Church Attenders Research Articles

Subtypes of Bullying and Friends’ Delinquency: Is Religiosity a Moderator?

Increasingly, bullying research has focused on identifying protective factors associated with bullying involvement (e.g., victim, perpetrator) and adverse outcomes. In this study, religiosity was examined as a protective factor in the relationship between bullying involvement and friends’ delinquency among a large sample of low-income urban African American adolescents ( N = 753). Analysis of the cross-sectional data indicated that bullying perpetration, victimization, and victimization/perpetration were positively associated with greater friends’ delinquency. Further, adolescents who bullied others were less likely to report having friends engaging in delinquency when they reported attending church or other religious services. Also, adolescents who reported both victimization and perpetration of bullying, who placed great importance on religious or spiritual beliefs, were less likely to associate with friends engaging in delinquency. This study demonstrates how religiosity should be considered in bullying prevention and intervention efforts.

THE ACTIVITIES OF THE HOLY FATHERS IN ESTABLISHING THE SPIRITUAL TRADITIONS OF ORTHODOX SINGING

In the modern world, there is a problem of the young generation’s loss of spiritual landmarks, which is manifested in the dominance of pragmatism, focus on obtaining material goods, indifference to the feelings of other people, including loved ones. Education of moral qualities of an individual cannot be effective if all social institutions are not involved in it: family, school, cultural institutions, church. Nowadays, the importance of religious education is gaining a high status in the domestic society - children and teenagers get used to attending church, study in Sunday schools, where they participate in choir singing. Musical spiritual works today are not limited to church life, but are included in the repertoires of singing groups of general secondary and primary music education institutions, are offered for listening to music at school, etc. (Rostovskyi, 2003). (Rostovskyi, 2003). The urgent task of preserving the traditions of Orthodoxy in its competition with the Catholic and Uniate influences on the Ukrainian community determines the special interest of teachers and scientists in the educational possibilities of Orthodox music (Afonina, 2012).

What Should Churches Post on Facebook? An Exploratory Study of the Perceived Contribution of Facebook Posts to the Mission of Churches

Facebook is the most popular social networking site in the world and is used by many churches. This study seeks to discover the type of Facebook posts that most contribute to the perceived spiritual formation of church attenders as defined by typical church mission statements. A broad range of church attenders who use Facebook ( N = 161) completed an online survey focusing on their church's Facebook page. They indicated the degree to which they believe various types of their church's Facebook posts contributed to their spiritual formation, specifically, their relationship with God, their relationship with fellow believers, their personal spiritual growth, and their involvement in ministry or service. They also indicated what type of posts they would like to see more frequently from their church. An exploratory analysis found that posts that had greater cognitive content (specifically, live broadcasts, video recordings, announcements, and devotionals) were perceived to contribute more to church attenders’ spiritual formation than did posts with less cognitive content (humorous memes, photos, inspirational quotations, and external links). Confirming these results, participants also expressed a preference for their church to make more posts with high cognitive content than posts with low cognitive content. These results lead to several applications of how churches can better use Facebook to contribute to their mission.

