How do neighborhoods where religious congregations are located influence them and how do congregations change their communities? The Chicago Congregations Project (CCP) uses innovative data collection methods so that researchers can address these and other questions to better understand the role of congregations in urban life.
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Mapping Congregations
The CCP employed various methods to generate the approximate population of congregations in a sample of roughly half of Chicago’s 77 Community Areas (CCAs). The CCP’s data collection started with virtual (i.e., Google Street View) and physical canvassing using Geographic Information System (GIS). All accessible streets were virtually “walked” and physically canvassed in the sample CCAs. Concluding the initial phase, CCP data were checked using exact and fuzzy matching techniques against preexisting lists of congregations adding any missing ones determined to be active.
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Survey of Religious Congregations
The CCP’s second phase of data collection involved contacting and surveying congregations. The research team reached out to persons knowledgeable about the congregation, such as religious leaders, administrators, or other staff, via email to complete the survey on behalf of their congregation. The survey covered a variety of topics including leadership structures, community engagement, social service programs, political activity, organizational connections, and membership demographics. Additionally, staff from NORC at the University of Chicago, and then later RAs internal to the CCP research team, called and/or made in-person visits to
congregations. In addition to increasing survey response, field work was crucial in making definitive decisions about difficult cases, such as whether certain congregations were still open or met at the listed location.
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Chicago Resident’s Survey
Also central to the CCP is understanding how congregations shape the attitudes and behaviors of residents living in their surrounding community. To that end, the CCP’s lead researchers developed the Chicago Resident Survey (CRS). As part of the CRS, nearly 2,200 people living in the same CCAs sampled for the CCP completed a 10-minute or so survey about religion, social networks, civic engagement, wellbeing, community attachment, collective efficacy, and access to social services. The fourth phase of our study links CRS and CCP data to investigate the impact of congregations on the lives of community residents. Given the richness of the CCP data, many different measures of congregations—for example, overall number, density of different religious traditions, engagement in specific actions, or dissemination of certain messages—when assessing their contextual effects. Moreover, CRS respondents who attended religious services more than never in the last year were asked where they attended. The CRS, when compared to CCP data, allows us to evaluate the efficacy of hypernetwork sampling, which is the approached the National Congregations Study (NCS) has used, for generating data on congregations in relatively small geographic units such as a city.
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Historical Project
Another phase of our project leverages historical data collected on Chicago congregations to support longitudinal analyses. Based on comparable methodology (walking streets tagging locations with GPS units) to that of the CCP, the Place of Religion in Chicago (PRC) researchers also produced the approximate population of congregations in Cook County, IL (which includes all 77 CCAs) circa 2000. Using Google Maps and Street View, among other sources, CCP RAs searched for PRC congregations over two decades later to see if they were still operational (either at their circa 2000 site or another one), closed, or had their buildings repurposed.
We draw on both congregational-level and community-level factors to explain variation in survival, closure, and repurposing. In addition, we combine CCP data with PRC data to investigate stability and change in the local religious ecology across CCAs. This combination allows us to identify net turnover of congregations in Chicago communities as well as the nature of the gains and losses (e.g., denominational change).
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Results
Taken together, the CCP and associated data constitute an unprecedented opportunity to study congregations and their effects on communities. Analysis of the data is ongoing. Results will be shared with faith communities as well as disseminated through scholarly publications, news outlets, and social media.
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People
Kraig Beyerlein (Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame) and Ricardo Martínez-Schuldt (Assistant Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University and Faculty Affiliate of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame) are Co-Principal Investigators of the CCP. For other contributors to the project, see here. Various undergraduate students from the University of Notre Dame and Chicago-area colleges and universities as well as graduate students from the University of Notre Dame, University of Chicago, and University of Illinois at Chicago are working as research assistants for the CCP.
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Supporters
We are grateful for the support of our funders, without whom the CCP would not have been possible: Crieghton University, Kripke Center; Louisville Institute; Rice University; Rutgers University; Templeton Religion Trust; University of Chicago, Divinity School; University of Notre Dame, Cushwa Center; University of Notre Dame, Democracy Initiative; University of Notre Dame, Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts; University of Notre Dame, Fitzgerald Institute for Real Estate, Church Properties Initiative; University of Notre Dame, Office of the Vice President for Research; and University of Notre Dame, Population Analytics.