Sustaining Pastoral Excellencee PROJECT EVALUATION SURVEY 2011 FOURTH WAV VE REPORT July 20122 Calvin College Center for Sociall Research Neil Carlson, Ph.D., Director, neil.carlson@calvin.edu Thomas Sherwood, Research Associate, tds7@calvin.edu Traci Montgomery, Research Specialist, tkm4@calvin.edu Lauren Muñoz, Research Assistant, lem23@calvin..edu S C OCIAL ENTER FOR R ESEARCH A CENTEE R OF CALVIN COLLEGE
Table of Contents Table of Contents... iii I. Executive Summary... 1 II. Introduction... 6 III. Evaluations of the SPE Project s Effects... 13 IV. Spiritual Formation... 19 V. Vision and Mission... 22 VI. Knowing and Communicating the Christian Faith... 25 VII. Healthy Pastoral Identity... 28 VIII. Pastoral Leadership... 37 IX. Pastoral Growth Orientation... 40 X. Council Feedback and Support... 45 XI. Spouses and Sabbaticals... 54 XII. Comments... 58 XIII. Conclusions and Recommendations... 64 XIV. Available Resources... 68 iii
List of Figures Figure 1 Map of 2011 SPE survey responses by state or province... 8 Figure 2 Trends in reported membership by locale... 11 Figure 3 SPE involvement by year and age bracket at time of survey... 13 Figure 4 Pastors' ratings of the effect of SPE... 14 Figure 5 Pastors ratings of SPE s effect on CRCNA culture by SPE participation... 15 Figure 6 Clerks' ratings of SPE's effect... 16 Figure 7 Clerks ratings of effect on their pastor's ministry by SPE participation... 17 Figure 8 Pastors' ratings of SPE's effect on nine outcomes, six new in 2011... 18 Figure 9 Devotional frequency by age group in 2011 and by survey year... 19 Figure 10 Four spiritual formation activities by year... 20 Figure 11 Vision and mission statements: presence by year; embrace by age; council living by locale... 22 Figure 12 Core elements of congregational mission by year with means and 95% confidence intervals... 24 Figure 13 Understanding of the Reformed faith by year and route to ministry; change since prior survey... 25 Figure 14 Disciples per pastor by year... 27 Figure 15 Satisfaction with present pastorate by year... 29 Figure 16 Feelings of isolation by year and locale... 30 Figure 17 Perceived fit with congregation by year... 31 Figure 18 Would start over as a pastor, by year... 32 Figure 19 Pastoral responses to life balance questions... 33 Figure 20 Pastoral health scale averages and confidence intervals by year... 35 Figure 21 Pastoral health 12-item scale by tenure (years at current congregation), 2009 and 2011 combined... 36 Figure 22 Leadership skill ratings (11 items) by year... 38 Figure 23 Leadership skills scale averages, by year... 39 Figure 24 Continuing educations events reported in past year... 41 Figure 25 Peer learning group participation and meeting frequency... 43 Figure 26 Mentoring participation... 44 Figure 27 Systematic feedback on preaching... 45 Figure 28 Joint pastor-council reflection on the pastor's role... 46 Figure 29 Pastors' and clerks' ratings of council's living out mission and vision... 48 Figure 30 Comparison of clerks' and pastors perceptions of pastors' life balance... 50 Figure 31 Continuing education budget presence and size, per clerks of council... 51 Figure 32 Clerks' reports of encouraging meetings, workshops, and seminars; and pastoral support committees... 53 Figure 33 Spousal support for pastoral vocation... 54 Figure 34 Pastors' reports on SPE events for spouses (new in 2011)... 55 Figure 35 Sabbatical-related questions... 56 Figure 36 Pastor and clerk open-ended comment themes... 58 iv
List of Tables Table 1 Response rates by year and respondent type... 7 Table 2 Degrees earned by pastors... 9 Table 3 Churches and membership by location type, 2011... 10 v
I. Executive Summary With support from the Lilly Endowment Inc., the Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRCNA or CRC) launched the Sustaining Pastoral Excellence (SPE) project in 2003. The purpose of the project has been to cultivate and sustain a culture of pastoral excellence in the CRC. To do so, SPE has focused on assisting pastors through two phases: peer learning, continuing education events and mentoring (for the first grant, 2003-2007) and peer learning, spousal conferences and couples learning events (2008-2011). The SPE project has contracted the Calvin College Center for Social Research to conduct four waves of survey evaluations of the project. The first wave was conducted in fall and winter 2004-2005, the second in spring 2007, the third in the fall of 2009 and early winter of 2010, and the fourth in fall 2011 and early winter of 2012. This report is based on all four waves, focusing on the fourth 2011 wave completed in early 2012. A brief review of previous reports This report closely follows the format of the previous report on the 2009 survey wave, which was issued in the fall of 2010. 1 The 2005 report established a baseline, and the 2007 and 2009 reports focused on changes from that baseline. (Readers more interested in 2011 information may skip to the next subsection.) 2005 report Among the most important baseline findings of the 2005 report were: An overall impression of a fairly healthy pastorate. Respectable levels of self-reported spiritual formation activity, pastoral satisfaction, and understanding of the Reformed faith. Moderately high levels of joint reflection with council coupled with moderately low levels of systematic feedback on preaching. Strong self-reported perceived leadership competence in structures and accountability and formal and informal authority. Weak perceived competence in cross-cultural ministry, dynamics of conflict and solving vs. learning. Evidence of somewhat weak communication or common perceptions between pastors and clerks of council about the pastor s participation in continuing education, systematic feedback on preaching and joint reflection on the pastor s role. The 2005 report concluded with a suggestion that SPE focus on improving communication between pastors and congregational leaders. 1 The previous reports are available online. See the CRCNA SPE web link on page 71. 1
