Pastoral Leadership and Congregational Vitality

This research note presents unexpected findings on the role of pastoral leadership styles on congregational vitality. Drawn from a most-similar case study of two mainline congregations, one that has experience growth and vitality the other significant decline, the results indicate that leadership style is an under-studied contributing factor in congregational vitality. The findings demonstrate that pastoral style that is collaborative but decisive, as well as inspiring has a positive impact on congregational vitality; whereas a pastoral style that is more hands-off, seeking to empower lay decision making has a negative impact.     

Measuring Congregational Vitality: Phase 2 Development of an Outcome Measurement Tool

Since 2009 the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has worked to develop a survey that can reliably measure qualitative aspects of congregational vitality. This study describes the development of a survey that focuses on key missional outcomes. Congregation members and pastors from 73 congregations were surveyed. Exploratory factor analysis identified important differences in the way pastors and lay people understand concepts like mission resulting in the creation of separate scales for pastors and lay people. These scales describe congregational vitality in five areas. Lay scales describe a congregation’s connections with God, each other and the world while pastor scales describe their understanding of the congregation’s inner strength and faith in action outside the congregation. For each respondent, individual scale scores were averaged to create congregational scale scores. Congregational scale scores were then compared with each congregation’s annual statistics, key informant perceptions, and other items within the survey for validation. The result was a psychometrically sound instrument that helps congregations, synods and the denomination gain a more complete understanding of vitality. Implications for further research are discussed.     

Augmenting Hopkins SCL Scales to Measure Dissociative Symptoms: Data From Two Nonclinical Samples

4A 13-item Dissociation scale is introduced, and preliminary data regarding its reliability are presented. Designed to complement the Symptom Checklist (SCL-90; Derogatis, Lipman, & Covi, 1973) and the Hopkins Symptom Checklist (HSCL; Derogatis, Lipman, Rickels, Ulenhuth, & Covi, 1974), this scale may be especially useful in research on the effects of psychological trauma.     

Form C of the MHLC Scales: A Condition-Specific Measure of Locus of Control

Form C of the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control (MHLC) scales is an 18 item, general purposes condition-specific locus of control scale that could easily be adapted for use with any medical or health-related condition. Data from 588 patients with one of four conditions—rheumatoid arthritis, chronic pain, diabetes, or cancer—were utilized to establish the factor stucture of Form C and to establish the reliability and validity of the resultant four subscales: Internality; Chance; Doctors; and Other (powerful) People. The alpha reliabilities of the subscales are adequate for research purposes. Data from the arthritis and chronic pain subjects established that the Form C subscales were moderately stable over time and possessed considerable concurrent and construct validity. Some discriminant validity of Form C with Form B of the MHLC was also demonstrated.     

Attachment to God,Tenure, Race,and Participation in Congregational Life

The vitality of religious congregations is dependent on how effectively they attract congregants and mobilize participation, and people are more likely to participate when they share similar characteristics with other congregants. This study suggests attachment to God is a fundamental “behavioral and intrapersonal characteristic” which distinguishes participants from one another, contributing to varying levels of participation in congregational and religious life beyond service attendance. Using a national sample, we test several hypotheses related to this theoretical claim. Findings suggest that: (1) secure attachment to God is positively associated with congregational participation, (2) anxious and avoidant attachment are negatively associated with participation, (3) these relationships are moderated by length of time attending a particular congregation, and (4) secure attachment is associated with higher levels of participation in congregational life for blacks than it is for whites. By demonstrating a link between attachment to God and participation in congregational and religious life, this study affirms that intrapersonal characteristics structure the dynamics of religious congregations.     

The Factor Structure of the Ohio Scales: A Practical Measure of Psychological Symptoms in Youth

Stakeholders have increased the focus on accountability for community mental health agencies, leading to the need for an efficient method of measuring mental health outcomes for youth. The Ohio Scales were developed specifically to address the drawbacks of existing measures of child and adolescent mental health such as length, cost, and ease of scoring. The current study examined the factor structure of the Ohio Scales Problem Severity scale and explored the concurrent validity of those factors by comparing them to similar factors on the Child Behavior Checklist and Youth Self Report, two well-established measures of childhood mental health. Using archival data from a community mental health agency serving youth and families, a randomly split sample was used to conduct an exploratory factor analysis on one subsample followed by a confirmatory factor analysis on a second subsample. The results of these analyses indicated that a four-factor model provided the best fit to the data for both youth and parent report on the Ohio Scales. The four factors included: Aggression, Delinquency, Depression, and Anxiety. Comparing the Ohio Scale factors to the factors on the Child Behavior Checklist and YSR revealed that theoretically similar factors (e.g., Anxiety and Internalizing) were more highly correlated than dissimilar factors (e.g., Anxiety and Externalizing). These results provide concurrent validity of the four-factor model of the Ohio Scales. These factors may provide more specific information regarding the types of emotional and behavioral problems youth and parents are reporting to clinicians.     

