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Religions
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Emerging Trends in Congregational Engagement and Leadership
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Emerging Trends in Congregational Engagement and Leadership

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 June 2025) | Viewed by 5824

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Kristina I. Lizardy-Hajbi

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Iliff School of Theology, Denver, CO 80210, USA
Interests: congregational trends; religious leadership; community organizing and change; liberative and decolonial praxis; theological education

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Recent local and global phenomena are altering—or have the potential to alter—congregational life in profound ways. Congregations and their leaders are reckoning with and responding to the impacts of COVID-19, racialized and/or religious violence and nationalist movements, climate change, globalization, political instability, immigration, demographic shifts around age, ethnicity, and gender, technological advancements, and more, all at varying degrees and with mixed results. The aim of this Special Issue is to coalesce some of the emerging trends related to how congregations and their leaders are (or are not) responding to such phenomena. How are congregations engaging with these issues within their faith communities, in their broader communities and regions, and beyond? How are leaders of such congregations perceiving these phenomena, and what impacts does this have on their leadership and on the congregation as a whole?

The study of congregational life and leadership is an interdisciplinary endeavor that draws upon sociological, anthropological, political, historical, ecclesial, and other frameworks and methods. As such, we invite research articles and reviews from a variety of disciplines that address any aspect of the Special Issue topic, including (but not limited to) the following:

  • How individual congregations are responding to issues, trends, or events that have impacted them, their local and/or regional communities, or beyond;
  • Patterns of engagement or response across multiple congregations to particular local and/or global phenomena;
  • Congregational leader perceptions of, and/or responses to, present issues, trends, or events;
  • Emerging models, practices, or attributes of religious leadership that elicit congregational responses to, or engagements of, local and/or global phenomena.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200-300 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editor or to the Assistant Editor Ms. Violet Li (violet.li@mdpi.com) of Religions. Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editor for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Kristina I. Lizardy-Hajbi
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • congregations
  • religious leadership
  • clergy
  • COVID-19
  • climate change
  • immigration
  • demographics
  • globalization
  • race/ethnicity
  • religious nationalism