2007 report Key findings highlighted in the executive summary of the 2007 report were: Pastors gave SPE high marks overall for its contribution to their ministry, to themselves personally, and to the denominational culture overall. Those who confirmed they had specific experience of the project were the most positive. There was little or no significant change between survey waves in the vast majority of the measures. The overall corporate degree of stability over time was remarkable. Improvement was noted on three measures: 1) Pastors reporting systematic feedback on their preaching increased from 37 percent in 2005 to 45 percent in 2007; among repeat respondents, the increase was from 39 percent to 45 percent; 2) reported understanding of the Reformed faith improved, from 50 percent thorough in 2005 to 61 percent thorough in 2007; 3) among repeat respondents, pastors average number of current pre-christian disciples increased from 1.1 to 1.6; likewise, the average number of mature Christian disciples increased from 2.5 to 2.9. Declining measures included five important cases: 1) the proportion of pastors reporting that their councils assisted them in reflecting on their roles as pastors declined; 2) reported personal devotional frequency declined among repeat-respondent pastors who were 55 or younger; 3) pastoral satisfaction among repeat respondents declined slightly; 4) pastors reported frequency of feeling isolated increased; 5) the average reported number of new Christian disciples fell slightly, and the percentage of pastors with zero disciples grew in each of the three categories (pre-, new, and mature Christians). 2009 report The 2009 report was significantly more thorough than previous reports. Key findings were: Pastors reported rates of recent participation in the Sustaining Pastoral Excellence (SPE) Project in the CRCNA rose significantly, primarily rising among older pastors. Responding pastors ratings of SPE s effect on their ministry, on themselves personally, and on the culture of the CRCNA rose slightly, and the proportion able to offer a rating rose substantially. Over 70 percent of respondents said SPE s effect on culture was positive. Ratings of cultural impact rose most for pastors not currently involved in SPE. Reported practice of personal prayer and meditation ( devotions ) continued to be stable across the three waves of the survey, with 46 percent reporting daily devotions in 2009. A new finding (which generated some public controversy when covered by The Grand Rapids Press 2 ) was that Calvin Theological Seminary (CTS) graduates were substantially less likely than pastors taking other routes to ministry to report daily devotions (43 versus 55 percent, respectively). Pastoral health was statistically stable but showed signs of worsening slightly over succeeding waves. Pastors satisfaction with their present pastorate fell slightly, and feelings of isolation increased slightly, though neither trend was statistically significant. Rural pastors were most likely to report feelings of isolation. 10 percent of pastors reported they would not be a pastor if they started their careers over, up from 5 percent in 2005, a statistically significant change. 2 See Paul Kopenkoskey, Survey Shows Many CRC Pastors, Churches Doing Well, but Some in Pain or Crisis, The Grand Rapids Press - MLive.com (Grand Rapids, MI, January 15, 2011), sec. Religion, http://www.mlive.com/living/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2011/01/survey_shows_many_crc_pastors.html. 2
Analysis revealed a distinctive non-linear pattern in pastoral health, which starts with a highhealth honeymoon period at a new congregation, dips after a pastor s first two years at a congregation and then recovers gradually. A battery of five questions on life balance, new in the 2009 survey, revealed that pastors are most satisfied with their balance in the area of vocational ministry and least satisfied in the area of physical and emotional self-care. Clerks of council perceived things very differently than pastors, perceiving satisfactory devotional lives where pastors were much less frequently satisfied. Pastors participation in continuing education events declined, but SPE participants reported significantly higher average counts of continuing education events per year than non-spe participants. There is great room for improvement in council support for pastors. Statistical modeling showed that systematic council feedback for pastors on their preaching is a lever for improving both perceived leadership skills and congregational mission fulfillment. Yet less than half of pastors perceived that they received such feedback; just 31 percent of responding pastors reported excellent or good council assistance in reflecting with you on your assigned role and your personal sense of calling and vision. Clerks of council were much more positive than pastors, and the correlation between matched clerk and pastor responses was statistically zero. The proportion of churches with a continuing education budget for their pastor fell to twothirds, down from almost four-fifths in 2007 and about three-fourths in 2005. The amount budgeted by those churches with continuing education budgets remained statistically stable at about $1,421 US or $1,471 Canadian. Statistical models suggested that one of the best paths to boosting pastoral health is through boosting leadership skills. Pastors who perceived a boost in their leadership skills also reported a statistically significant boost in their health (increased satisfaction with pastorate, decreased feelings of isolation, etc.). Response rates and survey contents As in 2009, the 2011 SPE survey was administered to CRC pastors through email invitations to a web-based survey hosted at Calvin College. Methodological changes in 2011 included inviting all serving pastors to respond from churches with multiple serving pastors (previous surveys invited only a senior or lead pastor) and reinstating paper questionnaires for all clerks from the beginning of the study period. 975 pastors from 926 CRC congregations with at least one serving pastor were contacted. 552 pastors (from 532 churches; 20 churches had 2 pastors respond) and 498 clerks responded (56.6 and 53.8 percent, respectively). 335 pastor-clerk pairs responded, and there were 346 repeat respondents, churches with pastors who had also likely responded in 2009. The four survey waves posed questions about pastors spiritual formation, participation in peer learning, mentoring, and continuing education, general satisfaction and personal well-being, discipling others, and related factors such as time use. The second wave added a request for general evaluations of the effects of the SPE project on the pastors and the CRC. The 2009 survey added a five-question battery asking pastors to report How satisfied are you with your life balance in the following areas? The five areas were: vocational ministry, personal devotional life, time with spouse, time with children/family, and physical/emotional self-care. The 2011 questionnaire focused further on life balance, adding survey questions about sabbaticals and about spouses and families, including an expansion of the final question set evaluating SPE s 3
