Religion and health relationships: A review

This review examines various studies showing the relation between religiosity (religious beliefs and/or practices) and health. It also includes church attendance and its relation to drug use. The role of the church in health promotion is discussed, with examples of church intervention model programs. Several attempts have been made to measure religiosity and religious commitment, but as yet little has been done to identify specific dimensions of religion as they relate to health behaviors. Even though the literature indicates that religion is generally associated with health behaviors, health status, and longevity, further research on the specifics of this relationship is needed.He has been doing research on the relation between religion and health for the past five years.     

"Involving the Elderly in Mission" -A Service Project

As one church grew from a small immigrant church to a conglomerate of 1,200 members, the natural social networks were no longer adequate to support the population of older persons. Networks had to be made intentional through programming. A needs assessment of the senior population identified specific subgroups and their needs. Recognizing the diversity of the senior population, a broad spectrum of programs was established. An effort was made to maintain a balance between traditional and innovative. The senior program has strengthened the networking among seniors, increased their integration with the other age groups in the church, and provided an entry level for those new to the church. The program has also become known in the community, which has resulted in cooperation with other senior service organizations who provide education and training. The Area Agency on Aging, realizing the importance of the church to the senior population, has selected a member of the church community to serve on its Advisory Board.     

Issues in Publicly Subsidized Long Term Care Systems and Implications for the Religous Sector

Given the increasing numbers of elderly in need of long term care services and the harsh reality of finite resources, new models are required which define those elderly persons who should remain eligible for publicly subsidized long term care. If, in fact, a method is established for serving only a limited number of older persons, i.e., the truly vulnerable elderly, by way of the public system of long term care, a large constituency of older Americans will be left to exist on the margins. The church as an informal care system may appropriately assume the role of ensuring that the available public funds are used wisely and that service gaps inevitably left bewteen the increasing number of older persons and shrinking public support are bridged. In addition, the church must assist in improving all long term services by contributing to public policy formation.     

Church‐based Community Activism: A Comparison of Black and White Catholic Congregations

Scholars have recently examined the role of black churches ein einitiatingcivil rights and social justice activities, community development and rehabilitation projects, and family support and community health outreach programs. Practically all of this research has been on black Protestant churches. This article seeks to address this gap in the literature byinvestigating the extent to which African‐American Catholic congregations engage in social action and social service programs in their communities. Data drawn from a nationwide survey of U.S. Catholic parishes are us d to show that black church s are significantly more likely than white churches to engage in social service and social action activities independent of a variety of demographic, organizational, and structural factors known—or suspected—to influence activism. This finding lends support to the argument that the extra‐religious functions of black churches—Protestant and Catholic—are more deeply ingrained in these religious institutions than is suggested by some analysts. Equally significant is the finding of positive and significant relationships between churches that have parish councils and leadershiptraining programs and congregational activism. This finding lends support to previous findings that suggest that the organizational structure of religious institutions may influence churchgoers opportunities for learning and practicing civic skills relevant to community activism.     

Perceptions of Social and Environmental Support for Healthy Eating and Physical Activity in Rural Southern Churches

The influence of church environments on healthy eating and physical activity was explored through in-depth interviews with rural adults aged 50-70 (n = 60). Data were analyzed using a constant comparative approach, with an emphasis on noting similarities and differences between African American and predominantly white churches. Findings suggest that church-based nutrition and exercise programs were rare, and existing recreational facilities were geared toward younger members. The majority of church leaders did not talk about nutrition or physical activity, but social support from church friends for healthy eating and physical activity was fairly common. Despite barriers to establishing healthy environments in church settings, churches are rich in social support that could be tapped to promote healthy behavior.     

Mental health counselling in the Black American Church: reflections and recommendations from counsellors serving in a counselling ministry

The goal of this study was to examine the relationship between “The Black Church”, the mental health needs of its members, and addressing those needs from the perspective of counsellors within the church. Four in-depth interviews were conducted with members of the mental health counselling team at one large, African American-serving church in the Midwest to explore their thoughts about their church pastor’s desire to expand their current ministry to a fully operating counselling centre. The findings suggest that “the Black Church” not only has a role and responsibility in addressing the mental health needs of African Americans within and outside of the church but can also use religiosity as a facilitator rather than a barrier to mental health service use among African Americans.     