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (10 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 210 KiB  
Article
Exploring Theologies of Money: Religious Leaders’ Use of Stewardship, Its Strengths, and Limitations
by David P. King, Mark Sampson and Brad R. Fulton
Religions 2025, 16(7), 866; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16070866 - 3 Jul 2025
Viewed by 327
Abstract
Questions of finance and economic models are vital for congregational leaders to consider, but they are too often overlooked in research and practice. While we argue that the explicit attention to budgets and balance sheets should be a focus of both congregational researchers [...] Read more.
Questions of finance and economic models are vital for congregational leaders to consider, but they are too often overlooked in research and practice. While we argue that the explicit attention to budgets and balance sheets should be a focus of both congregational researchers and religious leaders, we would also argue that these topics are embedded in congregational life as practices and cultures of giving that are likewise rooted in theologies of money. To examine the theologies of money religious leaders rely on in shaping their views of receiving, managing, and spending resources, our study analyzes the qualitative data of 82 clergy interviews from the National Study of Congregations’ Economic Practices (NSCEP). We find that the language of “stewardship” continues to dominate, and we consider how this language has both shaped and masked congregations’ current and future engagement with money matters. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Trends in Congregational Engagement and Leadership)
18 pages, 588 KiB  
Article
Lifelong Learning Needs of Methodist Preachers: A Quantitative Assessment
by Darryl W. Stephens, Megan Mullins and Ryan P. Castillo
Religions 2025, 16(7), 842; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16070842 - 25 Jun 2025
Viewed by 246
Abstract
Proclamation of the gospel is a perennial practice of congregational leadership demanding responsiveness to issues, trends, and events impacting congregations, their local and regional communities, and the challenges of the world. How do congregational leaders equip themselves for the important and ever-changing task [...] Read more.
Proclamation of the gospel is a perennial practice of congregational leadership demanding responsiveness to issues, trends, and events impacting congregations, their local and regional communities, and the challenges of the world. How do congregational leaders equip themselves for the important and ever-changing task of preaching? Lifelong learning, the fastest-growing and least-resourced aspect of theological education in North America, provides this opportunity. Through a 2024 survey, this quantitative study provides insight into the lifelong learning needs of Methodist preachers, including differences based on gender and race/ethnicity. Time for additional learning is the major perceived obstacle for preachers desiring to improve their craft. Thus, lifelong learning programs must make the case for how the required time and energy will benefit the preacher participating in such programs. Specifically, the activities of reviewing recordings of sermons (both one’s own and those of other preachers), receiving constructive feedback on sermons, and realizing the collaborative potential of preaching must be structured in ways that prove the value of these investments for preachers. This data on the lifelong learning needs of Methodist preachers has implications on multiple levels: conceptual, institutional, congregational, and personal. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Trends in Congregational Engagement and Leadership)
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21 pages, 288 KiB  
Article
Future Congregational Leaders: How Do They Perceive Their Opportunities in This Field?
by Emőke Török and Emese Biró
Religions 2025, 16(6), 794; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16060794 - 18 Jun 2025
Viewed by 322
Abstract
The expectations, plans and goals of future pastors are developed and consolidated during theological studies. These plans and expectations, and the career strategies based on them can have a decisive influence on how gender-based differences with respect to opportunities in the churches develop. [...] Read more.
The expectations, plans and goals of future pastors are developed and consolidated during theological studies. These plans and expectations, and the career strategies based on them can have a decisive influence on how gender-based differences with respect to opportunities in the churches develop. Since one of the particularities of the pastoral vocation is that work and private life are closely intertwined and difficult to separate, the personal choices of prospective pastors are crucial in shaping their professional careers. The results of our research based on focus group interviews conducted with female and male Protestant seminarians in Hungary suggest that female theology students are more reserved and cautious in their articulation of plans than their male counterparts. On the one hand, they assume that factors outside and above them may override them and that the conservative church environment may constrain their options. On the other hand, it was repeatedly expressed that, as women, they find it difficult to reconcile pastoral work and family life, and take it for granted that they will compromise more in the professional field. Only a few of the female participants plan to work as independent congregational leaders (senior pastors), whereas this ambition is very typical of male students. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Trends in Congregational Engagement and Leadership)
29 pages, 278 KiB  
Communication
Post-Pandemic Realities: How Will Churches Staff for Ministry in the Future?
by Deborah L. Coe and Hale Inanoglu
Religions 2025, 16(6), 782; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16060782 - 16 Jun 2025
Viewed by 291
Abstract
The Religious Workforce Project is a Lilly Endowment-funded effort to map the nation’s changing Christian religious landscape. A quantitative component identifies broad US trends, while our qualitative work focuses on Christian congregations in the Washington, DC metro area and surrounding counties, to understand [...] Read more.