impact. New questions there include SPE s impact on your devotional life, physical and emotional self-care, your spouse and marriage, children and other family, and the culture of your classis (past or present). General conclusions and key findings A general summary of the survey results is fairly straightforward and consistent with previous surveys. As we wrote in 2009, if what we observed back in 2005 is to be regarded as pastoral excellence, then that excellence is generally being sustained. Indeed, 2011 brought a recovery in a number of the survey measures that concerned us in 2009. On average, the CRCNA s pastors appear to be weathering hard times well at least they tell us they are doing so! Satisfaction in ministry and other measures of pastoral health remain stable; for examples, see Figure 15 on page 29 and Figure 20 on page 35. However, it s hard to see how long pastors can remain healthy as their livelihoods come under stress from shrinking congregations. As we see in Figure 2 (on page 11), membership is declining at congregations of responding pastors, especially in suburban areas. If there are healthy, growing churches that compensate for these losses, too few are participating in the survey, which may itself be a bad sign for our covenantal community. We also continue to find a chronic, substantial lack of support for pastors from their congregations. A minority of pastors receive feedback on their sermons (Figure 27 on page 45), just 38 percent perceive excellent or good quality joint reflection with their council on the pastoral role (Figure 28 on page 46), 31 percent of clerks report no continuing education budget (see Figure 31 on page 51), and only 22 percent of pastors have been on a sabbatical in the last five years (Figure 35 on page 56). Over a third of those sabbaticals were shorter than three months. There are some relevant signs of hope one in particular. The number of disciples that pastors are mentoring, a potentially powerful engine for organic growth modeled on Jesus own ministry, has increased significantly; see Figure 14 on page 27. Recommendations In Section XIII on page 64, we react to a pastor s comment presented at the end of Section XII. The pastor critiques SPE for inadequately linking its work to the growth of congregations. We endorse the critique but oppose the accompanying implication that SPE s work is in resource competition with the goal of congregational growth. Instead of focusing SPE on proving that its work is valuable through a direct effect on congregational growth, we recommend that SPE should redesign its efforts around convincing congregations and councils to better support pastors as a means to reinvigorating congregations. Until the chronic lack of support is addressed and congregations and their lay leaders begin to appropriately value and respect the role of the pastor, it will likely be impossible to show any direct effect of retreats and sabbaticals and peer groups on congregational growth. The recommendations include some partly speculative and rhetorical commentary by this report s lead author on the proper place of the pastor in modern economy and culture; the central purpose of this commentary is to illustrate some of the ways in which the congregation s view of the pastor s role can adversely affect the pastor in unintended and unexpectedly paradoxical ways. In practical terms, we recommend that SPE continue to pursue its connection with the growing Healthy Church coaching process as a possible vehicle for the congregational conversations that need to take place to change church behavior. We also suggest that the upward movement in pastoral disciple counts seen in the survey data may represent a movement and a message that can be harnessed to remake the pastor s role on a sustainable, Biblical model. 4
Resources The SPE Project at the CRCNA and the Calvin College Center for Social Research both have posted interconnected web pages where you can download more information, including tables and charts of data from the entire survey for both pastors and clerks, the original questionnaires, and this report. See the links in Section XIV on page 68. 5
II. Introduction The Sustaining Pastoral Excellence (SPE) office collaborated with the Calvin College Center for Social Research (CSR) in developing questionnaires for pastors and clerks of all congregations of the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) in North America. This report covers the results for four survey waves: benchmark results gathered in winter and spring 2004-2005 3, a follow-up survey conducted in spring 2007, a third wave collected on the web in the fall of 2009 and early winter 2010, and the most recent wave collected in the fall of 2011 and very early 2012. This report focuses on the 2011 wave and on evidence of over-time change between waves. The results are intended to facilitate evaluation of the current SPE project, which has received two multi-year grants from the Lilly Endowment Inc. About the survey Since 2005, the SPE questionnaire has posed questions to pastors and clerks of council about pastors spiritual formation, their participation in peer learning, mentoring involvement, and continuing education use. There are also questions about general satisfaction and personal wellbeing, discipling others, and related factors. Clerks are asked to evaluate the congregation s support for the pastor