Trans in the Chapel: Attending Church as a Newly Out Transgender Woman

The ratchet tightened in my chest pulling into the parking lot. Four of our five children in tow and one serving a mission. Fifteen minutes early in the hopes that we could settle in before anyone noticed. My children insist we sit in our usual pew to the right side, six rows back on the bleached knotty pine and speckled blue-green padded benches that were clean of goldfish and Cheerios. Dressed in a freshly pressed Foxcroft white oxford women's button-up blouse and black pleated polyester women's dress slacks, I slid into the bench and practiced my breathing exercises while trying to look away from anyone who might look over. My eyelashes were subtly coated in matte black mascara, on my cheeks a light dusting of dusty rose-colored blush powder, just enough that I could feel comfortable and almost myself.“Nice to see you back where you belong, Brother English.”Look down, don't make eye contact, and breathe.“Thank you.”Breathe in and hold for three seconds, breathe out and hold for three seconds. Breathe in and hold for three seconds, and again, breathe out and hold for three seconds.“Well, hello, young man . . . nice to see you, it has been a while. Are you sticking around for priesthood this time?”It will be okay. Three, two, one . . . let the breath out.“Hello, it has been a while.”I forced a smile then looked back down at the polished, almond-shaped tips of my shiny black Naturalizer flats, remembering that my toes were painted the color of lilacs somewhere underneath. I hoped I didn't scuff them on the way in.I watched peripherally as the Relief Society president came in the room and moved from sister to sister, greeting them as they came in with their families. Her navy, floor-length chevron maxi dress moved gracefully with her from Sister Tanner to Sister Johnston to Sister Brown. A stiff and highly appropriate handshake with the second counselor, then on to Sister Hansen. As she came toward the English family pew, she sat down beside me and softly took my hand.“I'm so glad you made the extra effort to be here. You look beautiful and full of grace.”I took a deep breath, and we wept together until the meeting was about to start.She moved her family over to sit in front of my little family, pulling a small pack of tissues out of her purse and handing them to me with a subtle look of reassurance.Forty-seven minutes of breathing exercises and making small origami frogs out of the program to distract myself from the anxiety of the meeting. Someone said a closing prayer. The Relief Society president returned to my side, held my hand again, tears again.“Would it be okay if I stay here with you for a minute?”“No, thank you, I need to go outside if I am going to be okay.”“Okay, is it okay if I check on you?”“Yes, I will be out in the car until the kids are done with their meetings.”Standing up, adjusting the blouse, careful to not scuff my toes. Taking a breath as two hands extend in front of me.“Nice to see you, Brother English. Glad you are back where you belong.”Breathe, correct my posture after the aggressive grab and shake of my clamped-down left shoulder.“Would you consider coming early to help the young men pass the sacrament next week?”“Maybe.”Moving to the car, I reach into my pocket, pull out one of the tissues, dab the corner of my eye, careful to not disturb the long black lashes. Grateful to have worn waterproof mascara this time.

Pioneer Mother

Pioneer Mother

How can shared reading be used to develop community connectivity in the contemporary church?

Abstract This paper reports on a project to use, within church communities, previous experience in universities and schools of shared reading for the purposes of outreach, widening participation, and community inclusion. It outlines and explores the experience of selecting a book, and its subsequent discussion among a group of parishioners, to promote a sense of connectedness and belonging. The outcomes have implications for creating and strengthening links within existing church communities, reaching out to those who live locally but are not regular church attenders, and drawing others towards the church from the wider, not necessarily geographically local, community.

Support and Satisfaction: Perspectives of Older Grandparent Caregivers About Faith-Based Communities

ABSTRACT Older grandparents raising adolescent grandchildren are a hidden caregiving population. Religion serves as a protective factor for many older adult caregivers. The caregiving and religion literature often excludes exploration of caregivers’ satisfaction with social support provided by faith-based communities. Nineteen older grandparents raising adolescent grandchildren participated in in-depth qualitative interviews regarding the lived experiences of their social support and satisfaction woth faith-based communities. Research questions were: (1) describe, if any, what types of support you receive from church or religious groups? and (2) how satisfied are you with the support from church or religious groups? The diverse sample of grandparents were White (n = 10), Black/African American (n = 7), Native American (n = 1), and Filipino (n = 1). Respondents were primarily married (58%), white/nonHispanic (53%), grandmothers (84%), with some college education or college graduate (79%). Older grandparent caregivers identified key people, situational circumstances, and tangible goods that enhanced their wellbeing and posed opportunities for more support. Five themes characterizing social support and satisfaction with older grandparent caregivers’ perspectives of their faith-based communities were emotional support, activities and resources, stopped attending church, attended church but did not seek support, and mixed satisfaction with religious support. Implications are presented for social work education and social work practice.

