, examining the language used to frame environmental disputes, and visual rhetoric. Dr. Groenendyk has published articles examining how movies use landscape to help tell a story and how those images correspond to societal beliefs about nature. In addition to her other duties, she is the Co-Director for the Academic Writing Program and advisor to the student group Environmental Stewardship Coalition.

Understanding Racialization in Congregations
A multi-racial research team, composed of Dr. Gail Heffner, Director of Community Engagement and Dr. Denise Isom, Assistant Professor of Education, will be exploring the role of religious institutions in bridging the racial divide. Questions will be:  How do the participants in these congregations understand the notion of ‘race’ and what meaning does it have in their lives and in the life of their congregation? What do their worship practices reveal about the racial ideology and identity of the congregation? The focus of this research will be to understand the lived-experiences of race for people of color and for whites in these congregations.

The Meaning Making World of African American Children
Dr. Isom is also doing a study of African American children, to give voice to how they see the world and themselves. Using several months of observational analysis, as well as interviews and focus groups, Dr. Isom is looking to capture how Black children define maleness, femaleness, “Blackness”, Christianity, and the way those ideas and identities intersect and interact. She serves as a volunteer in one of the church youth programs as well as attending the church on Sundays. That engagement will allow her to get to know the children and observe the way they live out what they think. The final stages of the study will include interviews and focus groups with the children.

Gail Gunst Heffner is the Director of Community Engagement at Calvin College and was on the staff of the Calvin Center for Social Research from 2001-2004.  She holds a Ph.D. in Urban Studies from Michigan State University.  She has published articles on community-based research, community partnerships, and social capital and community development in journals such as the Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning and the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement.  Her book, published by University Press of America, is titled Commitment and Connection: Service-Learning and Christian Higher Education. She studies race and racialization; her doctoral dissertation was a study of a multi-congregational anti-racism initiative examining institutional racism in congregations. Denise A. Isom is currently an assistant professor in the education department at Calvin College and holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology of Education from Loyola University, Chicago. Her current research on racialized gender identity in African American children brings together Dr. Isom’s interests and expertise in the areas of race, culture, identity, and gender. Her research has been presented at numerous conferences including the University of Pennsylvania’s ethnography conference and the American Educational Research Association and accepted for publication in the Journal of Race Equality and Teaching. This research will represent a follow-up study to her dissertation work on African American 5th-7th graders’ articulations and manifestations of their racialized gender identity.

Community and the Congregation
The work of Dr. Mark Mulder will examine how worship practices might affect or influence a congregation’s conception of the immediate community. The research will focus on questions of the connection between worship practices and connections to the local neighborhood. He will examine historical documents, observe churches in action, and interview members of the various congregations.

Mark Mulder, originally from Wisconsin, joined the Calvin faculty in 2002 and is Assistant Professor of Sociology. Mark received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His research is in urban studies. Mark is particularly interested in residential patterns and social service agencies. His dissertation examined the roles of congregations in the process of “white flight.” More recently, he has written about faith-based homeless shelters. Mark has also presented the concept of “place” in urban neighborhoods as well as pedagogy for sociology classes.

In gratitude for their participation in the studies, the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship will offer the participating congregations a variety of worship-related materials and/or conference registration. The research results will also be shared with the participating congregations. These studies have been cleared by the College’s Institutional Review Board to ensure that researchers maintain high levels of confidentiality, in turn maintaining a high level of trust with congregations.

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