Vibrant Congregations

Over j-term I was able to get to know two professors that I really enjoyed, Rolf Jacobson and Craig Koester. Jacobson is my Hebrew prof. and Koester taught the Genesis to Revelation Bible class. Through forming these connections I was asked to be the student representative on a committee studying the Bible in congregations with these two professors along with Prof. Kathryn Shifferdecker. This is a part million dollar grant through the Lilly Endowment to look at what practices and values make a church a vibrant or thriving congregation. So needless to say I was extremely honored to be a small part of this project! (Although 1 million dollars sounds like a lot, its relatively small compared to many of the research grants Lilly donates)

Last week we had our first meeting with the congregations that will be participating in the Bible portion of the study. We are working with 11 congregations that are located all over the US including Arizona, Georgia, North Dakota, Illinois, and Wisconsin as well as congregations located in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area. It was very exciting to meet the pastors and lay leaders that will be a part of this research. They are all already doing great work in their congregations with the Bible, so it will be exciting to see the developments that result from them learning from some of these research experiments and from forming connections with each other.

The congregations will begin by taking a survey and conducting interviews about their experiences with the Bible. The data will then be compiled and analyzed. The team will meet with the congregations individually to suggest some experiments that could be implemented to meet the needs of the congregation. The whole process is designed around discerning God's Spirit in the midst of these congregations and trying new practices that could help in faith formation. So it should be an exciting journey to walk alongside these congregations in this process! Please keep these congregations in your prayers.