Older Adults’ Experiences of the Covid-19 Restrictions on Religious Gatherings

ABSTRACT Attending church services is an important experience for many older adults. Social distancing measures during the Covid-19 pandemic prompted a temporary suspension of church services. During this lockdown period, churches provided a range of alternative service formats. This study investigates how older people experienced these. Telephone interviews were conducted with 12 regular churchgoers between the ages of 67 and 94 during the lockdown period in three Roman Catholic parishes in Southern Germany. Participants missed church services, but valued various alternative formats. The cemetery became a focal meeting point for some older parishioners. Flexibility in the organization of spiritual support was appreciated.

Evangelistic belief and behavior among Canadian congregants

With the recent surge of “religious nones” in many Western nations, there is a growing interest among some church attenders to effectively “reach” this demographic. In this article, we build on theories of strictness and social embeddedness to tackle three questions regarding evangelistic belief and behavior in Canadian Catholic, mainline Protestant, and conservative Protestant congregations. First, in what ways are evangelistic beliefs and behaviors similar or dissimilar across theological traditions, notably when comparing stricter and less strict contexts? Second, how are evangelistic behaviors similar or dissimilar based on a person’s frequency of church attendance? Third, what challenges do people confront in their evangelistic efforts? Drawing on survey data with over 9100 Catholic, mainline, and conservative Protestant respondents in over 250 Canadian congregations, this study compares responses across theological sectors, reported levels of importance that church members attach to evangelism, as well as church attendance frequency. Data reveal that those in religious traditions with stricter “insider–outsider” boundaries and who were more socially embedded in their religious groups (i.e., conservative Protestant traditions) were the most likely to embrace evangelistic attitudes and behaviors, in contrast to those in religious groups with less strict boundaries or social embeddedness in their religious group (i.e., United Church of Canada). However, those with the strongest “us–them” boundaries also found those boundaries particularly prohibitive to their evangelistic efforts reflected, in part, in a widespread leaning toward passive versus assertive forms of evangelism.

AUTOAVALIAÇÃO DE IDOSOS QUE TRABALHAM SOBRE SUA QUALIDADE DE VIDA

Aging brings a series of changes that may result in: adaptation difficulties, need to treat limitations and alters that require treatment. The objective was to verify the quality of life of elders who still do work activities according to their own perspective. We got 36 seniors from São Paulo city to participate in the survey, with an average of 71.5 and ± 5.4. The data were randomly collected. For this, WHOQOL questionnaires were used. To discover if there is a statistically significant difference, the non-parametric Chi-square test was applied. As results: 30.55% of the elderly attend church Weekly; 44.44% classify the rate that pain prevents them of doing anything as Nothing; 41.66% say their daily energy level is Medium and 69.55% say they Totally Agree to having a good feeling about the future. It was verified that the elder workers are satisfied with their quality of life.

Innovativeness and Church Commitment: What Innovations Were Most Important During the Pandemic?

The COVID-19 pandemic created an unprecedented need for innovations in churches around the world. Organizational innovativeness, a precursor of successful innovations in organizational contexts, is rarely studied in churches. This study of American church attenders (N = 244) found that perceived innovativeness of churches (conceived of as the elements of a church’s culture which promote innovation, specifically, creativity, organizational openness, future orientation, risk-taking, and proactiveness) was a very strong predictor of church commitment (conceived of as intentions to stay in the church, r = .60, p < .001). Of the moderators examined in this study (membership tenure, age of participant, church size, and gender), only gender moderated this relationship; the relationship between perceived innovativeness and church commitment was stronger for females than for males. This suggests that innovations that facilitated relationship development and relationship maintenance had the greatest impact on church commitment during the pandemic.

