In 2012, the first researchers with the Little Rock Congregations Study headed out into our community to learn about what people and places of worship were thinking about religion in relation to that year’s election. In 2024, after surveying more than 4,000 congregants, interviewing nearly 300 clergy, and conducting in-depth case studies with seven congregations, our team is excited to announce the release of a new book: “.”

This book is the culmination of more than 12 years of community-based work, by over 200 student researchers from ĚÇĐÄVlog´«Ă˝ Little Rock and the Clinton School of Public Service. Dr. Rebecca Glazier, the project director, received the for the research, as well as the Craig L. Brians Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research and Mentoring, and ĚÇĐÄVlog´«Ă˝ Little Rock’s Faculty Excellence Award for Research.

This page provides the latest updates on press coverage of the book, as well as community events and speaking engagements. If you are interested in having Dr. Glazier speak about this research at your university or place of worship, you can access her or email her directly at raglazier@ualr.edu.

Press Coverage:

Press Release from University News: /news/2024/07/16/lrcs-book/

Scholar’s Circle Podcast:

Deseret News Opinion Piece:

Quoted in this Deseret News article:

Interview with Common Good Magazine:

Radio Interview with KSL News Radio Inside Sources:

Blog post for North Philly Notes:

KARK TV News Story:

Story in Arkansas Catholic:

Interview with Frank Lockwood, Religion Editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette:

Story and video for Arkansas Money and Politics:

Interview on the radio show Wade’s World: .

Featured in North Philly Notes’ Summary of the American Political Science Association Annual Conference: .

Community Events:

Community event at Second Baptist Church Downtown, Lunch and Learn, July 11, 2024 from 12-1:15

Spoke with Saint Mark Baptist Church Staff on Tuesday, September 3 at 9:00 am.

Panel on Religion and Community Engagement at the American Political Science Association Annual Conference in Philadelphia on September 6, 2-3:30pm,

at Barnes & Noble Little Rock on Chenal on September 18 at 6:00 pm

Community event at ĚÇĐÄVlog´«Ă˝ Little Rock Downtown, CALS Legacies and Lunch, October 2, 2024 at Noon. Register to attend in person or via Zoom here: .

Speaking at kiddush lunch following Shabbat morning services at Temple B’nai Israel on Saturday, November 9

Where can you get a copy of “Faith and Community”?

You can get the book from Temple University Press here: .

Or from Amazon here:

The post Faith and Community appeared first on Little Rock Congregations Study.

The Little Rock Congregations Study began in 2012 with Dr. Rebecca Glazier and a single class of students at ĚÇĐÄVlog´«Ă˝ Little Rock working with just five congregations in our community. We wanted the students to get out of the classroom and do some good in the community and we wanted to learn some things about religion, politics, and community engagement.

In 2016, we partnered with the Clinton School of Public Service, received a grant from the American Political Science Association’s Alma Ostrom and Leah Hopkins Awan Civic Education fund, and expanded to work with 17 congregations.

In 2020, we moved our data collection online—thanks in part to the COVID-19 pandemic—and were able to work with 35 congregations, producing personalized reports for each one of them (you can see an example here: 2020 LRCS Example Congregation Report).

In July 2024, Dr. Glazier’s book on our research comes out, illustrating the broad benefits of community engagement. “” will be published by Temple University Press. The book uses qualitative and quantitative data from clergy and congregants over 12 years of research to make the case that community engagement benefits everyone—members are happier and healthier, places of worship have warmer and more giving cultures, and society is less divided and more democratic.

The book also provides detailed case studies of real congregations in Little Rock—big and small, Black and white, Christian and Muslim—so that diverse places of worship can see different models for community engagement that might fit their interests and membership. But as social scientists, we almost always recommend data collection.

Which is why, for the first time ever, we are making our surveys free and publicly available, so that any congregation, whether in Little Rock or around the world, can use them to survey their own members. To see the questions we used, check out the pdf of a reader-friendly version of the survey, printed from the Qualtrics survey platform, available to download here. If your members would prefer a paper version, a condensed survey is available to download and print here. If you want to distribute an already formatted electronic survey to your members for free, here is a with all of the questions already uploaded. You can check out the questions and if you want a free copy of the Google form for your congregation, just email Dr. Glazier (raglazier@ualr.edu). Using your own copy, you can even add your own questions to the survey!

We think community engagement can help make people, congregations, and democracy better and we want to spread that message as far and wide as possible. Finding out what issues your members care about can help you pick the best community programs to dedicate your time and efforts to. Our data show that the end result will be well worth it.