The Religious Workforce Project is a Lilly Endowment-funded effort to map the nation’s changing Christian religious landscape. A quantitative component identifies broad US trends, while our qualitative work focuses on Christian congregations in the Washington, DC metro area and surrounding counties, to understand how congregations staff to fulfill their missions, and to learn how congregational leaders understand the nature of their ministry today. In 2019–2022, we conducted case studies in 40 congregations in a variety of Christian traditions and contexts. For our analysis, we used a framework based on three societal trends that have impacted congregations: long-term member loss in churches, a skewed distribution in church attendance in which most people attend large churches while most churches are small, and a pandemic-induced movement from brick-and-mortar spaces to online spaces. This analysis revealed the consequential impacts of these three trends on congregations and their leaders, and some of the essential skills needed for effective church operation during this “wilderness moment,” a liminal time in the life of the church. We see these impacts not only as responses to external pressures but also as signs of internal reimagining. Understanding these dynamics is crucial for developing effective strategies for church staffing and for preparing future congregational leaders that can adapt to the future needs of ministry. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Trends in Congregational Engagement and Leadership)
11 pages, 180 KiB  
Article
Churches and COVID-19: Key Trends in Congregational Life Since the Pandemic
by Charissa Mikoski
Religions 2025, 16(6), 759; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16060759 - 12 Jun 2025
Viewed by 361
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting stay-at-home orders disrupted religious life across the United States, forcing congregations to rapidly adapt to unprecedented challenges. While existing research has explored the pandemic’s impact on individual religiosity, this article centers on how congregations were reshaped by [...] Read more.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting stay-at-home orders disrupted religious life across the United States, forcing congregations to rapidly adapt to unprecedented challenges. While existing research has explored the pandemic’s impact on individual religiosity, this article centers on how congregations were reshaped by the pandemic—sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently. Drawing on nationally representative survey data from the Exploring the Pandemic Impact on Congregations project and the long-running Faith Communities Today initiative, this article analyzes trends in worship attendance, other forms of commitment to and engagement with congregations, congregational openness to change, and clergy well-being. The findings show that in-person worship attendance continues to decline, while online worship was adopted widely during the pandemic and remains common. Programming, volunteering, and financial giving have rebounded but still fall short of pre-pandemic levels or current needs. Many congregations embraced change early in the pandemic but have since reverted to old routines. Clergy are in relatively good health, yet growing numbers are reconsidering their futures in ministry. These shifts reveal the pandemic’s lasting impact on congregational life and raise critical questions for clergy, lay leaders, and researchers about institutional resilience, innovation, and leadership sustainability. The findings underscore the complex and evolving nature of post-pandemic ministry. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Trends in Congregational Engagement and Leadership)
17 pages, 263 KiB  
Article
Imagining Otherwise: Black Women, Theological Resistance, and Afrofuturist Possibility
by Marquisha Lawrence Scott
Religions 2025, 16(5), 658; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16050658 - 21 May 2025
Viewed by 531
Abstract
“If it wasn’t for the women” is a common refrain in Black Church culture, made most popular by Cheryl Townsend Gilkes’ sociology of religion work in the 1990s. As conversations grow around a perceived disconnection from the church—particularly among younger generations—many Black congregations [...] Read more.
“If it wasn’t for the women” is a common refrain in Black Church culture, made most popular by Cheryl Townsend Gilkes’ sociology of religion work in the 1990s. As conversations grow around a perceived disconnection from the church—particularly among younger generations—many Black congregations and denominations are asking the following question: Where do we go from here? One possible response is to ask the women. Black women have long been central to the sustenance and theological framing of the Black Church. However, many contemporary Black women theologians and church-adjacent writers are reshaping religious discourse in ways that move beyond traditional ecclesial boundaries and into the interiority of Black womanhood. This turn should be considered essential in any reimagining of the Black Church. This paper employs content analysis to examine five contemporary works by Black women thinkers—Candice Benbow, Lyvonne Briggs, Tricia Hersey, EbonyJanice Moore, and Cole Arthur Riley—whose writings reflect Black women’s embodied spirituality, theological imagination, cultural meaning-making, and institutional critique within Black religious life. Rather than signaling a decline in moral or spiritual life, their work points to the search for sacred spaces that are more liberative, inclusive, and attuned to lived experience. Through a thematic analysis of Power, Authority, and Institutional Critique; Afrofuturistic Visioning of Faith; Sacred Embodiment and Spiritual Praxis; Language and Rhetorical Strategies; Gender, Sexuality, and Sacred Autonomy; and Liberation, Justice, and Social Transformation, this study contributes to the evolving conversation on Black women’s spirituality, leadership in religious spaces, and a possible iteration of the Black Church. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Trends in Congregational Engagement and Leadership)
12 pages, 212 KiB  
Article
Under-Connected: Building Relational Power, Solidarity, and Developing Leaders in Broad-Based Community Organizing
by Aaron Stauffer
Religions 2025, 16(5), 620; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16050620 - 14 May 2025
Viewed by 374
Abstract
Many pastors, faith leaders, and community organizers are isolated and under-connected to communities of praxis that can accompany them as they go about their social change work, helping them to ground their organizing in their faith lives. There is a crisis of leadership [...] Read more.
