July 30, 2001

Churches, communities share sense of place, study finds
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___HOUSTON—Churches contribute to a community’s sense of place but also depend upon their communities to create the church’s sense of place.
___That’s the shared opinion of several researchers who have studied churches and their sense of place in recent years. The researchers reported on their findings during the fall meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion in Houston.
___"Time and memory are increasingly dislocated. Neither has a position in the world," said researcher Nancy Eisland of Atlanta. "Many people today … don’t have a historical sense of the long-term. … They desire a sense of collectiveness and yet don’t have the time to contribute to it."
___Various studies of communities have found that churches help create historical memories for residents, Eisland and the other researchers said. These memories may be based in aspects of the church buildings or in the ceremonies and experiences that were shared in those buildings.
___ But there is "both a gift and a danger" in promoting historical memory of a particular place in a church, Eisland said.
___ Dangers arise when the sense of historical place impedes progress or when communities undergo change that the church doesn’t embrace, she noted.
___ "What people project is that God was in the perfection of the past when in fact God may be in the possibilities of the future," she said. "Congregations can hold a sense of place, but only so long as they do not succumb to a romantic notion."
___ When communities change, existing churches often stay in those communities even though the congregation is made up of people who have left the community, the researchers noted.
___ And churches often remain in buildings that are not ideally located for their current members or require intensive maintenance, said Gaynor Yancey, a social work professor at Baylor University.
___ Yancey and Ram Cnaan of the University of Pennsylvania recently collaborated on a national study for the Partnership for Sacred Places of historical churches meeting in buildings constructed before 1940.
___ A primary question of the research, Yancey said, was "What are congregations doing in these communities that requires them to stay in this building?"
___ And the answer, she reported, is that churches are providing vital community services. Ninety-three percent of the 111 congregations studied were providing at least one community service program in their buildings, and the remaining 7 percent were providing space for others to offer community service programs.
___ On average, these historic congregations each operated four ministries from their buildings.
___ "Congregations with older buildings host 76 percent of their communities’ programs," Yancey reported. "The groups benefiting most are youth and children."
___ This sense of place—and the accompanying commitment to serve a community—is stronger than the economic forces that otherwise might drive a church away, she said. Twenty-one percent of these historic church buildings need major repairs, with costs estimated at $225,000 per congregation on average.
___ It is in the best interest of community leaders to ensure that these congregations continue to feel their sense of place, Yancey said. "If these congregations aren’t there, who will provide these services?"
___ The challenge of how churches face up to changing communities while attempting to retain their own sense of place is clearly illustrated in Houston, added Paula Pipes of the University of Houston.
___ Pipes has conducted an in-depth study of churches in the Spring Branch community of Houston. Spring Branch lies west of downtown Houston, just north of I-10 and has underdone a dramatic shift since the early 1980s from a high-rent district to a low-rent district and from a largely Anglo community to a community of mixed ethnicity.
___ She illustrated the challenge to the churches’ sense of place by recounting a conversation among six pastors of Anglo churches seated around a table in one of her focus groups.
___ "The ministers were describing the rapid increase in the number of ethnic congregations around them," she said. "The conversation turned to a discussion of the expensive homes being built in the area and the potential for revitalization. Suddenly, one pastor communicated an underlying and perhaps unsettled question in this community: ‘Whose place is it?’"
___ The pastor then explained: "What would the ministers of these immigrant fellowships that are springing up like mushrooms say about us? They might say, ‘Oh, my God, here comes some more white folk.’ That’s a detriment to them. This is a different neighborhood now. In some ways, we’re guests. In some ways, they’re guests. I don’t know who’s hosting who or who is reaching out to who."
___ A primary focus of Pipes’ research was "How have the churches originally established to serve Anglo residents responded to the changes in Spring Branch?"
___ She identified four responses among the churches: Start mission congregations; host mission congregations inside the church’s existing building; recruit the newcomers as members of the existing church; or make no attempt at incorporating the newcomers.
___ Each approach produces different results, Pipes noted. "Churches that include new immigrants as members provide a place for social interaction and a sense of shared community across multiple groups. Churches that channel their resources into maintaining an energetic congregation for the Anglo population may help prevent ethnic succession in a community threatened by white flight. .
___ "Churches that adopt the host and mission models of incorporation help to nurture immigrant congregations through their infancy, a period in which the death rate of new organizations is much higher. Ironically, if a complete ethnic succession does occur, the mainline churches will have helped build the organizations that become their successors in the shifting ecology."


Get printer-friendly version of this story


Send this story to a friend

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

---

Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!/ Signup for FirstLook