OPINION - Guest writer

To better serve

Faith, service can heal communities

Community service by places of worship is a good thing. If I had to simplify the research findings from the Little Rock Congregations Study down to a single sentence, that would be it.

Since 2012, I have led a community-based research project out of UA Little Rock that studies the impact of community service and engagement by the churches, temples, mosques, and synagogues in Little Rock. More than 170 students have been part of the research over the past seven years, as we have surveyed and interviewed congregants and clergy members from diverse religious traditions across our city. This project enables us to use social science research to support something that most of us intuitively believe: Community service and engagement by places of worship is a good thing.

Our research team surveyed 112 congregations across Little Rock in 2018. We asked them what kinds of social services they provide--from health screenings, to immigration services, to marriage counseling. We found that congregations provide an incredible amount of support to our community: an average of 3.8 services per congregation. And nearly 70 percent of congregations said that their services were used by more than their own members.

We also found that places of worship are working hard against the downward pull of poverty; 41 percent provide rent or utility assistance, and 48 percent host a food pantry.

Yet even in the face of these great services, the data reveal opportunities to do better. Only about half of the congregations that host food pantries partner with other organizations. More people could be helped if congregations worked together to expand their capacity and reach. For example, food pantries in the same neighborhood could work more efficiently if they pooled their resources and their volunteers to stay open longer hours.

In 2016, our team surveyed nearly 1,500 people attending worship services at 17 different congregations. We found that people who hear messages about volunteering in the community from their religious leaders are more likely to volunteer--both in the community and at their own place of worship. There isn't a tradeoff between community and congregational volunteering! Congregations can create a culture of service that leads members to serve their own congregations and the community. These findings might be surprising to some, but we hope that they will help clergy who may fear their members are stretched too thin. Volunteering in the community doesn't take away from church service. It enriches it.

Congregation members also benefit from community engagement. Members of engaged congregations have higher levels of political efficacy. In other words, they believe that they can make a difference. They believe that their voices matter. This belief may seem like a small thing, but at a time when many people feel alienated, disconnected and unimportant, believing you can make a difference is powerful. Political efficacy gets people serving, voting, and doing good. Political efficacy is good for our communities and our democracy.

My expertise is in data and not theology, but both my research and personal experience lead me to believe that there are also spiritual benefits to community engagement and service. This is a path that can help heal our communities and bring people together.

As our research team continues to study this important topic, we want to provide data that will encourage people of faith and others in our community to walk that path together. We are hosting a Religious Leaders Summit on April 11 to bring faith leaders together, talk about the problems facing our city, discuss the research findings, and brainstorm about how to move forward together.

We don't have to be content with just believing that community engagement by places of worship is a good thing--the data provide evidence to support that belief. Now we need to act on it together.

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Dr. Rebecca Glazier is an associate professor in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and the primary investigator of the Little Rock Congregations Study. Clergy interested in attending the Religious Leaders Summit on April 11 can email Dr. Glazier at [email protected]. Findings from the study are available on research.ualr.edu/lrcs.

Editorial on 04/04/2019

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