Congregations and Communities

Chapter 4 tells the story of how congregational health promotion and disease prevention programs evolved decades ago. Pioneered by the work of Granger Westberg in the 1970s and earlier efforts in community medicine in apartheid-era South Africa, later programs included collaborations with academic public health professionals, such as work in North Carolina churches focused on eliminating health disparities among African Americans. These programs, targeting underserved populations, have grown into a major feature of public health outreach in the United States, involving partnerships between faith-based and healthcare organizations. This chapter also outlines faith-based community programs involving healthcare and human services professionals that provide outreach to specialized populations. These include primary care clinics, faith community nursing, patient education, hospices, and other programs targeting older adults, mothers and children, the homeless and hungry, the unemployed, substance abusers and the physically and cognitively challenged, and others. Interfaith efforts are highlighted, as well as projects involving community organizing for social change.

Strengthening Congregational Communities: Social Justice Engagement Through Deliberative Dialogue

ABSTRACT Christianity and social work have a longstanding history of social justice engagement. However given our current politically-charged society, discussion and engagement in social justice issues are often avoided in congregations because they are seen as divisive. This article discusses the potential impact of implementing public deliberation with pastors and congregations through the lens of two pastors’ experiences, one equipped with deliberative dialogue skills and one who was not. Deliberative dialogue and civil discourse values can positively impact congregational health as the process allows others to share with honesty and vulnerability. Implementing the process of deliberative dialogue into congregational communities increases the potential for civic capacity when people can trust each other to share their stories, principles, and goals.

Pastoral Attitudes that Predict Numerical Church Growth

The attitudes of 92 head pastors were measured concerning 20 ministry-relevant ideas and practices, as well as information about their church’s present numerical growth. A statistical analysis found four pastoral attitudes that predict positive or negative numerical church growth. Positive predictors of numerical church growth were strong beliefs that 1) personal and corporate prayer are important and 2) transfer growth is an indicator of congregational health. Negative predictors of numerical church growth were strong beliefs in 1) the importance of preaching and 2) the importance of outreach to the community. The practical implications of these findings are discussed in light of evangelical theology.

Development of a Participatory Capacity- Building Program for Congregational Health Leaders in African American Churches in the US South

<p>African Americans are disproportionately affected by diabetes and colorectal cancer. Although studies have shown the effective­ness of spiritually based health interventions delivered by community health workers to African Americans, few have described the development of the capacity-building com­ponent. This article describes this process. The development of the Healthy Congre­gations Healthy Communities Program (HCHC) was guided through a community-based participatory research lens and included: 1) establishment of a community coalition; 2) identification by coalition members of churches as the best venues for health promotion strategies among African Americans; 3) recruitment of churches; 4) development of a training manual; 5) recruitment and training of congregational health leaders (CHLs); and 6) “Passing of the torch” from the coalition to the CHLs who implemented the intervention in their con­gregations. We trained 35 CHLs to promote awareness about diabetes and colorectal cancer using a culturally relevant, spiritually based curriculum. Pre- and post-test paired t-tests showed significant increases in CHLs’ knowledge of wellness (P&lt;.001), colorectal cancer (P&lt;.002), nutrition (P&lt;.004), and lifestyle changes (P&lt;.005). The community-academic partnership was successful in developing a culturally relevant, spiritually based capacity-building program for African American CHLs to implement health pro­motion strategies in their congregations and communities.</p><p><em>Ethn Dis.</em>2018;28(1):11-18; doi:10.18865/ed.28.1.11.</p>

Achieving Broad Participation in Congregational Health Surveys at African American and Latino Churches

Congregation-based health program evaluations often rely on surveys, but little documentation is available regarding specific methods and challenges. Here we describe methods used to achieve acceptable response rates (73–79%) in a survey of HIV-related attitudes and behaviors in two African American and three Latino churches in high HIV-prevalence communities in Los Angeles County. Survey participation was enhanced by conducting survey sessions at church-based meetings (e.g., women’s Bible study) and after worship services; employing diverse survey staff; providing participation incentives for pastors, church coordinators, and survey participants; and working collaboratively and respectfully with congregational leaders. Achieving broad participation in church-based surveys on sensitive health topics is feasible when done collaboratively with congregational leaders and with a flexible protocol, which permits tailoring survey approaches to cultural and organizational contexts and leverages available resources appropriately.

A triad of pastoral leadership for congregational health and well-being: Leader, manager and servant in a shared and equipping ministry

That ministry is to be given back to the laity is a laudable proposition. However, the level of development in many township and village communities is still such that a strong leadership and management facilitation role is demanded of the pastor. In such contexts, the pastor is also the only one who is always available for church tasks. The point of departure of this article was that the pastor is primarily a facilitator who assumes the tasks of a leader, a manager and a servant. The Trinitarian office of Christ is taken as model. Christian leadership, as discussed from a systems perspective, is seen as enabling rather than hegemonic. The pastor fulfils the seven leadership functions in order to equip the saints for their Christian service. Church management is redefined as a process which takes place in meaningful collaboration with others, over against the objectification found in conventional definitions which focus on ‘getting things done through people’. This article discussed servant leadership and service provision as the central purpose of Christian leadership.