Many pastors, faith leaders, and community organizers are isolated and under-connected to communities of praxis that can accompany them as they go about their social change work, helping them to ground their organizing in their faith lives. There is a crisis of leadership development and training. This paper argues for a rethinking of leadership development as grounded in conceptions of relational power, value-based organizing, and deep solidarity. Leaders, it is often said, are those who have followers. This definition takes for granted models of leadership that were first developed in the 1940s in Alinsky-style networks and adapted in the 1980s and 1990s in the neo-Alinskyite movement. This article extends this approach to home in on what leadership development amounts to in broad-based community organizing so as to help congregations and faith leaders see how community organizing can be an enactment and expression of their faith lives. Organizing strategies of leadership development can sit at the heart of congregational development. Developing leaders is about transformative critical reflection on premises of meaning schema. Leadership development is connected to leaders developing in the sense of exploring new ways of seeing the world and acting on them. By refocusing the organizing strategy of leadership development around relational power and deep solidarity, pastors, faith leaders, and community organizers can build stronger institutions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Trends in Congregational Engagement and Leadership)
15 pages, 205 KiB  
Article
The Congregation as Retreat Center and Intentional Community: Pastoral Sensemaking in an Age of Individualization
by Scott J. Hagley
Religions 2025, 16(5), 617; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16050617 - 13 May 2025
Viewed by 333
Abstract
Drawing from narrative interviews with eight Protestant pastors in the U.S. and Canada, this paper explores community-building under the conditions of late modernity through the lenses of individualization and sensemaking. Exploring pastoral approaches to what Ulrich Beck calls “institutionalized individualism”, this paper argues [...] Read more.
Drawing from narrative interviews with eight Protestant pastors in the U.S. and Canada, this paper explores community-building under the conditions of late modernity through the lenses of individualization and sensemaking. Exploring pastoral approaches to what Ulrich Beck calls “institutionalized individualism”, this paper argues that pastoral sensemaking manages polarities between the societal demand for self-construction and the human need to belong, between an individual’s freedom to make a life (or god) of their own and the fact that such work requires a community. Pastoral leaders manage this polarity through sensemaking strategies that strengthen and clarify the central values and practices of the congregation while also managing the boundaries of the congregation, envisioning the congregation as a retreat center in some cases and as an intentional community in others. In an age of individualization, pastoral leadership requires the dexterity to move between dynamic collective and individual identities, making processes of belonging a collaborative sensemaking effort in which boundaries are drawn, enacted, erased, and redrawn in new ways. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Trends in Congregational Engagement and Leadership)
12 pages, 179 KiB  
Article
Adaptive Pastoral Leadership in a Multicultural Church
by Marti R. Jewell and Dan R. Ebener
Religions 2025, 16(5), 577; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16050577 - 30 Apr 2025
Viewed by 614
Abstract
The Catholic Church in the United States is no longer a Euro-American church receiving immigrants. Rather, it is an immigrant church, the cross-cultural Body of Christ. Serving such a diverse church is difficult and complex, providing both prophetic and pragmatic challenges for pastoral [...] Read more.
The Catholic Church in the United States is no longer a Euro-American church receiving immigrants. Rather, it is an immigrant church, the cross-cultural Body of Christ. Serving such a diverse church is difficult and complex, providing both prophetic and pragmatic challenges for pastoral leaders seeking to build the parish as a dynamic, relational, multicultural community, living out the Gospel of Christ. The challenges of creating vibrant parishes in the light of growing diversity was the subject of a qualitative research study that interviewed more than 500 Catholic pastors, staff, and parishioners, from 40 parishes across the US. This study discovered that, while parishioners from different cultures want the same things—good liturgy, leadership, community, and faith formation—they want it in culturally distinct ways. This has created challenges not previously encountered by parish leaders. Effective leaders in these communities exhibited the skills of adaptive leadership, learning to put aside biases and assumptions, in a synodal style of ministry in which they listen deeply, and respond to, the needs of their faith community while using intercultural competencies. Together, pastoral leaders are becoming bridges, bringing together the faithful across cultures, enriching the life of the community. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Trends in Congregational Engagement and Leadership)
10 pages, 179 KiB  
Article
Political Polarization and Christian Nationalism in Our Pews
by Amanda Henderson
Religions 2025, 16(4), 507; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16040507 - 15 Apr 2025
Viewed by 1235
Abstract
Congregational leaders in the US must navigate a political landscape marked by increasing political polarization and a notable rise in support for ideas aligned with Christian nationalism. While gender, race, ethnicity, and religious affiliation have long shaped political lines, the US population has [...] Read more.
Congregational leaders in the US must navigate a political landscape marked by increasing political polarization and a notable rise in support for ideas aligned with Christian nationalism. While gender, race, ethnicity, and religious affiliation have long shaped political lines, the US population has steadily become more entrenched in partisan political divides. Recent research shows the relationship between religious identity and willingness to use violence to support political and religious ideologies. These trends profoundly affect faith communities, challenging theological perspectives, social dynamics, and civic engagement. This paper examines how political polarization and Christian nationalist impulses within mainline Christian congregations impact congregational leadership. This study identifies key factors driving these changes through qualitative analysis of case studies and quantitative research. It explores their implications for community cohesion and the broader societal fabric. The findings suggest that while some communities experience heightened internal conflict and fragmentation, others adapt by engaging in dialogue, story-sharing, and education. The paper concludes with recommendations to counter political polarization and ideological extremism through increased understanding, nuanced theological reflection, and political awareness. This research contributes to the ongoing discourse on congregational leadership and political engagement, highlighting the need for nuanced strategies to address the challenges of political polarization and Christian nationalism in the US today. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Trends in Congregational Engagement and Leadership)
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