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Organization ME25
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ME25 Survey – Who, What, Why?
Who: Last October, over 1,200 of our parishioners
participated in a recent survey conducted by the Faith Division of the Gallup
Organization. We are so grateful to all who took the time to fill out one of
those questionnaires, whether in Church, at home or on line. We now want to
share the results with you.
What: What exactly is measured by this survey? The survey
is designed by Gallup to measure three things: Spiritual Commitment, Member
Engagement and Outcomes. What do each of these things mean?
Spiritual commitment, quite
simply measures how important is your faith to you and how does your faith
impact your day to day attitudes and behaviors.
Member Engagement:
This isn’t measuring how many
people are involved in your parish. Engagement is more than involvement.
Involvement tells us what you do. Engagement measures how you feel about the
parish.
Outcomes:
When people are both spiritually
committed and engaged in the life of their parish, they are more likely to
be satisfied with the direction of their life, they are more likely to
become involved in the mission of the Church through their giving and
service, they are more likely to invite people to share in the life of the
parish.
Why: Why did we go through this process? We received some
interesting feedback from the Gallup Organization which we would like to share
with you over the next few weeks. We feel that if we can increase that spirit of
engagement in our parish (that is, where more people feel strongly about what
they can give to our parish, what they receive from our parish, how they belong
to the parish and how they can they grow as members in our parish), then the
overall spiritual health of our parish will increase. With more engaged members
in our parish, we can more readily accomplish our mission as a Catholic Church
and together help each other live out the gospel of Jesus Christ. Church is not
something we do on Sunday – Church is something we are – as God’s people
equipped to help one another on the road to salvation.
Overall results regarding Member Engagement for Holy Spirit
Parish
Below are our test scores summarizing how our parish is
divided among three major categories
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Engaged: These members are loyal and have a
strong psychological connection to the parish. They are more spiritually
committed, more likely to invite friends, family members and co-workers
to parish events, and give more both financially and in commitment of
time.
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Not Engaged: These members attend
regularly, but they are not psychologically connected to the
parish. They give moderately but not sacrificially, and they may
do a minimal amount of volunteering in the community. They are
less likely to invite others and more likely to leave.
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Actively Disengaged: These members
usually show up once or twice a year, if at all. If they do
attend with some regularity, they may be physically present but
psychologically absent. They are unhappy with their parish and
insist on sharing their unhappiness with just about everyone |
|
.
|
|
Holy Spirit’s Score (%) |
National average (all religions) |
Overall Average of Catholics |
|
Engaged |
33% |
29% |
16% |
|
Not Engaged |
45% |
54% |
49% |
|
Actively Disengaged |
22% |
17% |
35% |
Initially, we see that Holy Spirit scored higher than both
the national average as well as the overall Catholic average in the category of
Engaged Catholic. This is certainly positive news.
We will begin to see how we can make a good picture even better
(by even reducing the number of those who are actively disengaged).
Understanding Member Engagement
We have just explained some of the basic concepts that were measured by our
recent survey taken by the Gallup organization. There are two driving forces
that make a parish healthy: spiritual commitment and congregational engagement.
Spiritual commitment refers to an individual’s feeling about their faith;
how important is my faith to me and does it have an effect upon the way I live
my life? Congregational engagement refers to how our parishioners feel about
their parish: Is it a place where they feel their spiritual needs are met, where
they feel that they are important, that their opinions count, a place where
there are opportunities to learn and grow? In short, spiritual engagement is
about someone’s relationship to God and congregational engagement refers to an
individual’s relationship to the parish. The Gallup organization tells us that
if you try to increase that sense of congregational engagement among the members
of your parish, you will also increase their spiritual connection with God at
the same time.
The Gallup survey asked nine questions that pertained to spiritual
commitment, and twelve questions that measured congregational engagement. Let’s
look how our parish measured up against the national averages. Remember in the
survey that people had to score a response between 1 (strongly disagree) to 5
(strongly agree)
|
Category |
Holy Spirit’s Mean Score |
National Mean score |
|
Spiritual commitment |
4.2 |
4.1 |
|
Congregational Engagement |
3.63 |
3.54 |
Once again, Holy Spirit does score higher than the national average! Yet, we
can see in this sampling of 1200 parishioners a trend that is evident throughout
the country – namely that while the overwhelming majority of our parishioners
have a strong sense of the importance of their faith in living out their
day-to-day life, there is less of an enthusiasm regarding their sense of
belonging to the parish. Even in common every day discourse, people today make a
distinction between being spiritual and being religious (that is, tied to a
particular denomination). Is belonging to the parish important – and why?