The Ohio Scales Youth Form: Expansion and Validation of a Self-Report Outcome Measure for Young Children

We examined the validity and reliability of a self-report outcome measure for children between the ages of 8 and 11. The Ohio Scales Problem Severity scale is a brief, practical outcome measure available in three parallel forms: Parent, Youth, and Agency Worker. The Youth Self-Report form is currently validated for children ages 12 and older. The Ohio Scales Problem Severity scale was administered to a clinical and comparison sample of children, ages 8–11, then readministered 1 week later to a subsample of children in order to examine test-retest reliability. The Ohio Scales demonstrated acceptable internal consistency and reliability. The Ohio Scales was significantly correlated with the Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC) across both samples, providing evidence for concurrent validity. Children of the clinical sample reporting higher scores (i.e., more symptomatic) than the children of the comparison sample on the Ohio Scales, thereby demonstrating construct validity.     

Evaluating Pastoral Effectiveness: To Measure or Not to Measure

Interviews were conducted with 101 senior pastoral leaders from a variety of denominations in order to identify the ways in which pastors and those in authority positions over senior pastoral leaders measure their own effectiveness. The findings of these interviews revealed 23 measures of effectiveness in five categories, including leader outcomes, congregational outcomes, and objective outcomes. Based on the effectiveness taxonomy described in the current study, a process is suggested for a preliminary discussion among church leadership teams, congregational boards, and denominations to identify their primary mission, constituencies served, and related effectiveness priorities.     

开创替代宗教的世俗人文主义之路

有两个问题常常被人们提及。第一个是为什么宗教可以持续至今?第二个是我们是否可以创造出世俗人文的替代品。对于为什么宗教可以一直延续这个问题,众说纷纭。     

Concurrent Validity of the Child Behavior Checklist DSM-Oriented Scales: Correspondence with DSM Diagnoses and Comparison to Syndrome Scales

This study used receiver operating characteristic (ROC) methodology and discriminative analyses to examine the correspondence of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) rationally-derived DSM-oriented scales and empirically-derived syndrome scales with clinical diagnoses in a clinic-referred sample of children and adolescents (N = 476). Although results demonstrated that the CBCL Anxiety, Affective, Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity, Oppositional and Conduct Problems DSM-oriented scales corresponded significantly with related clinical diagnoses derived from parent-based structured interviews, these DSM-oriented scales did not evidence significantly greater correspondence with clinical diagnoses than the syndrome scales in all cases but one. The DSM-oriented Anxiety Problems scale was the only scale that evidenced significantly greater correspondence with diagnoses above its syndrome scale counterpart —the Anxious/Depressed scale. The recently developed and rationally-derived DSM-oriented scales thus generally do not add incremental clinical utility above that already afforded by the syndrome scales with respect to corresponding with diagnoses. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Apparatus to Facilitate the Scoring of the Thurstone Attitude Scales

Summary

One hundred subjects were asked to rate themselves and others whom they had known for at least six months on the possession of four traits: Stinginess, Stubborness, Messiness, and Bashfulness. From these ratings it was determined whether or not the subjects possessed insight into their own personalities, with regard to these four traits. Information was then given to the subjects indicating to them their “true” possession of the traits. For those without insight, this information was dissonant. A second rating showed that those subjects receiving dissonant information responded to the dissonance by increasing their projection of that trait to others. These results supported the hypotheses that projection was due to a lack of insight, and that dissonance is reduced by increases in projection.     

From Brouwerian Counter Examples to the Creating Subject

The original Brouwerian counter examples were algorithmic in nature; after the introduction of choice sequences, Brouwer devised a version which did not depend on algorithms. This is the origin of the creating subject technique. The method allowed stronger refutations of classical principles. Here it is used to show that negative dense subsets of the continuum are indecomposable.     