Sociodemographic Factors’ Association with Community-Dwelling Older Adults’ Psychosocial Wellbeing: The Greek Context

This cross-sectional study aimed to examine the associations of sex, age, marital status, education attainment, religious involvement, perceived health, and income with psychosocial domains of wellbeing assessed using the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15), Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS), and Spiritual Wellbeing Scale (SWBS). In total, 356 community-dwelling older adults from Greece, aged 65 years and above, completed a sociodemographic survey and psychosocial self-reported questionnaires. Bivariate and stepwise regression analyses helped to determine the sociodemographic factors’ associations with their wellbeing. These background predictors together explained a significant part of the variance in scores on all psychosocial domains: 31% for GDS-15, 44% for SHS, 63% for SWLS, and 58% for SWBS. After controlling for other sociodemographic factors, both being healthy and attending church were related to better outcomes in the domains of happiness, life satisfaction, and spiritual wellbeing. Higher income was related to better outcomes on all domains of wellbeing, while higher educational attainment was related to worse outcomes on all domains of wellbeing. Marital status was positively related to depression only. Thus, successful aging approaches may benefit from a deeper understanding of wellbeing and its predictors, which are essential to improve older adults’ psychosocial wellness.

Saving Obadiah

Saving Obadiah Enyeribe Ibegwam (bio) Obadiah Anyaso's wife of two years died from an illness that shocked him, his family and friends, neighbors and parishioners: in fact, all his townspeople. Her death was the kind in which she had been seen earlier in the day, buying smoked fish and cocoyam for her evening soup, only for wails to be heard just after evening meals that Obadiah Anyaso's wife had died. In the space of a year and six months after her death, Obadiah continued to mourn her. His beard and hair, grown as a rite for the one-year mourning period, became unkempt like old toothbrush bristles. He punched two new holes in his belt to keep up with his weight loss. In that time, he aged before everyone's eyes. But in a place like Emekuku, age is a tricky concept. Take Obadiah, for instance, he who married for the first time at fifty-eight years of age to an almost fifty-year-old woman. So, they had no child, and loneliness became the footstool upon which he laid his tired legs. He had neither opened a newspaper nor touched the television remote since his wife's passing. During the period of his prolonged mourning, the town held its Uguzor-Emeke festival: Obadiah Anyaso did not show up. When the local government finally commissioned six new boreholes—whose ground-breaking ceremony had occurred three years before—the people of Emekuku poured out in huge numbers to celebrate, but Obadiah was nowhere near the festivities. There were weddings and child-naming ceremonies: his doors were locked from the inside on such days. When news was passed to him about the then forthcoming coronation of the king of the community, he paused, cleared his throat, and told a tale that isn't new. Kingship was forced on us by the English, he said with a sullen expression. "What is your point?" his friends queried. "Igbo enwe eze," he answered, disinviting himself. It was only at funerals that Obadiah was seen, like Marcelina Ngonadi's, where he was seated silently behind Marcelina's sister-friends. [End Page 148] As part of the Eucharistic procession, his strides as he walked the aisle at the Mount Carmel Cathedral got more and more curtailed. Everyone in the know grew concerned. He had long left the choir, since his voice ceased to boom. In a voice rooted in pain, he reminded whoever enquired, that he had lost his wife. He stopped attending church warden meetings and returned the sash to make a point. The only thing that remained consistent about Obadiah was his job: as a senior clerk at the State Ministry of Justice. "You need to remarry soon," a friend said to him. Obadiah shook his head, a no, which was just disinterest. "Perhaps what you really need is a much younger woman," a second offered with a mischievous smile. Obadiah ignored them. His friends and townspeople worried about his life. He had once been filled with excitement like a playful puppy. Same Obadiah that made jokes at everyone's and anyone's expense. This Obadiah who drank with his left hand—well enough to laugh with his drinking buddies but still knowing his gauge enough to not get drunk. He who was always the referee at the intertown football games. So accessible he had been that young men visited his house to seek counsel for their own lust-governed relationships. His house, a fancy bungalow, had been the standard for bachelors; then for a married couple—when Obadiah got married—it had become a neglected building. Now, its paint was faded by continued seasons of rain and harmattan. The once dwarf flowers that bordered the wire-gauze fence had overgrown the barrier. Obadiah defected on his electricity bill; twice the electric company disconnected his power supply. Once, the water board officers almost cut off his water supply. Had not one of his kinsmen offered them a bribe, Obadiah would have queued up at the community tap to fetch water. What a shame it would have been. If he hadn't been known, it would have been said that surely Obadiah had never...

