Community competence in religious congregations

Abstract

Iscoe (1974)proposed a conception of the competent to evaluate the potential to prevent social problems in geographical communities. This paper operationalizes an Iscoe-like conception of congregation community competence (CCC) and assesses its utility for studying religious congregations. The paper presents a 27-item CCC Scale. Survey data, collected from 405 church attenders from 12 congregations (2 of each of 6 denominations) indicated that the 12 congregations couM be divided into 4 groups with differing degrees of correspondence to the CCC concept. Among 4 groups, higher scores on the CCC Scale were significantly and positively related to achievement of several general congregational goals promoting maintenance of the congregation. This study is correlational and principles drawn from data have not been tested in an intervention. These data, however, suggest that principles embodied in the CCC concept might be studied as potential tools useful for improving congregational participation and effectiveness. Religious organizations have only infrequently been of interest to community psychologists in the 20-year history of the discipline (Shinn, 1987). Today, such groups are beginning to be recognized by some community psychologists as well as other social scientists as significant communities warranting serious study; religious communities can provide persons with essential individual and public meaning and motivation (Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swindler, & Tipton, 1985; Maton & Pargament, 1987; Pargament, Silverman, Johnson, Echemendia, & Snyder, 1983). Clearly, the early scholarly literature in the area of community psychology was implicitly if not explicitly action-oriented. The article based upon