c. 2003 Religion News Service
Survey: 41 Percent of Adults Worship at Small Churches
(RNS) Despite the attention on the nation’s largest churches, 41 percent of churchgoing adults worship at churches with 100 or fewer adults in attendance on an average weekend, a Barna Research Group survey shows.
In comparison, only 12 percent of churchgoing adults are found on the average weekend in churches where there are 1,000 or more adults in attendance.
The Ventura, Calif.-based research firm found that the smallest churches (average weekend attendance of 100 or fewer adults) are more likely than either mid-sized (301-999 adults) or large churches (1,000 or more adults) to attract people who are not college graduates and are more likely to interest people with lower household incomes.
Researchers also found that adults younger than 35 are more likely than older adults to worship in small churches. George Barna, president of the research firm, attributes that finding to the younger age group’s general disinterest in large-scale organizations as well as the tendency of younger adults to not have a need for children’s programs provided by larger churches.
Overall, conductors of the study found that the typical Protestant church has 89 adults attending during an average weekend. While 60 percent of Protestant churches have 100 or fewer adults on a typical weekend, a bit less than 2 percent have 1,000 or more adults.
Barna expects small churches to remain prevalent but said large congregations won’t be disappearing either.
“Megachurches draw media attention, but they collectively account for less than one out of every four adults in church,” he said in a statement. “However, large congregations are here to stay and meet the needs of a specific segment of the population. If church leaders can maintain a focus on transformation rather than numbers, then we could enter an era of healthy churches at all sizes and shapes and shed the unhealthy spirit of numerical competition that currently distracts many churches.”
The research was based in part on nationwide random samples of adults interviewed by telephone from January 2002 to May 2003. A total of 4,501 adults were interviewed about topics such as church attendance, with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.8 percentage points. Subgroups based on church size had margins of error ranging from 3.2 to 6.7 percentage points. The research on average church size was based on interviews of 1,202 Protestant senior pastors and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.
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The following is suitable for a graphic:
Protestant Church Attendance on Typical Weekend
100 or fewer adults: 60 percent of churches
1,000 or more adults: Less than 2 percent of churches
Where Adults Attend Church
At churches with 100 or fewer adults: 41 percent
At churches with 1,000 or more adults: 12 percent
(Source: Barna Research Group)
Adelle M. Banks
Catholic School Will Review Dress Code After Head Scarf Controversy
CLEVELAND (RNS) A Catholic girls high school, responding to mounting criticism, announced Friday (Aug. 29) that it will review the dress code that caused it to bar a returning senior for wearing a Muslim head scarf to school last week.
“The school community will undertake a process that will allow for a review of policy, its implementation and the issues of religious tolerance that have surfaced,” Regina High School Principal Maureen Burke said in a prepared statement. “This process will be done as quickly as possible.”
The Regina handbook reads, “No hats, no bandannas or head wraps are permitted.”
While some supporters encouraged the small Catholic girls school to stand firm, the Ohio Council on American Islamic Relations asked national Catholic authorities to intervene on behalf of student Amal Jamal.
Former U.S. Rep. Mary Rose Oakar and the Rev. Joseph Hillinski, interfaith director of the Catholic diocese, also called on Regina High School to readmit the girl.
Amal, who was born 17 years ago in Cleveland, began in June to wear the hijab, the Muslim head scarf, everywhere. She was standing in line buying textbooks Monday when Burke told Amal that she could not attend classes in her scarf.
Jad Humeidan, CAIR’s Ohio executive director, praised Burke for the review and asked officials if Amal might attend classes in the meantime. He said Regina’s response was noncommittal.
In a letter e-mailed to members of the Islamic community, Hillinski wrote: “It might help for you to realize that other Catholic schools, and especially those under the direct administration of Bishop Pilla called diocesan schools, would welcome a young woman who wore the hijab because of her religious conviction. I assure that I will continue to help our Catholic people realize that we esteem the religious convictions and traditions of Islam.”
The Sisters of Notre Dame operate Regina independently of the diocese.
Karen R. Long
Archbishop of Canterbury Predicts `Messy’ Future for Anglicans
LONDON (RNS) The archbishop of Canterbury predicts a “messy” future for the Anglican Communion because of deep divisions over homosexuality and other issues.
Archbishop Rowan Williams, writing in New Directions, the periodical of the conservative Forward in Faith movement, challenged dissidents on disrupting the unity of Anglicanism.
Williams’ article was published Monday (Sept. 1) but was written before the Episcopal Church the U.S. branch of Anglicanism voted to approve an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire and to “recognize” same-sex blessings as part of the church’s “common life.”
“I don’t expect the next few years to be anything other than messy as far as all this is concerned,” Williams wrote. “The question is not whether we can avoid mess, but whether we can hang on to common convictions about divine grace and initiative.”
Williams said that “in a nutshell what seems to be most deeply at issue is the question of whether as Anglicans (and of course as Christians in general) we are accountable to anyone or anything other than a humanistic wisdom.”
Differences on women’s ordination or human sexuality are “only the tip of an iceberg,” Williams said. He cited a statement issued by Anglican leaders two years ago that said breaking communion should be restricted to cases where the basic “grammar” of faith and practice had been altered.
“Staying together is pointless unless it is staying together because of the Body of Christ,” he said. “But equally, breaches of communion may be dangerous if the issue isn’t in some way bound up with the supernatural character of the Body.
“The task is to keep in focus the conviction that what makes a Church a Church, even through the struggles of major disruption and disagreement, is a shared divine calling,” Williams said.
Robert Nowell
First Catholic Bishop of Mongolia Installed
(RNS) A Filipino priest was installed Friday (Aug. 29) as the first Roman Catholic bishop of Mongolia, a predominantly Buddhist country that has fewer than 200 Catholics.
The Rev. Wenceslaw Padilla, who has worked in the country since 1992, was installed as bishop in the capital city of Ulan Bator by Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.
“The Holy Father loves Mongolia and hopes to make a visit here whenever this is possible,” Sepe told the crowd of 1,000 people who gathered for the installation, according to The Associated Press.
Padilla, who also consecrated a church as the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul, offered to “extend my hand in fellowship” to non-Christians in the northern Asia country.
“To you, our Buddhist, shaman, Christian and Muslim brethren, my heartfelt greetings,” he said. “All of us must work together to bring hope to our beloved Mongolia.”
In a message prepared for the ceremony, Pope John Paul II dedicated the country’s 179 Catholics to the Virgin Mary after the “long winter of Communist oppression.” The Catholic community has grown since Communist rule ended in 1990.
“These events consolidate the spiritual edifice being built by the `little flock’ of a young missionary church which is growing in confidence, sustained by the renewing power of the Holy Spirit,” the pontiff said.
Quote of the Day: Washington Post Columnist Richard Cohen
(RNS) “I do not understand why a God who once smote with abandon and authored miracles that science could never explain needs a statue here or a display there to remind us of his omnipresence.”
Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, writing in the Sept. 2 edition of The Post, about the controversy surrounding the Ten Commandments monument in Montgomery, Ala.
KRE END RNS
AP-NY-09-03-03 1642EDT