If you have questions about the survey or would like some help interpreting your data or generating a reader-friendly report like this sample one, please contact Dr. Rebecca Glazier at raglazier@ualr.edu.

The post A Free Resource for Congregations to Survey their Members appeared first on Little Rock Congregations Study.

In research from her new book Faith and Community: How Engagement Strengthens Members, Places of Worship, and Society, Dr. Rebecca Glazier, Professor of Political Science in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and Director of the Little Rock Congregations Study, explores the impact that community involvement has on the lives of people of faith. 

Dr. Glazier’s findings revealed a direct, positive relationship between involvement in the community and happiness in everyday life.  Statistical models reveal a nearly ten-point increase in life satisfaction associated with those who are engaged and involved in their community: “what this looks like is a life satisfaction score of 71.8 at the lowest level of community engagement and 81.8 at the highest level of community engagement” Glazier writes in her forthcoming book. 

Relatedly, Dr. Glazier notes the influence that having family involved in the community can have on one’s willingness to be involved as well: “Many volunteers mentioned a tradition of service passed down through their families. Continuing to be engaged in the community is part of carrying on that tradition and adds meaning and richness to their lives.” One participant in the research study, which has been ongoing in Little Rock since 2012, commented “When I see people less fortunate than I am, it makes me feel so blessed to be able to help them. My mom was like that.” 

Additionally, the results of the research also show through statistical models that community involvement is related to numerous spiritual benefits. In particular, Dr. Glazier finds a correlation between community involvement and feeling closer to God. Clergy can play an important role here: hearing sermons encouraging community engagement has a similarly positive spiritual benefit. The individual benefits of community engagement are not limited to the spiritual realm; the research findings also note positive physical and mental health benefits related to increased community involvement. 

Speaking with congregants about what motivated or inspired their involvement in the community, it was apparent that these members of the community felt a sense of personal benefit, but that they were also working to help others. One leader of a Homeless Ministry in Little Rock revealed that she felt compelled to help those who are less fortunate. Others have religious motivations for community engagement. A leader of a large Christian congregation told Dr. Glazier of a spiritual calling to engage the community: “It’s what reflects the heart and character of God; it’s what we see Jesus doing.” 

Regardless of the reason to get involved, it is clear from this new research that there are substantial benefits for individuals that get involved in their community. Those who are looking for opportunities can check out several local resources and organizations such as the Arkansas Food Bank: , or Our House: . 

This article is the first in a series about the benefits of community engagement, based on the findings of new research in the forthcoming book, “Faith and Community: How Engagement Strengthens Members, Places of Worship, and Society” by Dr. Rebecca A. Glazier (Temple University Press, 2024). Future articles will detail how community engagement benefits congregations and democracy.

The post Individual Benefits of Community Engagement Explored in New Research appeared first on Little Rock Congregations Study.

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s Little Rock Congregations Study (LRCS) research team, led by Dr. Rebecca Glazier and Dr. Gerald Driskill, held a “Community Conversations Event” for the team’s latest research project on May 7th, 2023 at the Reynolds Building Atrium at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. 

Members and leaders representing a wide array of diverse religious groups and community members across the city of Little Rock were in attendance. Being paired with others from across the community, participants engaged in one-on-one discussions on some of the most important issues facing the community. 

The Little Rock Congregations Study has been involved in researching communities of faith across the city of Little Rock and the various ways they engage with community issues. Recently, the study has focused on how places of worship might be discussing race in religious settings.

Of particular interest to the study is research on how discussions of race in religious settings vary and how different congregations approach the issue. In the wake of the 2020 protests following the death of George Floyd, some congregations started new conversations about race, some continued ongoing conversations, and some sought to keep what they saw as political issues out of their places of worship. 

With this “Community Conversations” research project, the LRCS team wanted to see how one-on-one conversations between community members on important issues like race would go. The results provided new insights and qualitative data on how congregations have responded to newly reopened discussions on race, and how much effort has been put into confronting racism in the community. 

For example, the team’s research showed that following discussions with community members of differing backgrounds, the trustworthiness of each race as perceived by participants in the study increased across the board. Similarly, the general response from attendees was positive: many respondents kept in touch with their conversation partner and the event was rated 9.3/10 in a post-event survey. 

In discussing why these conversations are so important, Dr. Rebecca Glazier responded “Our research team has seen the power of one-on-one conversations between clergy through events like our Religious Leaders Summits, and we were excited to bring together community members to see how just talking with someone new and getting to know them as a person could make otherwise challenging conversations much easier. We are really encouraged by the results, which are overwhelmingly positive.” Dr. Gerald Driskill responded “Engaging in one on one conversations is the place where we are drawn out of our comfort zones. In this space, we can learn more about ourselves and others, more about how we are more similar than different, and yet also learn from our differences. Then, as a result, trust is built so that we can  work together for our community.” 