We believe that spiritual commitment can only be maintained through an alive,
meaningful and consistent relationship with fellow believers in community. The
stronger one has a sense of belonging to their parish community, the more likely
they will be to make themselves accountable for their spiritual growth and
encourage others in their progress as well. Belonging to parish gives you a
sense of identity and a sense of what is expected of you by other believers who
are committed to the same process of spiritual growth. In short, you can’t do it
alone.
We want to look at some of the items in the Gallup survey that relate to
congregational engagement. These are just some of the questions we want to ask
ourselves:
Do our parishioners know what is expected of them?
Do our parishioners feel that their spiritual needs are met?
Do our parishioners feel that they regularly have the opportunity to do
what they do best?
Do our parishioners receive recognition or praise from someone in the
parish?Do our parishioners feel that their opinions count?
Exploring Congregational Engagement further
Congregation engagement (how a person feels about their
parish) can be understood by the following four statements.
I have a clear sense as to what I get from being a member of the
parish.
I have opportunities to give to my parish, and I feel that my giving
is both needed and valued.
I feel like I really belong to this parish and that my presence and
participation is important.
I believe that my parish is a place where I can learn and grow.
What do I get, what I give, do I belong and how can we grow? The more our
parishioners can give clear responses to these questions, the more they will
have a sense of ownership of their parish and, as a result, a clearer sense as
to how their belonging to Holy Spirit will contribute to their relationship with
God and others.
What Is Expected of Me as a Member of
Holy Spirit?
Let's examine the first statement -- I get a clear sense as to what I get
from being a member of the parish. There were two questions on the survey that
dealt with the question "what do I get?" They were: "As a member of my parish, I
know what is expected of me" and "In my parish my spiritual needs are being
met." Years ago, it would seem, Catholics knew clearly what was expected of them
and, that if they were able to meet those obligations, they would receive the
promised blessings of eternal life. Perhaps we as Catholics have moved away from
that consumerist spirituality (I will get graces if I obey all the laws);
nevertheless, we have become increasingly "fuzzy" when it comes to understanding
what is expected of me if I am to grow spiritually. Statistically, it seems
that, while we were strongly "superior" to the national average in many of the
categories tested in the survey, we scored virtually the same as the national
average when it came to knowing clearly what is expected of us.
Below shows how our 1200 parishioners answered this question. As we
mentioned, our answers were fairly much in the range of the national average.
So, if we are average with everyone else, what’s the big deal? First of all, all
our other answers were far above the mean. Secondly, maybe we share the same
problem as people across the nation: Churches do not want to tell people what is
expected of them because they are afraid of "turning people off" or chasing them
away. That’s why, when you sign up for something, the "rules" are printed in
very very fine print. First, let’s get you signed up – then we’ll tell you the
rules of the game!
|
Strongly Agree |
36% |
|
Agree |
37% |
|
In the middle |
19% |
|
Disagree |
6% |
|
Strongly Disagree |
2% |
Can you imagine if you were a young person, and you liked
baseball or soccer or some other sport so much that you wanted to join a league?
At the registration desk, you would pick up all kinds of information about what
would be expected of you if you were to become a member of the league. You
discover that there is the issue of dues, required number of practices, the
wearing of the uniform, conduct on and off the field, equipment you would need
to bring, parental consent, expectations that you knew the basics of the game,
etc. You would need to meet these expectations if you were to be considered a
member of the team.
In the recent Gallup survey, 73% of the participants
responded "Agree/Strongly agree" to the following question: "As a member
of the parish, I know what is expected of me." It is encouraging to see
that almost 3/4 of our parishioners have a clear idea as to what is expected of
them. Perhaps it would be interesting if we could begin to spell out those
expectations for the entire parish at large.
Why would it be important to hear from our parishioners
concerning their understanding of what is expected of them as members of the
parish?
1. As we have mentioned in the past, perhaps we’ve become
increasingly unclear as to what is expected of someone to be a member of Holy
Spirit parish. It would be good for each person to ask themself the question:
"What exactly is expected of me if I am to be considered a member of Holy
Spirit?"
2. As we begin to clarify expectations, we can hold ourselves
accountable to one another so that our catholic faith is practiced in an
atmosphere where there is serious and consistent support from one another.
3. The more clarity we bring to the issue of what is expected
of members, the clearer will be the meaning of the parish mission statement and
the means that will help us carry out that mission.
On the weekend of January 26-27, we conducted another poll
simply asking our parishioners,
This is what I believe is expected of me as a member of Holy Spirit
Parish.
As soon as we begin to tabulate the answers, we'll let you know. . .
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