Broadway Musicals and the Christian Sermon: Communicating Moral Reasoning,Church Values,and Prosocial Behaviors

This article considers the influence of Broadway musicals on the spiritual growth, prosocial attitudes, church values, and moral reasoning of adults when used in Christian congregational worship. Can a church structure and use Broadway musicals in sermons to encourage its lay congregation to identify moral reasoning and recognize core church values and prosocial ideas through sermons based on Broadway musical theater? We applied humanistic psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral reasoning and development considered along with the church's stated core values and prosocial behavior to test if these themes were reflected in the rhetoric of sermons based on Broadway musicals presented from 2008–2015. Findings indicate that this series was well received by the congregation and leadership. Suggestions for further research and church applications for Christian education are given. This research highlights the importance of church archives and library support for the further development of information about the church and its role in society.     

Women’s Health Promotion in the Rural Church: A Canadian Perspective

The rural church may be an effective health resource for rural Canadian women who have compromised access to health resources. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relevance of the Christian church and faith community nurses in promoting the health of rural Canadian women in the evolving rural context. The findings from an extensive literature search reveal that religion and spirituality often influence the health beliefs, behaviors, and decisions of rural Canadian women. The church and faith community nurses may therefore be a significant health resource for rural Canadian women, although this phenomenon has been significantly understudied.     

Fresh Expressions of Church and the Mixed Economy

The term “fresh expressions of church” has been used since 2004 in the Church of England to refer to small contextual churches that start alongside but aim to be different to parish churches. What is characteristic of a fresh expression of church is not its newness, but its ability to pass on and contextualize inherited theology, ecclesiology, tradition, and spiritual experience. The ecclesiology of fresh expressions of church can be summarized as a dialogical‐relational ecclesiology that is focused on a theological centre. There may be around 2,100 of them in the Church of England, both urban and rural. During the past 15 years, the self‐understanding of the Church of England, a traditional state church with its parish structure, has changed. The mother church of the Anglican World Communion claims since 2008 to be a mixed‐economy church: one that supports and recognizes innovative ecclesial spaces (fresh expressions of church) as church, as well as parish churches. It is the goal to have an innovative diversity of churches in a pluralistic society. At the same time, these churches should be recognizable and contextual. It is the concept of the mixed economy that manages a fair cooperation between parochial and fresh expressions of church. In the meantime, the concept of mixed economy is received not only in the UK, but in different national and free churches in continental Europe, the US, South Africa, Canada, and Australia. Lately, the concept has been taken up by the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe (CPCE).     

Church youth alcohol and drug education programs

This study indicates that pastors believe that their churches should have a role in influencing the alcohol and drug use of their members; that about half of the churches in this study actually had youth alcohol and drug education programs; and that the content of these education programs and church attitudes toward substance use are affected by the degree of fundamentalism-liberalism of the church.     

Faith Organizations and Ethnically Diverse Elders: A Community Action Model

SUMMARY

In this article we argue that faith organizations should become involved in developing social service programs for older adults in the community. In the current political climate, the government is providing fewer social service programs, and future prospects for services are bleak. The literature provides evidence that religion and faith-based organizations are important in the lives of Americans, particularly the current cohort of ethnically diverse elders. Our earlier Korean church study found that Korean older people benefit from church-based services and church-involved, older Koreans had higher rates of well-being. Churches remain untapped resources and we believe they should be extensively involved in provision of community programs. We offer a twelve-step model for the development of community programs under the auspices of faith organizations: The Faith-Based Community Action Model (FBCAM).     

Implementing a Comprehensive Program for the Prevention of Conduct Problems in Rural Communities: The Fast Track Experience

Childhood conduct problems are predictive of a number of serious long-term difficulties (e.g., school failure, delinquent behavior, and mental health problems), making the design of effective prevention programs a priority. The Fast Track Program is a demonstration project currently underway in four demographically diverse areas of the United States, testing the feasibility and effectiveness of a comprehensive, multicomponent prevention program targeting children at risk for conduct disorders. This paper describes some lessons learned about the implementation of this program in a rural area. Although there are many areas of commonality in terms of program needs, program design, and implementation issues in rural and urban sites, rural areas differ from urban areas along the dimensions of geographical dispersion and regionalism, and community stability and insularity. Rural programs must cover a broad geographical area and must be sensitive to the multiple, small and regional communities that constitute their service area. Small schools, homogeneous populations, traditional values, limited recreational, educational and mental health services, and politically conservative climates are all more likely to emerge as characteristics of rural rather than urban sites (Sherman, 1992). These characteristics may both pose particular challenges to the implementation of prevention programs in rural areas, as well as offer particular benefits. Three aspects of program implementation are described in detail: (a) community entry and program initiation in rural areas, (b) the adaptation of program components and service delivery to meet the needs of rural families and schools, and (c) issues in administrative organization of a broadly dispersed tricounty rural prevention program.     