through sermon feedback, continuing education support, and so on. The second wave added a request for general evaluations of the effects of the SPE project on the pastors and the CRC. The 2009 survey added a five-question battery, asking pastors to report How satisfied are you with your life balance? in five areas: vocational ministry, personal devotional life, time with spouse, time with children/family, and physical/emotional self-care. In 2011, the questionnaire intensified the focus on life balance, adding more survey questions about sabbaticals and about spouses and families, including an expansion of the final question set evaluating SPE s impact. New questions include SPE s impact on your devotional life, physical and emotional self-care, your spouse and marriage, children and other family, and the culture of your classis (past or present). From October 2011 through February 2012, 552 Christian Reformed Church pastors and 498 clerks responded to the fourth wave of the SPE survey. The final pastor response rate was 56.6 percent (552/975); the final clerk response rate was 53.8 percent (498/926). Both pastor and clerk responded (referred to here as paired responses) from 335 of the 926 churches surveyed, a rate of 36.2 percent. The responses were processed by the CSR so as to prevent connecting responses with specific persons or churches, preserving pastor and clerk confidentiality. Table 1 shows these numbers in context. 3 For simplicity s sake, we refer to each wave by its odd-numbered year; earlier reports sometimes call the first wave the 2004 wave, since the data was first collected in late 2004. 6
Table 1 Response rates by year and respondent type Survey year Churches surveyed Pastor responses Pastor rate Repeatresponse pastors Clerk responses Clerk rate Pastorclerk pairs Pair response rate 2005 859 550 64% n/a 522 60% 399 46% 2007 711 512 72% 353 451 63% 376 53% 2009 807 523 65% 332 406 48% 322 40% 2011 926 (975) 532 (552) 57% 341 498 54% 335 36% In 2011, 346 pastors responded who had also likely responded to the 2009 wave of the survey. 198 pastors had likely responded to the last three waves of the survey, and 103 pastors have likely responded to all four waves. We refer to these as repeat respondents. Because they are measurements of the same churches over time, the repeat respondents offer the best means to detect any individual-level changes and thus any measurable effects of the SPE project. 4 4 The survey uses church file numbers, also known as Yearbook ID numbers, to track responses over time. To simplify the analysis in this report, we are still working primarily with a dataset that uses just one pastor s response from any church with multiple respondents, unless otherwise noted. We regret that this may seem to marginalize the 20 additional respondents from churches with 2 pastors responding, but their responses and comments have been included in other report formats for SPE. The data remains available for further use and sets the stage for our recommendation that future surveys begin to follow pastors as individuals. For the SPE surveys, we have not had identifying information to track individual pastors as they move from church to church. However, we do know from survey data whether the responding pastor in any given year said he or she had been at their current congregation long enough to have been the same person who responded in the previous wave; those who have been there less than the interval between surveys are not counted as repeat respondents. While there is some opportunity for error (for example, large churches with multiple pastors, an error amplified slightly by inviting responses from co-pastors and junior pastors in 2011), this provides a generally accurate way to count repeat respondents. Where possible, we have selected the pastor with the longest tenure in the current congregation to represent that congregation, since this maximizes our ability to analyze over-time change in pastoral health in same-church situations. 7
About the respondents The survey s geographic coveragee generally reflects the CRCNA s pattern. Figure 1 displays the geographic distribution of the responding churches for 2011. Figure 1 Map of 2011 SPE survey responses by state or province (churches where pastor or clerk responded) Here are some summary statisticss about the responding pastors: About 85 percent of the 527 answering pastors in 2011 described themselves as white (down from 88 percent in 2009); the remaining 15 percent are persons off color. 5 This figure represents the largest proportion of nonwhite participation in the survey to date. The increase in nonwhite respondents from 2009 is attributable mainly to more responses from Asian or Asian American pastors (40 in 2011, up from 31 in 2009) and Black or African American pastors (15 in 2011, up from 10 in 2009). The 2011 ratio of returns from Canada (25.6 percent) over-represents Canada very slightly, since 22.6 percent of the 922 invited churches with pastors were Canadian as of October 2011. 5 About 2. 5 percent (14 pastors) selected other, specify. Half were specific nonwhite or mixed racial groups ( white/hispanic, Taiwanese, Haitian ); the rest were Dutchh mixes ( Dutch/Friesian American, Dutch CDN ) or various protests against using racial categories (such as God s Adopted Child, human, Heinz 57 and Growing increasingly disappointed with thesee designations. ). 8
