June 11, 2001
Black churches provide services
___ATLANTA (RNS)--The vast majority of African-American churches are providing social services and their clergy report a vitality in their congregations--even when they struggle financially to offer those services.
___A survey conducted last year found 92 percent of black churches offer youth programs and 86 percent provide cash assistance to needy people.
___"Black churches have a unique sort of way of blending their somewhat conservative and moderate theology with their more liberal social outreach, and those sort of combinations seem to bring about a great sense of vitality," said Stephen Rasor, director of the doctor of ministry program at the Interdenominational Theological Center, a consortium of six predominantly black seminaries in Atlanta.
___Rasor and Michael Dash, co-directors of the ITC/Faith Factor Project 2000, reported the results of the project's survey, which was part of the larger "Faith Communities Today" study released earlier by Hartford Seminary's Hartford Institute for Religious Research.
___The survey results from the ITC report were based on interviews of clergy or lay leaders of 1,863 black churches across the country.
___The sense of vitality was higher in African-American congregations than among liberal white Protestant churches, he said.
___The larger "Faith Communities Today" study--which included 41 denominations--also found that historically black churches are more likely than other Christian groups to focus on community service.
___The study reported that 76 percent of black congregations were involved in voter registration or voter education efforts. A total of 75 percent of the black churches had a food pantry or soup kitchen.
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