A Madness to Our Method: Congregational Studies as A Cross‐Disciplinary Approach to Contextualizing Teaching and Learning in Theological Education

Abstract. This article explores congregational studies as a valuable teaching tool for contextualizing theological education across disciplines. As a form of pedagogy, congregational studies situates learning in a particular local ministry context. In addition, such a pedagogy apprentices learners within a particular “community of practice”– namely, that of professional church leaders of various types (lay, clergy, professional educators, etc.) having the knowledge and skills that allow them to read diverse contexts of ministry and improvise appropriate and faithful strategies of action within those contexts. After describing one seminary teaching experience in which congregational studies methods formed the pedagogical framework for an interdisciplinary course on the Bible and religious education, the article puts forward a practice‐based theory of adult learning to explain why congregational studies methods are particularly helpful to adult learners engaged in theological education. The article concludes by briefly addressing some problems and limitations to pedagogical processes based upon congregational studies. (The research for this article and its writing were supported by a grant from the Wabash Center for which I am deeply appreciative. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion’s Academic Teaching and the Study of Religion Section.)     

Creating the Freedom to Move: Reply to Goldberg and Grusky

In current times, more and more of us are seeing patients who are afraid and unable to make genuine contact with another human being. Their self is more undeveloped than false—more unrealized than broken—and the psychoanalytic, alchemical process of turning reality, truth, and lived experience into meaning often fails, as they wither in psychic encapsulation or retreat. Peter Goldberg and I address the project of how to develop the capacity to play—to help patients come into being and develop a self. Goldberg (this issue) highlights that the analyst’s animating presence and psycho-sensory engagement has alway been present in psychoanalytic processes but usually resides in the background of a treatment, but this crucial inductive dimension of the analytic method comes more to the foreground with the treatment of unintegrated patients. Zoe Grusky (this issue) discusses the medium of play therapy as a means to create transitional space. In my reply, I underscore that a critical component of the project of reclamation, or “inductive dimension” of the treatment with some melancholic patients, is for the analyst to help the patient separate from self-states of non-being that are also anti-life, by meeting the patient where she lives and survive being destroyed; this sort of object-usage is critical to building subjectivity and restoring faith in Life.     

A Scale to Measure Perceptions of Organizational Maturity

While there are several standard scales in use for measuring various dimensions of human resource management, research is very limited in terms of scale development for variables that form part of the People Capability Maturity Model (PCMM) for organizational maturity. This study covers a perception measurement scale for people governance variables and organizational maturity developed, validated with industry experts and statistically tested. The scale was developed with 113 items grouped into 11 variables covering governance, staffing, performance management, rewards, quality, training, organizational maturity and business outcomes around staff, firm and customer aspects. The reliability analysis was performed for each of the variables based on inputs from 521 respondents across the services industry. The respondents were experienced professionals in functional management and human resources. Detailed analyses of results provide high scores for the variables, indicating good consistency of items. Convergent and discriminant validity analyses were performed for evaluating validation of item dimensions within each of the variables. The overall results indicate that the newly developed scale is a reliable and validated one to measure variables around people, process and organizational maturity, for researchers particularly in the services industry. This fills in a missing gap in terms of a validated scale for measuring people management variables. Further research can be done to extend this scale to other industries and to look at a model fitment across the related variables.     

The Relationship of MMPI and Sensation Seeking Scales to Adolescent Drug Use

This study examined the relationship of Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) measure, including the MacAndrew alcoholism (MAC) scale, and the Sensation Seeking Scales (SSS) to adolescents drug use across nine drug categories. Subjects were 51 male and 72 female high school students between the ages of 14 and 18 (mean age = 16 years, 5 months). The drug use/abuse measure consisted of adolescents' self-reports on the Segal (1973) Alcohol-Drug Use Research Survey. Drug categories included for investigation were alcohol amphetamines, barbiturates, caffeine, cocaine, hallucinogens, marijuana, narcotics, and tobacco. Scores from standard MMPI scales, the MAC scale, and the SSS were examined in relation to individual drug use outcomes, and multivariate procedures were used to predict polydrug versus single drug use patterns. Results demonstrated significant and meaningful relationships between personality measures and drug use among adolescents, with consistently strong findings for the SSS.     

The relationship of MMPI and Sensation Seeking Scales to adolescent drug use

This study examined the relationship of Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) measures, including the MacAndrew alcoholism (MAC) scale, and the Sensation Seeking Scales (SSS) to adolescents' drug use across nine drug categories. Subjects were 51 male and 72 female high school students between the ages of 14 and 18 (mean age = 16 years, 5 months). The drug use/abuse measure consisted of adolescents' self-reports on the Segal (1973) Alcohol-Drug Use Research Survey. Drug categories included for investigation were alcohol, amphetamines, barbiturates, caffeine, cocaine, hallucinogens, marijuana, narcotics, and tobacco. Scores from standard MMPI scales, the MAC scale, and the SSS were examined in relation to individual drug use outcomes, and multivariate procedures were used to predict polydrug versus single drug use patterns. Results demonstrated significant and meaningful relationships between personality measures and drug use among adolescents, with consistently strong findings for the SSS.