As shown in Table 2 below, 81.9 percent of responding pastors reported an M. Div. degree. 6 The only notable change since 2009 is a slight increase in the proportion of pastors with M.A. or M.S. degrees, but the change is not statistically significant. Table 2 Degrees earned by pastors 68.6 percent of responding pastors came to ministry in the CRCNA through Calvin Theological Seminary (CTS). 7 The typical responding CRC pastor is male (96.8 percent 8 ), was ordained at age 32, has been in ministry for 17.3 years and in his current position for 7.6 years. The length of tenure at congregations has increased steadily by about 0.1 years per calendar year, beginning at 6.5 years in 2005; we now have enough data to describe the increase as statistically significant. 9 In 2011, we asked pastors for the first time, Are you a bi-vocational pastor? That is, do you work in a non-ministry-related vocation as well as your ministry vocation? 43 pastors (8.3 percent) said yes. As might be expected, these pastors tend to serve small churches the median congregation with a bi-vocational pastor has 50 members, compared to 190 members at the median congregation with a single-vocation pastor. A brief investigation did not find any evidence that bi-vocational pastors differ from others in terms of pastoral health, satisfaction 6 This statistic includes multiple pastors from some congregations. 7 Similar to 2009 s figure of 29.7 percent, 2011 s 31.4 percent share of pastors who did not take CTS as a route to ministry represents a substantial increase from the 11 percent reporting a non-cts degree route in the 2007 survey and is substantially higher than the 18.8 percent figure from 2005; as in 2009, the difference is generally unrelated to age and may represent increased participation in the survey by non-cts grads who have long been present rather than a trend in CRC pastoral demographics. If the increase does represent a new surge in hiring of non-cts grads as CRC pastors, the trend includes many who are older or second-career pastors. 8 An all-time high of 17 women responded in 2011 still too few to analyze with much leverage, however. 9 Statistical significance tests are designed for use with random samples from large populations, while this survey is a population survey with a moderately high response rate. However, supposing for the sake of argument that pastors decide whether to respond or not in a statistically random fashion, the statistical test tells us that we would be unlikely to see a wave-over-wave trend in congregational tenure as large as we see just due to random fluctuations in the pastors decision to participate. 9
with life balance, spousal support, or leadership skills, though they do tend to believe their congregations are better fulfilling their mission and vision than do their single-vocation peers. Membership trends As shown in Table 3 below, the typical CRC congregation reported by pastors has 324 members and is more likely suburban (40.6 percent) than rural (29.7) or urban (26.2). Due to the larger size of suburban church memberships, almost half of CRC members attend suburban churches. The responding churches are slightly more likely to be rural than in 2004-2005. Table 3 Churches and membership by location type, 2011 Ministry Location Pastors responding % Cases reporting membership Average membership Total membership % Urban 165 31.2% 165 183.0 29,644 22.6% Suburban 220 41.7% 218 297.5 64,860 47.7% Rural 143 27.1% 142 247.6 35,154 29.8% Total 528 100.0% 522 248.4 129,658 100.0% The four-wave, seven-year trends are shown in Figure 1 on the following page. This pastoral survey data is not intended to function as a substitute for other methods of measuring membership trends; however, the data suggests a marked drop in membership, especially among suburban churches. The decreases are much deeper than would be expected to result simply from random variation in which pastors choose to respond to the survey. Total reported membership at surveyed churches decreased from over 152,000 in 2009 to below 130,000 in 2011, even though the count of responding churches increased slightly. 10
Figure 2 Trends in reported membership by locale Reported membership by locale Year of survey 250 237 200 Respondents 150 143 148 220 165 143 Churches responding 134 160 180 200 220 237 Locale urban suburban rural 350 364.0 Avg. Size of membership 300 250 269.2 243.9 297.5 247.6 200 183.0 84,805 80K Size of membership 60K 64,860 40K 39,569 34,388 35,154 29,644 2005 2007 2009 2011 11
Membership losses at repeat-respondent churches are less precipitous but still substantial. Among the small group of 111 repeat respondents with data for all four waves, a decline in membership accelerated in the 2009 to 2011 period; the average congregation s change of membership from the previous survey wave was at net gain of 2.2 members in 2007, a net loss of 5.3 members in 2009, and a net loss of 14.2 members in 2011. 10 Section summary The remainder of the report is organized as follows: Section III reviews the subjective evaluations of the SPE Project. Sections IV through IX mirror the structure of the original 2005 report. The survey questions covered in these sections were originally conceived and organized in relation to the Marks of Good Ministry identified in the original proposal to the Lilly Endowment for Creating a Culture of Pastoral Excellence. The proposal s headline for each mark of good ministry is found in the section headings for sections IV through IX. Section X focuses on communication and support issues between pastors and councils. Section XI covers new material on family, spouses, sabbaticals and similar topics newly expanded in 2011. Section XII analyzes comments from the survey respondents. Section XIII offers concluding remarks and recommendations. 10 Readers should keep in mind that the survey is not a complete census. Inspection of the survey data reveals at least one very large CRC-affiliated congregation whose web site reports it has grown substantially since 2007 (more than doubling from a four-digit base), yet this congregation has not responded to the survey since then. If many similar omissions exist, it may compromise the accuracy of our estimates although survey nonresponse is itself an indicator we should attend to as a possible sign of the state of relations between the denomination and its pastors and congregations. 12
