This Summer, we will be publishing our fourth book about individual denominations – The State of the PCUSA.
The congregations included in the study participated for a wide variety of reasons: strategic planning, pastoral transitions, financial campaigns, to better understand their organizational health, to track progress, or as part of an effort their particular presbytery has undertaken to become more evidence- based in their ministries to and with congregations. These congregations all administered the Congregation Assessment Tool (CAT)™. Our sample is broad enough to be representative of all Presbyterian congregations within a confidence interval of ±5%.
This book represents our findings from 287 congregations with 40,000 responses from the members of those congregations. It also includes every size, from smaller churches with under 100 in worship attendance to churches with over 1,000 persons in worship. While mega- churches and family sized churches possess significantly different cha
racteristics, they share this fact in common: member experience matters.
Because the Presbyterian Church is a denominational system, this book will include an assessment of the relationship between local church members and their presbytery. It will also explore those perspectives, experiences, and aspirations using a separate instrument called Landscape™. This is one of the larger studies of its kind in the PCUSA, and perhaps unique in its scope which encompasses both local congregations and presbyteries. This will include 13 different presbyteries with over 3,000 leaders reflecting on the work of their presbytery.
We look forward to sharing what we have learned in our work. And as always, we are grateful for all of the people, the congregations and the regional associations that have contributed so greatly to our work and have touched our lives along the way.
How can I order Russ’s new book?