Beyond the Liberal–Conservative Binary: Generosity, Religion, and a Latent Profile Analysis of Moral Foundations in a Christian Sample

This study conducted an experiment to examine the associations between moral foundations profiles, religion, and generosity ( N = 313). Previously identified profiles were replicated with latent profile analyses based on the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ). Four MFQ profiles (Neutral, High Moralist, Moderate, and Individuator) were identified in this study of Christian church attenders. Significant differences across these four profiles are associated with distinctions in generosity, some components of empathy, religiousness, and political ideology. Compared with the other three profiles, individuals with the Individuator profile donated more of their participant payment to a charitable organization run by a religious out-group (Muslims). In contrast, there were no differences between profiles on donations to the in-group, secular groups, or total donations. Religious fundamentalism was lowest among Individuators and highest among High Moralists, the latter of whom also reported higher interpersonal generosity than Moderates.

Constructively Managing Program-related Conflict In Local Churches

Interpersonal conflict surrounding church programs is a major source of distress for both pastoral staff and lay members of evangelical churches. Such conflict, when destructive, may severely hinder the achievement of program objectives. However, conflict when managed constructively may lead to a more effective program and strengthened relationships. This empirical study seeks to understand the conditions under which program-related conflict in evangelical churches leads to detrimental outcomes and those which lead to constructive outcomes. In a role-playing, survey-based experiment of American church attenders ( N = 276), participants’ satisfaction with conflict outcome was measured in a scenario with various outcomes concerning their program-related goal (maintaining the starting time of a mid-week children’s program) and their social goals (e.g., having a better relationship with the director of the children’s program, being affirmed in their Christian identity, and ensuring that decisions are made fairly). The study indicates that, in a conflict concerning a children’s program, church attenders who have a salient social goal achieved, but not their program-related goal, will be more satisfied than church attenders who have their program-related goal achieved but not a salient social goal.

The Churches’ Role in Volunteering in Urban and Rural Contexts in Australia

ABSTRACTThere is evidence that church attenders are more involved in voluntary organisations than other people in the population. Data from the SEIROS survey, conducted across the adult Australian population in 2016, showed that church attenders do more hours of work in voluntary organisations than non-attenders, in both rural and urban contexts. While many of those extra hours were done through their churches, attenders claimed that approximately 61% of those extra hours were done for the sake of the wider community rather than for the church. The survey showed that the patterns were different for mainstream and Evangelical church attenders in rural areas. Rural mainstream church attenders were more involved directly in their communities rather than through their churches than were mainstream attenders in urban areas and all Evangelicals. Evangelicals were highly involved in their communities through their churches in both rural and urban contexts. The results suggest that a major way through which churches, particularly Evangelical churches, encourage volunteering is through engagement, providing programmes and activities in which their members are involved.

Spiritual Formation of Believers among Latino Protestant Churches in the United States

Latinos have been in the United States for many centuries. Gradually they have made their presence more known, but it has been only in the last five decades that Latinos have experienced a conspicuous growth. As the Latino population grows in the country, the percentage of Latino Protestants grows, too. Latinos are very diverse as they represent a variety of ethnicities, cultural identities, religious identities, age dynamics, social classes, levels of acculturation citizenship or legal status. Latinos express their faith and religious commitment in different ways, including attending church, involvement in religious activities, reading the Bible, praying, evangelizing, and having a sense of mission, among others. Most Latino churches are giving attention to the spiritual formation of their churches’ members and are following strategies that work in their context. Some of them include Sunday worship service, Sunday school, Bible study, prayer, discipleship, cell groups, youth, women and men groups, evangelism and leadership training. Predominantly white American churches need to reevaluate what they have been doing with Latinos, keeping in mind that Latinos are very diverse, that they do not represent just recent immigrants to the US, as well as their religious commitment and sense of mission. The growth of Latino Protestants in the US conveys educational ministry implications for Anglo-American churches and other institutions of theological education.