III. Evaluations of the SPE Project s Effects SPE participation The survey asked pastors to report on their recent participation in an array of activities that SPE supports, including peer learning groups, mentoring, and so on. Detailed reports on each of these are found in the sections following this one. After recounting their activities, pastors were asked whether any of these activities were connected to the SPE project. 11 As shown in the leftmost pane of Figure 3, the proportion of responding pastors who report some involvement in SPE has risen steadily, from 44 percent in 2005 to 58 percent in 2011. As shown in the three panes on the right, younger pastors were the most likely to participate (60 percent in 2011, similar to the average across previous years). The increase over time has occurred primarily among older pastors. In 2011, the pastoral population between 36 and 50 reached 60 percent participation, while the group over 50 years old reached 56 percent SPE participation. Figure 3 SPE involvement by year and age bracket at time of survey 11 In 2005 and 2007, pastors were asked Are any of the above (continuing education, peer learning group, mentor/mentee relationship) connected with the Sustaining Pastoral Excellence program in the CRCNA? Answer options were Yes, No, and Don t Know. In 2009 and 2011, the question was, How many of the above (continuing education events, peer learning groups, mentor-mentee relationships) were/are connected with the CRC Sustaining Pastoral Excellence project (which is funded by Lilly Endowment Inc)? The new answer options were 3 or more, 1 or 2, None, and Don t know. In 2011, 7.5 percent said 3 or more, up from 4.8 percent in 2009. In this section, the charts group 2009 and 2011 answers of 3 or more and 1 or 2 with Yes answers from 2005 and 2007. 13
Pastors ratings From 2007 on, both pastors and clerks of Council were asked to rate the effect of the SPE program on three outcomes. In 2011, we added several more outcomes to the battery to broaden the measure of SPE impact. Pastors were asked the following: Please rate the overall effect of the Sustaining Pastoral Excellence (SPE) project on each area. SPE has included pastor peer learning groups, continuing education events, mentoring relationships, regional pastor funding, pastor couple learning events, pastors' spouses' peer groups and pastors' spouses' conferences/retreats. You may answer "NA" if you have not been a part of any SPE programs and/or are unaware of their effects. On your role as a pastor and on your ministry [2007-2011] On you personally [2007-2011] On your devotional life [2011 only] On your physical and emotional self-care [2011 only] On your spouse and marriage [2011 only] On your children and other family [2011 only] On your congregation (past or present) [2011 only] On the culture of your classis (past or present) [2011 only] On the culture of the CRCNA [2007-2011] Figure 4 displays the results for the original three questions in both years. Figure 4 Pastors' ratings of the effect of SPE 14
In 2011, the percentage of pastors perceiving a positive or very positive effect dropped back from a small surge in 2009. There was also an increase in the proportion of pastors choosing NA to indicate that they couldn t rate SPE s effect. In 2011, 66 percent said the effect on their ministry was at least positive (the same as in 2009), 65 percent said the effect on themselves personally was at least positive (again the same as 2009, but with fewer very positive answers), and 59 percent said SPE s effect on the culture of the CRCNA was positive, the same as in 2007 and down substantially from the 71 percent value in 2009. It seems likely that these falling numbers at least partly reflect the smaller scale and budget of the SPE project in the most recent period. However, the combination of slightly falling evaluations with the increasing exposure of the SPE suggests that some pastors, both participants and observers, are less impressed than they had been. The aggregate change isn t likely to be due to changes in the opinion of individuals; an analysis of repeat respondents shows no change in the first two items and substantial positive change wave-over-wave in repeat respondents appraisal of the effect of SPE on the culture of the CRCNA. Figure 5 illustrates the effect of SPE participation on ratings of the impact of SPE on the culture of the denomination. The 2009 boost in SPE ratings (both quantity and quality) has faded; positive or very positive ratings fell back to 41 percent from 56 percent in 2009. SPE participants remain far more likely to rate the program and value it highly than non-participants, but the proportion of participants assigning SPE little or no impact on culture more than doubled to 17 percent of 2011 respondents. Figure 5 Pastors ratings of SPE s effect on CRCNA culture by SPE participation 15
Clerks ratings A parallel set of questions was asked of clerks of Council. Figure 6 illustrates the high proportion of no answer cases. The uptick in awareness of SPE among clerks we observed in 2009 has not proven to be a trend; though the opinions to be found are very positive (83 to 87 percent of ratings), about 70 percent of clerks remain unable to offer an opinion. Figure 6 Clerks' ratings of SPE's effect 16
For the small share of clerks (23.9 percent in 2007, 21.7 percent in 2009, 24.6 percent in 2011) who knew their pastor was involved in SPE-sponsored activities, the ratings are much more positive, but again we see a return to lower levels of approval. As shown in Figure 7 below, clerks who indicated knowledge that their pastor was involved in SPE gave the project a 79 percent positive rating in 2011 for the project s effect on their pastor s role and ministry, down from 86 percent in 2009. Figure 7 Clerks ratings of effect on their pastor's ministry by SPE participation 17
New ratings of SPE by pastors The additional items introduced in 2011 break down as shown in Figure 8, which excludes Not applicable answers. Figure 8 Pastors' ratings of SPE's effect on nine outcomes, six new in 2011 Pastors saw the most positive effects from the three previously asked items, topped by the effect on the pastor personally, with 84 percent of pastors reporting positive or very positive effects of SPE. Reports of negative effects were almost entirely absent; a handful of respondents mentioned negative effects, including two pastors reporting a negative and one reporting a very negative effect on physical and emotional self-care. In these areas, SPE has the least widespread effect on children and family, with 31 percent of pastors reporting a positive effect; next to last was devotional life, with 46 percent reporting positive effects. Over half of pastors (54 percent) reported a positive effect of SPE on spouse and marriage; slightly more (57 percent) reported a positive effect on classis culture. 70 percent reported a positive effect on their past or present congregation; SPE may be an important part of the denomination s developing focus on the Healthy Church paradigm. 18
