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Transformation Through Worship: A Study of Grand Rapids Congregations
The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship seeks to explore and study the transformative nature of worship. As part of this initiative, five faculty from Calvin College are partnering with local congregations in Grand Rapids to do a series of studies. These studies cover worship's relationship to everything from conceptions of community to issues of race.* The point of all these studies is to help congregations become more reflective about how worship can empower congregants to be transformative agents in society.
In gratitude for their participation in the studies, congregations will be offered a variety of worship-related materials and/or conference registration through the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship. The research results will also be shared with the participating congregations.
God and Nature: Depictions of the Asian Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina in Worship
Dr. Janel Curry, professor of geography, is carrying out a project in ten churches in Grand Rapids that represent a variety of denominations and both urban and suburban locations. 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 the relationships among God, nature, and humans are depicted.
The Framing of Community and Faith: A Rhetorical Analysis of Sermons
Dr. Kathi Groenendyk, associate professor of communication arts and sciences, is studying twelve Sunday morning worship services, spanning one year, from ten 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.
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/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/identities intersect and interact. The study would involve her serving as a volunteer in one of the churches 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.
Community and the Congregation
The work of Dr. Mark Mulder, assistant professor of sociology, will examine how worship practices might affect or influence a congregation's conception of the immediate community. The research will focus around 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.
Political Thinking and Christian Practice
Corwin Smidt's research focus considers how worship services reflect and promote particular Christian practices and ways of thinking about politics. This project addresses the following questions: (1) To what extent are political matters addressed within worship services, and when they are done so, in what form, relating to what concerns, and varying by what factors?, and (2) To what extent are political matters addressed within congregational life outside the worship service itself (e.g., in the adult education program)?, and (3) How, if at all, are the two related?
The bulk of this research will be based on survey research, though some ethnographic analyses may be used to supplement the primary research approach. The survey research will be predominately based on reports given by clergy, though some parishioner reports will also be included. Finally some comparative, over time, assessment will be employed based on questions posed to clergy in the same denominations over time.
Additional Research
Kurt Schaefer and Neil Carlson are involved in the joint Center for Social Research / Calvin Institute of Christian Worship project in three ways:
1. They will, along with the CSR's student research assistants, provide research support for the various research teams that comprise the study.
2. In the first year of the study, they are preparing a paper (along with John Witvliet) on the ways in which social science has intersected with the academic study of worship, and the ways in which some areas of social science have not been drawn upon by those who study worship.
3. In a separate study, Neil and Kurt have proposed a means of modeling the relationships among the ideological/worldview commitments of congregations and members, the worship practices of churches, and the ways in which these relationships change dynamically over time. The model is in some ways similar to “rational choice” geographic models, but does not presume economic determinism—indeed, does not include any economic incentive variables. After presenting the model as a theoretical approach to the problems in the literature about worship/worldview/way-of-life, they will estimate some facets of the model empirically.
* All procedures for doing research involving humans must be cleared through a college committee to ensure that researchers maintain high levels of confidentiality, which in turn ensures a high level of trust with congregations.
Team Information
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 being 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 by the Rural Geography Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers.
Kathi Groenendyk is an associate professor of communication arts and cciences with a Ph.D. from 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.
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 and 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 UPenn 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.
Mark Mulder, originally from Wisconsin, joined the Calvin faculty in 2002. Mark received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His research is in urban studies. Mark is particularly interested in both residential patterns and in 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.
Kurt C. Schaefer (Ph.D., Economics, University of Michigan) has taught at Calvin since 1987. His scholarly work has focused on the use and limits of empirical work in the social sciences. The Uses and Misuses of Data and Models: The Mathematization of the Human Sciences (with W. James Bradley, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998) lays out his general approach to the relationship between empirical work and ethical/world-view considerations; article-length applications have considered the evaluation of third-world development programs, the effects of the U.S. welfare programs on illegitimacy and work effort, the study of workplace discrimination, and the use of “gravity” models in international economic analysis. He received (with John Mason) the 1991 Christian Scholars Award given by the Christian Scholar's Review. Schaefer has also directed Calvin's semester-abroad programs in Hungary and Britain, is secretary/treasurer of the Association of Christian Economists, and directs Calvin's Center for Social Research.
Corwin Smidt holds the Paul B. Henry Chair in Christianity and Politics and serves as Executive Director of the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics at Calvin College, where he has taught since 1977. He is the author, editor, or co-author of 10 books (including: Pulpit and Politics: Clergy in American Politics at the Advent of the Millennium; Religion as Social Capital: Producing the Common Good; Sojourners in the Wilderness: The Christian Right in Comparative Perspective; The Bully Pulpit: The Politics of Protestant Clergy; and In God We Trust: Religion in American Political Life) as well as author or co-author of over 40 chapters in edited volumes and over 25 journal articles. Prof. Smidt has served as President of Christians in Political Science, as Executive Director of the Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association, and as President of the Michigan Conference of Political Scientists.