Church Growth through Member Identification and Commitment: A Congregational Case Study

Abstract

Organizational commitment and identification are important organizational communication variables that have practical application in church organizations. However, contemporary operationalizations of these concepts cannot be applied to the church organization context because "work" and monetary components are not relevant to most members. A qualitative investigation of a highly successful United Methodist church was conducted to uncover the communication strategies that provide the foundation for this organization's exceptional sustained growth and member activity. Nearly twenty years ago, James Beckford (1973) announced the beginning of a new field of study, "religious organization." One of Beckford's key ideas, and one that we advocate in the present study, is that the research and theories of organizational analysis may be fruitfully applied to the analysis of various kinds of religious organizations, including specific congregations. In this study, we use concepts from open systems theory (Carroll, Dudley, and McKinney 1986) and from organizational communication research to analyze the successes of a particular congregation at meeting its goals, including that of significant membership growth. Two concepts linked to organizational success are emphasized: member commitment and identification. Organizational commitment is primary to organizational communication research, but investigation of that and other organizational communication phenomena has not been conducted extensively in church organizations. As a result of the focus on profit-making, salary-giving organizations, organizational commitment generally has been equated to professional or job commitment and often measured through pen and paper tests or through turnover statistics. In their review of four popular organizational commitment instruments, Barge and Schlueter (1988) show that only one (the Mowday, Steers, and Porter Organizational Commitment Questionnaire) does not include elements relating to pay or salary. This questionnaire, however, is still inappropriate for church organizations as the items are conceptualized around "work." We did not find any instances where this instrument had been used in church settings.