IV. Spiritual Formation A deep, authentic relationship with God marked by prayer, godliness and fruits of the Spirit. Devotional frequency We asked pastors, How often do you have personal prayer and meditation time (including Bible reading)? Figure 9 shows the breakdown of responses by age group for 2011 (top pane) and by survey year (bottom pane). As in previous years, we find that older pastors are far more likely to report daily devotions than are younger pastors. In 2011, just 23 percent of the youngest group (20 to 30 years old; 21 responses in 2011) reported daily prayer, meditation or Bible reading, while 67 percent of the next-to-oldest group (56 to 60; 94 responses in 2011) did so. However, the overall frequency of devotions has been fairly stable from year to year, as the bottom pane of the figure shows. 2011 looks almost exactly like 2009, with 46 percent of respondents reporting daily devotions. Figure 9 Devotional frequency by age group in 2011 and by survey year 19
Other spiritual formation activities Pastors were asked four 12 yes-or-no questions relating to intentionality in spiritual formation: 1. Have you gone on a spiritual retreat in the last twelve months? 2. Do you regularly meet with one or more other Christians for the purpose of deepening your relationship with God? 3. Do you establish annual, personal goals for spiritual growth and a way to sustain these goals? 4. Have you developed a personal life mandate or statement of personal vision for ministry? In 2011, the four measures have mixed trends. For the first time, most pastors answered yes to two of the four items, with 51.0 percent reporting a personal mandate, up a little since 2009, and a record high 82.7 percent reporting they regularly meet with others. The rate of goal setting was stable at 36.7 percent, while the proportion reporting a spiritual retreat in the last 12 months fell back a little to 46.3 percent. Figure 10 Four spiritual formation activities by year Age differences in these activities are mostly minor, but we did observe that pastors 40 and under were less likely to have a personal mandate (41.7 percent as opposed to 53.9 percent for pastors over 40), while pastors 61 and older were less likely than other age groups to report meeting regularly with others (71.0 percent, compared to rates of 81 to 87 percent for all the younger age groups). 12 A fifth practice, journal-keeping, was dropped from the survey in 2009. Only 1 in 5 pastors were practicing it in previous years. 20
Conclusions Reports of spiritual formation practices remain largely stable among CRC pastors. There have been some small but encouraging increases in the rates of meeting with others for mutual spiritual support and development of personal mandates. SPE might be able to affect the prevalence of these practices most by seeking targeted ways to: encourage regular meetings with others by pastors nearing retirement and encourage pastors under 40 to increase the frequency of personal prayer and meditation and to develop personal mandates. 21
V. Vision and Mission A strong vision of the mission of the church in which the church exists not merely to sustain itself but to serve the world and minister beyond itself. Vision and mission statements In all four waves, the survey has asked pastors, Does your congregation have vision and mission statements? The leftmost pane of Figure 11 illustrates that the percentage of pastors answering yes has stabilized at 87 percent in 2011 after increasing steadily since 2005. The center and right panes of Figure 11 show two questions new to the survey in 2009, asked only of those who said yes to having vision and mission statements: 1. How well do you embrace and advance your congregation's mission and vision through your preaching, teaching, and personal life? 2. How well do your council leaders live out the congregation's mission and vision through their ministry roles and personal lives? Figure 11 Vision and mission statements: presence by year; embrace by age; council living by locale 22
As shown on in the center and right panels, pastors answers to the two new questions remained very stable between 2009 and 2011. 63 percent of pastors say they embrace their congregation s mission and vision statements very well or nearly so. 42 percent say their council lives the mission and vision very well or nearly so. A brief examination of the data suggests that churches whose pastors report stronger Council fulfillment of mission and vision also enjoyed greater membership retention. For example, the average membership change for a church whose pastor said the Council lives out the mission and vision very well was a loss of 2 members; the average church at the midpoint of the scale lost 8.8 members, while the average church receiving a rating of poorly lost 29.9 members. Core elements of the CRC mission Pastors were asked how well their congregations reflect the five core elements of the CRC mission statement: 24a We gather to praise God, listen to him and respond. 24b We nurture each other in faith and obedience to Christ. 24c We love and care for one another as God s people. 24d We commit ourselves to serve and to tell others about Jesus. 24e We pursue God s justice and peace in every area of life. The pastors ranked each item on a scale of 1 (the congregation reflects the element very well ) to 5 ( poorly ). Figure 12 on the following page displays the results from each year in two ways: the top pane shows the breakdown among the five answer choices, while the bottom panel shows the average (mean) for all pastors with a confidence interval. From Figure 12, we learn that We gather to praise God, listen to him and respond remains the most frequently affirmed core element, with 37 percent of pastors reporting their congregation reflected this mark very well in 2011. The figure is stable after the steep drop between 2007 to 2009 in the percent saying 1 very well, which had previously fallen from 63 percent in 2007 to 37 percent in 2009. 