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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Older members, church home, and congregational change
— "We worked and worshipped in this home for years and now you say we're not important ..." | | Author(s) | Susan L Wortmann, Susan L Schrader |
| Journal title | Journal of Religion, Spirituality & Aging, vol 19, no 2, 2007 |
| Publisher | Binghamton, NY, 2007 |
| Pages | pp 21-42 |
| Source | http://www.tandfonline.com |
| Keywords | Spiritual characteristics [elderly] ; Protestant Church ; Worship ; Church services ; Social surveys ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | Many Protestant congregations are changing worship styles to a "contemporary" format. This change holds special significance for older members with long-term affiliations who have come to define the congregation as their home. This research examines older members' responses gathered during a time of congregational conflict over traditional and contemporary church services. A 1997 postal questionnaire was sent to 914 members of a midwestern Protestant congregation; 457 surveys were returned, and 99 respondents offered extensive open-ended comments. Thematic analysis of these comments reveal older members' discussion of attachment to and loss of church home through ownership, relationship, tradition and status. The authors suggest ways in which religious groups might conceptualise older members' relationships with their church home, to lessen conflict and to honour their long-term affiliations in times of congregational change. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-070703206 A |
| Classmark | EX: TSD: OWL: OWM: 3F: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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