Stories of Hope & Resilience: Exploring the Pandemic’s Impact on Congregations

The luncheon plenary was presented by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research.

Scott Thumma, Professor of Sociology of Religion at Hartford International University spoke about how congregations are changing over time, and especially how the pandemic impacted them. The research he had conducted followed 15,000 people in their experiences during and following COVID-19. The research data shows that there is a story of hope and resilience in the survey data: congregations are willing to change to meet new challenges, people are certain they will emerge stronger than before, are thinking in new ways about their vision and mission, and have embraced new opportunities for ministry.

Scott brought up that many congregations were able to collaborate with others during the pandemic and are more often the ones that are now thriving and optimistic going forward.

Dr. Allison Norton, Faculty Associate in Migration Studies and Congregational Life for Hartford International University, spoke about specific examples of churches who took new opportunities for change in ministry during the pandemic. There has been a rise of online donations, an opportunity that would not have been showcased if not for the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tracy Simmons, a Writing and Social Media Consultant on Exploring the Pandemic Impact on Congregations study, spoke about examples of various churches. One such example was a church who went online and doubled in size, another church contacted each member to ensure they could log into zoom and knew how to work it each week, and still another church actually purchased chrome books for each member!

Tracy brought up the community of Boulder, and the events they went through in addition to COVID-19, they had gone through wildfires, a mass shooting and the death of George Floyd. This community brought together a new ministry to cater to the needs of the parishioners who were reeling from these events.

Building Community through Conversation

Teresa Faust, Senior Manager of Research & Metrics for United Methodist Communications and Board Member of The Great Reset spoke about how community roundtables are connecting people together.

The Great Reset journey began five years ago and since 2021, the not-for-profit has expanded conversations to half the United States and ten countries across the globe. The topics range from education, religion, race, immigration and more, and the group seeks to afford a space to listen, first, and be heard. The goal is not to change your opinion, or anyone else’s. The goal is to share space and maybe learn something from one another along the way.

Teresa had each table intentionally separate from those they knew well and seek out new faces and friends and begin conversation. She posed questions to lead each table in in-depth, meaningful conversations around religion, diversity, and the strength we find in each other.

Slide Presentation:

Building Community Through Conversation  – part A

Building Community Through Conversation – part B

Building Community Through Conversation – part C

Building Community Through Conversation – part D

Analytics for Action: How to Avoid Overwhelm and Use Data for Making Decisions

Heidi Thompson, the Senior Consultant for Shanley + Associates conducted a workshop about how to sift through the mountains of data and reporting that’s now available with most modern online tools. How can publishers find useful insights in their website analytics, social media reporting, and email data?

She brought up how data can be used by religious communities to inform daily work including the differences between data fishing versus utilizing data for decisions.

To utilize data for decisions:

1. Start with a plan
2. List your (good) questions
3. Develop a hypothesis
4. Investigate
5. Take action!

Heidi spoke about social media algorithims and how things have changed, especially in the past year, to navigate toward specific groups and business posts and how traffic has decreased from social media (such as Facebook) to websites overall, while showing less content from personal friends and interests that people follow.

The power in how we make our decisions is going to come down to one or two (or three) metrics that we can identify.

Religious Organizations and Crisis Preparedness / Response

Greg Dunn, Senior Counselor for Kurth Lampe Worldwide, spoke first about reputation–how to first build a great reputation. He said you must start with a blank space and map out how you’d like to be perceived by others. From there, you have to work every day to fulfill this image. If you say you’re working on something, you must be truly working on it. Your word is key, after all, it takes years to build up a reputation and just minutes for it to come crashing down if there is a mistake, crisis or problem.

A mishandled crisis can be damaging to any organization, perhaps even moreso for faith-based entities whose reputations are perceived to be grounded in integrity.

If you can spot a crisis coming, the best idea is to predict and handle – make a plan for what to do when it all comes to light.

What not to do (aka top 9 ways to make your crisis worse):

1. Bury your head in the sand
2. Wait until the situation goes public
3. Make media the enemy
4. Stand strictly on reputation
5. Rely on outside channels
6. Lean on jargon
7. Assume truth will win out
8. Shut out stakeholders
9. Ignore human element

He spoke about communicating the truth in crisis management. Not only must you tell the truth, but adjust it to include the correct emotional response, clear messaging, and will be validated by other sources as true.

How to Tell a Story with Photos: From the Perspective of a Photographer

Charissa Johnson, a Photographer and Editor with Charissa Johnson Photography, spoke about how to approach any project.

She went into first deciding how a project should be mapped out–should it be airy and light or dark and moody? This will all depend on what you are trying to convey. She also flipped it to the perspective of an editor on deciding what kind of photographer to hire for a project–pick someone who utilizes the correct style based on what you need, be it journalistic, posed or documentary.

She further went into the finer details to convey a full story in a project. Showing various parts of the project so it all comes together into a fluid story is key.

Charissa defined the “rule of thirds” for the attendees where you frame a picture based on how to direct their eye in the photo. You would not want to frame a photo with something dead in the center of the photo as it does not direct the eye in a meaningful way, rather you would frame a photo with the focal point on a point that meets with the rule of thirds.

She described how to best produce the project for an editor through the selection of the final images, and how content plays a role versus the aesthetics and how different subject will impact the final product.

The Decline of Organized Religion is not your fault. It is your problem.

Bob Smietana, a National Reporter for the Religion News Service helped attendees see a look at the complex factors driving the decline of organized religion in the US – and how congregations are trying to adapt.

He gave examples of many congregations who have successfully navigated the past twenty years where the majority of small churches have had to close, and more and more people are disassociating with organized religion (the “nones”). Those who have been most successful have rolled with the times, joined with others, allowed in new members who may look and act differently than the current members of the church, and opened their arms to new missions.