13 Other responses were very consistent with previous years. Pursuit of God s justice and peace remains the least affirmed core element, with just 7 percent of pastors saying 1 very well and just 30 percent rating the congregation in the top two categories; however, this is the best year to date for the justice and peace core element, up from 27 percent in 2009 and 22 percent in 2007. These five questions can be averaged into a reliable numerical congregational mission fulfillment scale 14 ranging from 1 to 5, where 5 is best. The scale allows finer distinctions between pastors than possible with just one survey item. 13 As noted in 2009, the steep change from 2007 to 2009 may be an artifact of the change in survey design from paper (on which respondents filled in a blank with a number between 1 and 5) to the web (where respondents saw the entire 5-point range as a visual scale). However, we see much more stability in the other four items than in the first item; if the change in survey mode were causing the steep drop, it ought to affect the other, similarly designed items. Because the others are fairly stable, it seems likely there is some real phenomenon behind the drop, which might be exaggerated by the change in survey modes. 14 A standard measure of reliability, Cronbach s alpha for the congregational mission and vision fulfillment scale is 0.75 on a scale from 0 to 1, where values over 0.70 are tolerable and values over 0.80 are preferred. 23
24 Figure 12 Core elements of congregational mission by year with means and 95% confidence intervals
VI. Knowing and Communicating the Christian Faith A thorough grasp of the biblical, pastoral and theological contours of the Christian faith and church, with an ability to communicate these contours in meaningful, relevant, and integrative ways through sound preaching and teaching, and imaginative pastoral leadership. Knowledge of the Reformed faith In 2011, 58 percent of responding pastors reported a thorough understanding of the Reformed faith, the same as in 2009 (see top pane of Figure 13), which itself represented a substantial, statistically significant increase over 2005 s value of just 50 percent. Figure 13 Understanding of the Reformed faith by year and route to ministry; change since prior survey The bottom pane of Figure 13 shows that in 2011, 62 percent of CTS graduates report a thorough understanding, as opposed to just 49 percent of non-cts graduates. Thus the substantial increase in the share of non-cts graduates among respondents to the 2009 survey accounts for much of the apparent decline in faith understanding since 2007. 25
Discipling 2011 marks a very hopeful sign, a decided upturn in the number of disciples reported by responding pastors. As in previous years, pastors were asked, how many persons are you currently discipling (in oneto-one or one-to two relationships) in each of the following categories? The categories offered were Pre-Christian, new Christian, and mature Christian. The top pane of Figure 14 displays average disciple counts by year. In 2011, the average responding pastor reported 1.70 pre-christian disciples, 2.30 new Christian disciples, 4.18 mature Christian disciples, and 7.62 disciples overall, record highs since 2005 in all three categories and the total. The middle pane of Figure 14 reports totals by category and overall. The total number of disciples reported increased from 3,024 in 2005 to 3,864 in 2011, a 27 percent increase overall and a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.6 percent per year. The majority of the observed growth occurred in mature Christian disciples, which increased 47.2 percent, from 1,346 in 2005 to 1,996 in 2011 (CAGR 5.8 percent), while pre-christian disciples increased 16.9 percent (CAGR 2.3 percent), from 642 to 762 (actually falling slightly from the 2009 high of 771). After dipping in 2007, reports of new Christian disciples have surged back to 1,106, above 1,000 for the first time since 2005, up 7.8 percent since 2005 (CAGR 1.1 percent). The proportion of all reported disciples who were mature Christians rose from 44.5 percent in 2005 (1,346 out of 3,024 total) to 51.6 percent in 2011 (1,996 out of 3,864). The bottom panes of Figure 14 show the percentage of pastors who reported at least one disciple in each category; these numbers are also steady or improving. In 2011, 57 percent reported having at least one pre-christian disciple, 74 percent reported at least one new Christian disciple, and 78 percent reported at least one mature Christian disciple. 83 percent reported at least one disciple in any of these three categories. An exploratory statistical analysis suggests that repeat-respondent increases in pastoral disciples are related to improvements in previously-introduced congregational mission and vision scale (see Figure 12 on page 24 and accompanying narrative). That is, congregations whose pastors report improved fulfillment of their mission and vision also seem more likely to report increases in disciples of the pastor. Given the increased numbers of disciples generally and mature Christian disciples particularly, it might be valuable for the denomination to consider new ways to help pastors delegate and mobilize these disciples to reach out, as Jesus did. Our recommendations expand on this idea in Section XIII. 26
Figure 14 Disciples per pastor by year How many persons are you currently discipling (in one-to-one or one-to-two relationships) in each of the following categories? Year of survey 2005 1.38 2007 1.50 2009 1.48 2011 1.70 Avg. Pre-Christian disciples Avg. New Christian disciples 2.04 1.63 1.76 2.30 Avg. Mature Christian disciples 2.81 3.06 3.19 4.18 Avg. Total disciples 5.71 6.15 6.42 7.62 0 5 10 Average disciples 0 5 10 Average disciples 0 5 10 Average disciples 0 5 10 Average disciples Year of survey Pre-Christian disciples New Christian disciples Mature Christian disciples Total disciples 2005 652 1,026 1,346 3,024 2007 747 822 1,538 3,107 2009 773 922 1,663 3,358 2011 762 1,106 1,996 3,864 0 2,000 4,000 Total disciples 0 2,000 4,000 Total disciples 0 2,000 4,000 Total disciples 0 2,000 4,000 Total disciples Proportion with at least one disciple 100% Pre-Christian New Christian Mature Christian Any of these 50% 0% Legend No disciples Has disciples 27