Student researchers also found considerable value in facilitating these conversations. Student researcher Owen Haynes said “I think it was really inspiring that so many people from different backgrounds in Little Rock came together and had such a good time. People were laughing and joking, and people that I interviewed ended up becoming friends afterwards, so I think it was a really positive experience.”

With a positive response to the event and promising data, it is apparent that the Little Rock Congregations Study is making significant progress on investigating the power and importance of one-on-one conversations regarding racial justice.

The post Little Rock Congregations Study Holds Community Conversations Event appeared first on Little Rock Congregations Study.

For the past two years, the Little Rock Congregations Study, a community-based research project at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, has been studying race and faith. While our research team has always included some questions about race on our surveys, when we held a Religious Leaders Summit in 2019, we heard from clergy just how important the issue of race relations is to our city and we expanded our efforts. After the murder of George Floyd and other Black men and women in 2020, we further directed our research resources to studying faith-based racial justice and reconciliation.

And today we shared our findings with over 50 religious leaders at the Little Rock Race and Faith Summit. In the coming days, we will share some posts about our key findings, but one of the biggest things we wanted to share at the Summit was a collection of resources for clergy who may want to start engaging their congregations in racial justice and reconciliation work.

This Summit Packet is available for download and includes three models for faith-based racial justice, questions to ask before beginning, resources to dig deeper, and faith-based responses to criticism. These resources were compiled by the Little Rock Congregations Study research team, including a practicum team from Clinton School of Public Service, and using feedback from focus groups and clergy groups throughout Little Rock. Please direct questions or feedback to the Little Rock Congregations Study Project Director, Dr. Rebecca Glazier, raglazier@ualr.edu.

The post Race and Faith Resources appeared first on Little Rock Congregations Study.

Last week it was my privilege to present some recent work from the at the American Political Science Association Conference, the largest annual conference for political scientists. It was wonderful to see friends and colleagues, hear about some great ongoing research and get some good feedback on my own work. But one question that I have been pondering ever since the conference is: what exactly is the line between research and advocacy? And where should my work fall?

The work that I presented was based on two years of research our team at the Little Rock Congregations Study has been doing on race and faith. We have conducted five major data collection efforts and learned some really interesting things:

• Among the diverse 35 congregations and nearly 2,300 members that we surveyed in 2020, race relations was the number one issue people most wanted their place of worship to get involved in helping to address.
• In the wake of George Floyd’s murder in the summer of 2020, our analysis of 90 sermons across 15 congregations showed that Black congregations were more likely to talk about race, say George Floyd’s name, and discuss the need for collective action, compared to white congregations.
• Interviews with 21 clergy from diverse congregations across Little Rock in 2021 demonstrated that many congregations engaged in formal programs to address race, from giving sermons to holding book groups. But when it came to discussing how race and faith were connected, both the qualitative and the quantitative data reveal a much deeper scriptural and spiritual connection for Black clergy.

Additionally, our research team dug deep into the literature on faith-based racial justice and reconciliation, interviewed seven national experts on the topic, created three models that congregations could choose from as starting points for engagement in racial justice and reconciliation, and held six focus groups for local congregations to provide feedback on those models. We created additional resources for congregations, got feedback from our Clergy Advisory Board, spent the summer meeting local clergy groups for additional input, and are planning to host a Race and Faith Summit to share all of these findings.

But that last paragraph…does it have any place in a peer-reviewed journal article? The Little Rock Congregations Study is a long-term community-based research project. One of our main goals is to return meaningful findings to the community we work with and have worked hard to build relationships with. That feels like an important part of our work, but some conference feedback indicated that parts of the paper felt too much like advocacy and not enough like research. Is there a place in academic scholarship to talk about the times when our research crosses the line into advocacy?

For academics who are interested, here is the version of the paper that I presented at the APSA conference: .

And for any Little Rock Religious Leaders who are interested, we just opened the registration site for the November 2 Race and Faith Summit: .

Yup, I just can’t seem to keep these two things separate.

The post Community-based Research: Part Scholarship and Part Advocacy appeared first on Little Rock Congregations Study.

The article is authored by three faculty researchers from the LRCS: Kirk Leach, an assistant professor in the School of Public Affairs; Gerald Driskill, professor in the department of Applied Communication, and Rebecca Glazier, a professor in the School of Public Affairs and the project director. The data used in the article comes from clergy interviews conducted with African American pastors in Little Rock in 2018.