Elderly Urban Catholic Ethnics:

Urban ethnic groups wony about their elderly. And they have good reason to worry. The decline of older ethnic communities and the churches they built as aspiring immigrants conjoins issues of aging, church and urban life. The capacity of churches has been strained by the eclipse of community. Yet, churches, families and other mediating institutions can cushion the effects of neighborhood deterioration and its influence on the elderly. No matter how efficient economic transfer programs and human services systems are, the reality of "soc~al poverty," caused by the breakdown of community support, is clear, and the number of neglected, isolated elderly will surely increase. Urban ethnic neighborhoods have an especially revealing incidence of such problems. However, these neighborhoods also provide models of social inventions that suggest new pathways and remedies. Our survey of 65 urban ethnic parishes indicates distinctive patterns and approaches, viable models for an effective ministry, and a glimpse into a relatively unknown world of religion and aging among urban ethnics of the Northeast and Midwest.     

An Effectiveness Open Trial of Internet-Delivered Parent Training for Young Children With Conduct Problems Living in Regional and Rural Australia

There is accumulating evidence for the efficacy of online parent management training (PMT) programs to improve conduct problems in young children, and findings have been used to support the potential of online programs to close the research-to-practice gap in underserved rural settings. However, to date, no study has evaluated the effectiveness of online PMT under real-world conditions; that is, delivered by community practitioners as part of services-as-usual to families residing in rural communities. This has resulted in a critical lack of evidence supporting the capacity of online PMT to ameliorate actual geographical disparities in service accessibility. Accordingly, the current study evaluated effectiveness and engagement outcomes of Internet-delivered Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (I-PCIT) delivered from a community-based early childhood clinic to rural consumers. Participants were 27 mothers and their 1.5- to 4-year-old child with conduct problems (M age = 3.02, SD = 0.73) living in regional and rural New South Wales, Australia. Parent-rated and observed child conduct problems and observed parenting behaviors were assessed pre and post I-PCIT, and treatment attrition, parental satisfaction with treatment, and homework compliance provided indicators of treatment engagement. Results of linear mixed and marginal models indicated that I-PCIT produced significant improvements in parent-reported and observed child conduct problems and observed parenting behaviors, with “small” to “very large” effect sizes (ds = 0.3-1.4). Treatment retention was adequate (63%), and treatment-completing parents reported high treatment satisfaction and good homework compliance. Findings provide preliminary evidence for the real world effectiveness of I-PCIT, supporting its capacity to narrow the research-to-practice gap. Findings suggest a role for I-PCIT in a stepped care model of remote treatment for childhood conduct problems in Australia.     

A Study of Rural Church Health Promotion Environments: Leaders’ and Members’ Perspectives

This study examined the beliefs of church leaders about health and associations between these beliefs and the church health promotion environment (CHPE). Perceptions of the CHPE by leaders and members of the same churches were also compared. Interviews were conducted with pastors (n = 40) and members (n = 96) of rural churches. They were Baptist (60%), and 57.5% were predominantly White, while 42.5% were Black. Leaders’ beliefs regarding talking about health topics in sermons were associated with the presence of health messages in the church. There was also a significant association between leaders’ beliefs about members’ receptivity to health messages and the presence of messages in the church. Leaders’ and members’ perceptions of the CHPE were discordant. While some leaders’ beliefs may be related to the CHPE, other factors may explain why programs and policies exist in some churches and not others.     

Religiosity and self-destructive crises in the institutionalized elderly

The relationship of religiosity to self-destructive behavior has largely been considered in terms of the impact of religious affiliation, or church membership, on rates of suicide for various geographical populations. This study departs from that approach and focuses instead on the relationship of intensity of religious commitment to the use of indirect life-threatening behavior (ILTB) among elderly, chronically ill hospital patients. A rating scale to measure the occurrence of ILTB was developed and administered to a sample of 58 patients in a Veterans Administration hospital. Findings for this sample indicate that intensity of religious commitment is a potentially more meaningful measure of religiosity than is formal church membership, that intensity of religious commitment tends to vary inversely with the extent of ILTB observed for the patient, and that "stigma avoidance" may play a role in the tendency for certain religious affiliates to make more extensive use of ILTB.     

The Church as an Agent of Help in the Battle Against Late Life Depression

Late life depression has become recognized as a serious mental health problem. Almost 1 in 6 elderly suffer (often in silence) with late life depression. New care delivery agents need to be uncovered and mobilized. Because older Americans' religious habits positively impact their sense of well-being and physical health, the church becomes an ideal medium to offer educational programming focused onprevention and early intervention. This article presents a proposal for how the church could become an agent of help to depressed elderly and their families.