“We may need a cultural rehab for churches,” he said. And part of this will include congregations having open, honest conversations with one another.

He likened the transformation to the “couch potato to 5k” method. In other words, start slow, and build up to the full run. Focus on small groups and spiritual development and build up to the complete.

Slide presentation:

Reorganized Religion – Smietana, part A

Reorganized Religion – Smietana, part B

Reorganized Religion – Smietana, part C

Reorganized Religion – Smietana, part E

____

Bob Smietana is a national writer for RNS based near Chicago, covering evangelicals, weird religion and the changing religious landscape. A veteran religion reporter and editor, he is author of “Reorganized Religion: The Reshaping of the American Church and Why it Matters.”

Tips for Improving Your Videos

Will Nunnally, a Video Producer for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), spoke about the demand for video content. Since it is a specialized skill set, how do we utilize our resources to make the best content for our audience?

He walked the attendees through misconceptions that drag down quality from pre to post-production and explored creative solutions to improve the visual content on a variety of platforms.

Will was able to cover the basics of video production such as exposure and sound quality, along with the need to do as much possible to avoid edits in post-production.

Link to Mr. Nunnally’s presentation here: https://we.tl/t-WedwaH0NBE

Podcasting: Things Not Seen

Dr. David Dault, the Host and Executive Producer of Things Not Seen: Conversations About Culture and Faith, took an in-depth look into the ins and outs of podcasts.

Dr. Dault shared with attendees how to create a captivating podcast with the big Cs:

• Capture
• Clean-up
• Combination
• Conversation
• Charisma
• Culture

Through excellent capture with perfect sound quality, with the combination of conversation and charisma, you will feel the culture emanating from the podcast as long as you also spend a little time in the clean-up to ensure perfection.

He discussed examples utilizing the big Cs and how to source the best information, and what it would take to have an impact on listeners through podcast conversations.

Keeping the Faith: the opportunities and challenges of faith-based solutions reporting

Bekah McNeel spoke about solutions journalism as a helpful and engaging approach to produce rigorous and insightful stories.

She went over how it works in faith-based and church media. Audiences look to faith-based outlets to counteract mainstream media bias, and solutions journalism can help meet that need, while still holding powerful people and institutions accountable, and encouraging critical thinking.

The key to solutions journalism is that it’s rigorous, evidence-based reporting on the solution. The four pillars are:

1. Features not only a person or organization but a response to a problem
2. Provides available evidence of results, looking at effectiveness, not just intention
3. Discusses limitations
4. Seeks to provide insight that can help others respond, not just be inspired

Why do these four pillars matter to faith-based audiences?

Principles like healing, redemption, honesty, justice and compassion are part of most religions. Solutions Journalism takes these things seriously, and reports on the impact they are having in the world.

She had the audience go through a story, and look for each pillar to see if it is included–what is the problem and the response? What’s the evidence? The limitations? What insights are included? And do the visuals reflect the response?

Bekah walked everyone through questions you can ask as you hone a solutions story. Who is doing it better? How does the response work? Is it being tried elsewhere, what are the barriers to replication? What does the research say and what do the critics say? From there, you can plan a solutions story and work through it.

Link to Ms. McNeel’s presentation:

Faith-based Solutions Journalism 101 pdf

Representing the Religious Other: Telling Another’s Story

The panelists for the luncheon plenary were Adlai Amor, who works as Associate General Secretary for Communications for the Friends Committee on National Legislation, and is a practicing Presbyterian; Sally Hicks, who works for Faith & Leadership (a learning resource for Christian leaders) and is a practicing Jew; and Jan Rizzo, who works for The Deaconess Community of the ELCA and is a practicing Lutheran.

They answered the question: how do you speak for someone and stay true to your own voice?

Jan said, “people of faith are people of faith,” and never found there was an issue that would pose a problem for her working for another religious organization. She also brought up that you would need to be open-minded in working for another faith organization.

Sally spoke of her Unitarian upbringing, then Jewish conversion, and how this shaped her life and allowed her to see clarity with regard to her position as editor of a Christian publication. She is able to view it both from an ecumenical lens and as an outsider.

Adlai spoke of the conscientious effort of the Friends Committee to be aware of and allow for various religious holidays, and set it up for those who work for the organization to take a chosen day off for religious reasons. This allows Muslims to take a holiday for Eid, or Jews to take a holiday for Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur, and others to take a chosen holiday for spiritual or religious purposes even if they are not a member of Friends.

The consensus of the panel was that this work is enriching and allows for a beautiful religious diversity in their organization and has personally enriched their own lives.

The giving crisis: How your fundraising can respond to grow in a time of turmoil

Michael Duerksen – Founder & CEO – buildgood.com

Inflation, erosion of trust in society, post-pandemic burnout, and a decline in household giving…nonprofits are really up against it. But not all hope is lost. In this session, Michael Duerkson walked us through a practical framework to implement that keeps donors connected—and giving.

He dove into what motivates people and what creates a habit–a prompt helps to motivate someone, and with this acknowledged or celebrated that motivation becomes habit. People who give to non-profits are unusually kind and generous people, and they should absolutely be thanked. If they do not want to be thanked, you can always say, “I know you don’t want to be thanked, but you deserve it and we’d like to say thank you.”

One important point to track is that asking for donations with postal mail works better than asking for donations through email.

It is also important to send reminders to those who send you monthly donations giving them various options such as “I would like to opt out of monthly giving,” “I would like to increase my monthly donation to __,” or “I’ll keep giving the same amount.” Many times this type of reminder does encourage your donors to give more.