Towards a definition of Christian mega-events in the 21st century.

© International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage. In an age in which the numbers of people attending churches in the UK has been falling consistently for several decades, a trend that applies across Europe and North America, there is a marked contrast in the burgeoning growth of Christian religious encounters -including church attendance -around the world, particularly in the Global South (Avis, 2007). Amongst the characteristics of this growth is the emergence of large-scale megaevents, commonly held across Africa and the Indian sub-continent, as well as smaller but significant events held around the world. The emergence in the modern day of large-scale Christian events began in the UK with Billy Graham's evangelistic crusades in 1954, attended by 1.3 million people over a period of three months. Thirty years later, over one million attended 'Mission England' mass rallies, held in football stadia. But whether these meetings were merely 'public spectacles' (Guest, 2007:25), or had any measurable impact in terms of numbers attending church, at the time they certainly achieved media coverage and public visibility. The original evangelistic events in the UK were able to build on knowledge that many children gained in school and at Sunday school, which, some would argue, has been eroded by secular influences on education and society in general (Savage, Collins-Mayo & Mayo, 2006:3). This research seeks to develop an understanding of the emergence of different types of these large Christian events, focusing on the mega-events in Africa and India where preachers with a global reach, such as the German evangelist Reinhard Bonnke (www.cfan.org.uk) and American Joyce Meyer (www.joycemeyer.org) are joined by less well-known speakers. The growth of megachurches and global worship brands in Australia and the USA provide another strand for comparison. Warner (2015:121) concludes that 'what is obvious about gatherings of Christians that attract large numbers is that the quality of worship is one of the drivers in sustaining and expanding their number'.

Practicing Catholics and Their Attitudes on Homosexuality. Comparative Analyses, Based on Recent World Values Survey Data

The question in our essay is primarily whether the rejection of homosexuality still enjoys the support of the rank and file of the global Catholic faithful, and secondly, whether practicing Catholics (weekly Church attenders, “Dominicantes”) are more tolerant than the societies surrounding them in accepting homosexuality and in accepting homosexual neighbors. Our work, based on data from the “World Values Survey”, shows that the Vatican teaching on homosexuality has less and less followers, and that in the light of the close relationships of homosexuality acceptancy indicators with those of support for a democratic Open Society, discussed at length in the article, a rethinking of the entire issue would be advisable, if the Roman Catholic Church would like to continue to claim to be pillar of a democratic civil society.

RELIGIUSITAS DAN TOLERANSI ANTAR SlSWA BEDA AGAMA PADA SEKOLAH MENENGAH ATAS NEGERI DI KABUPATEN BANYUMAS (Studi pada SMAN 2 Purwokerto)

Abstract: There is an increase in religiosity at SMAN. The survey results of Setara Institute (2016: 12) to 355 respondents from 171 SMANs in Jakarta and Bandung showed that students' activeness to follow religious activities in school is high. A total of 50.9% of students attend activities held at school. While as many as (44.1%) students follow religious activities conducted outside the school. In detail the proportion of students attending religious activities outside school hours are: religious studies (43.3%), religious lectures (22.7%), and religious social service (14.6%).&#x0D; Still from the same survey from Setara Institute (2016: 12). From a survey of 242 respondents, the proportion of SMAN students attending religious activities after following the subjects at school was as follows: 27.3% followed the recitation activity; 22.3% follow mosque youth activities; 20.7% follow spiritual activities, 11.6% follow religious studies; 9.1% attend church youth activities; 7.4% follow religious activities; and 1.7% attend religious training. This data also shows high religiosity in SMAN.&#x0D; Keywords: Religiosity, tolerance, Senior High School