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The Cost of Being Lost in the Crowd: How Congregational Size and Social Networks Shape Attenders’ Involvement in Community Organizations

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Review of Religious Research

Abstract

Past research indicates that levels of social embeddedness in a congregation differ between small and large congregations. Since embeddedness in religious social networks is an important predictor of community involvement, this study contributes to the literature by examining whether the relationship between embeddedness in congregational social networks and involvement in community organizations varies based on congregation size. Using a sample of attenders and their congregations from the 2008/2009 U.S. Congregational Life Survey, a national survey representative of American congregations, this study examines the relationship between social embeddedness in a congregation and involvement in community organizations and the cross-level interaction between congregation size and social embeddedness. Results suggest that the relationship between social embeddedness and involvement in community organizations is positive overall, but stronger in larger congregations. Involvement in community organizations is the most likely for attenders of smaller congregations and attenders who are socially embedded in their congregations, but it is the least likely for attenders of large congregations who are not very embedded in them.

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Notes

  1. In this study, I focus on friendships, not group activities, since some research indicates that friendships matter more than group activities for understanding whether attenders of congregations expect to receive more support from fellow attenders (Ellison et al. 2009).

  2. These analyses are not presented but are available upon request.

  3. These analyses are not presented but are available upon request.

  4. I operationalize social embeddedness in a congregation in the same way as Philip Schwadel (2012) and Samuel Stroope (2012).

  5. I use a different measure than for small groups than Kevin Dougherty and Andrew Whitehead use (2011). My characterization is closer to Robert Wuthnow’s (1994:4).

  6. The Black Protestant category includes two types of congregations: (1) congregations in historically African American denominations, such as the National Baptist Convention and the National Missionary Baptist Convention; (2) Mainline and Evangelical Protestant congregations that have high percentages (75 % or higher) of African American attenders.

  7. This category includes Orthodox Christian, Unitarian Universalist, Jewish, and Latter-day Saint congregations. It is a “residual” category that helps to retain cases in the analysis but that does not have much substantive value (Steensland et al. 2000:297, 312).

  8. The complete list of social service activities includes: (1) housing for senior citizens (nursing homes, assisted living); (2) housing for other groups (crisis, youth shelters, homeless, students); (3) other senior citizen programs or assistance (Meals on Wheels, transportation); (4) prison or jail ministry; (5) care for persons with disabilities (skills training, respite care, home care); (6) counseling or support groups (marriage or bereavement counseling, parenting programs, women’s groups); (7) substance abuse of 12-step recovery programs; (8) other programs for children and youth (job training, literacy program, scouting, sports); (9) programs or activities for college students; (10) emergency relief or material assistance (free meals, food, clothes for the needy); (11) financial literacy programs or other help with budgeting, debt management, or investing; (12) health-related programs and activities (blood drives, screenings, health education); (13) programs or services for persons with HIV or AIDS; (14) immigrant support activities (English as a second language, refugee support, interpreting service); (15) activities for unemployed people (preparation for job seeking, skills training); (16) voter registration or voter education; (17) community organizing or neighborhood action groups; (18) political or social justice activities (civil rights or human rights); (19) animal welfare or environmental activities; (20) other welfare, community service, or social action activities not mentioned above.

  9. HLM 6.0 can analyze multiply imputed data as long as imputed datasets are generated previously in another statistical program, like Stata. For multiple imputation in two-level analyses, HLM uses one group-level dataset and multiple imputed individual-level datasets (Raudenbush et al. 2004:179). HLM 6.0 also requires that there be full group-level data, so the analytical sample was limited to attenders whose congregations had complete data (van Buuren 2011:173). Using Stata 13.1, I imputed ten datasets of data, the maximum number of datasets that HLM 6.0 can analyze, using chained equations.

  10. These analyses are not presented but are available upon request.

  11. The constant is the odds of participating in community organizations when all of the other variables are set to their means. Unit-specific results are presented, indicating that the size of an odds ratio denotes the change in the dependent variable when an independent variable is increased by one unit, holding all other predictors and random effects constant (Raudenbush and Bryk 2002:334).

  12. The probability of involvement in community organizations reaches its maximum at 43.5 years of age.

  13. It may seem confusing that the main regression coefficients for congregation size and social embeddedness do not change much when the interaction term is included. This occurs because the variables are grand-mean centered. So, for example, the main term for social embeddedness in the second model of Table 2 indicates the odds ratio for how social embeddedness relates with involvement in community organizations when congregation size is set to its mean.

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Roger Finke, Adair Lummis, and anonymous reviewers for their feedback and suggestions

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  1. Pennsylvania State University, 211 Oswald Tower, University Park, PA, 16801, USA

    Jennifer M. McClure

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  1. Jennifer M. McClure
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Correspondence to Jennifer M. McClure.

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This manuscript uses data from the 2008/2009 U.S. Congregational Life Survey, which was collected by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Research Services staff and which is archived at the Association of Religion Data Archives (www.theARDA.com).

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McClure, J.M. The Cost of Being Lost in the Crowd: How Congregational Size and Social Networks Shape Attenders’ Involvement in Community Organizations. Rev Relig Res 57, 269–286 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-014-0201-2

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