The interview questions included a number of questions about collaboration across congregations and with nonprofits. The researchers’ analyses of the interviews revealed a number of tensions when it comes to collaboration. For instance, African American pastors are often interested in collaboration but don’t always feel included in collaborative networks in the city.

What does this research mean for conversations about race and faith in Little Rock? The LRCS research team prepared the following infographic, summarizing some of our findings on race and faith so far. It includes illustrative quotes from these clergy interviews, which inform our understanding of the racial climate in our city. They show that clergy are concerned about racial divisions, see some significant challenges with the collaborative climate, and both recognize the importance of Little Rock’s troubled racial history and are looking to the future.

In the fall of 2022, LRCS researchers are planning to share more results, listen to clergy leaders, and facilitate further conversation and progress in this area through a Religious Leaders Summit on Race and Faith. Details forthcoming.

The post New Publication: How African American Pastors in Little Rock Navigate Tensions in Collaboration appeared first on Little Rock Congregations Study.

The first half of the style guide handles grammar and punctuation, while the second half discusses how to create posts for blogs and social media. This is helpful for anyone creating content, whether new to the team or an established veteran of the team, and it is a useful tool for those onboarding to gain a sense of the work we do.

View the Style Manual .

About the Style Guide Authors

This year one of our graduate research assistants, Dominika Hanson, and a fellow graduate student, Matthew McGregor, both of the Rhetoric & Writing Program, created a Style Manual for the LRCS team. Hanson felt a need for a guiding resource in creating content for LRCS; and McGregor, a newspaper reporter for the Transylvania Times, collaborated to write this manual.

The post Welcome to our new Style Manual: Members of the LRCS team now have a style guide to help with creating content appeared first on Little Rock Congregations Study.

Throughout February, a team of students from the Clinton School of Public Service worked with researchers from the Little Rock Congregations Study at ĚÇĐÄVlog´«Ă˝ Little Rock to host three community dialogues. The topics of these dialogues were selected based on data from 2,293 congregants from 35 different places of worship, who responded to the 2020 LRCS Survey. Their responses indicated that a particular interest in the issues of education, healthcare, and marriage and family. We had over 30 participants at the dialogues from congregations and nonprofit organizations across the city, some of whom attended multiple sessions.

In each session, participants from a wide variety of backgrounds discussed their own experiences with each of these issues and the ways in which they hoped to collaborate for positive change in the community. Through each session, participants identified some barriers to collaboration, including time and money, religious and political differences, historic racial inequities, and resistance to change. Finally, participants discussed some ways to overcome these barriers, including open communication, targeted efforts within congregations to raise awareness, and most importantly, building connections within the community. In small-group discussions, participants were able to meet community members with shared interest areas and discuss new and current initiatives in areas of education, healthcare, and marriage and family.

Data from our post-surveys showed that overwhelmingly, the dialogue series helped participants become more willing to work through barriers to collaboration, and all participants reported that they would participate in a similar dialogue event again!

A summary report of the 2021 dialogue series is linked here and is available on the LRCS webpage, along with from the long-term research project. The report includes additional details on the dialogue series, as well as some takeaways, and contact information for organizations that are already working on these issues in our community. One of the most exciting takeaways was participants’ willingness to begin collaborations. Reaching out to organizations or congregations with shared interests to begin steps towards collaboration on key interest areas is a great way to begin making progress on these important issues.

Thanks to all the faith leaders and community members who helped make the 2021 dialogue series possible! The Little Rock Congregations Study values your participation, and we hope that you find the dialogue summary helpful. If you have any questions, please contact the LRCS Project Director, Dr. Rebecca A. Glazier at raglazier@ualr.edu.

The post Summary of the Little Rock Congregations Study 2021 Dialogue Series Now Available appeared first on Little Rock Congregations Study.

The community dialogues will bring together congregations and nonprofits to talk about these important issues and explore opportunities for collaboration. The first of the three dialogues, focusing on Education, will take place on Thursday, February 11, 2021 from 6-8 pm. The second dialogue, on Healthcare, will be Thursday, February 18, 2021 from 6-8 pm. The third and final dialogue will be on Marriage & Family on Thursday, February 25, 2021 from 6-8 pm. All of the events will be held virtually and interested participants can register at this link: .

Dr. Rebecca Glazier, the director of the Little Rock Congregations Study and an Associate Professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, said, “our research has shown that people and places of faith are often engaged in helping to solve important community problems—serving is often a key part of their religion. But sometimes nonprofits and faith communities aren’t as well-connected as they could be. We hope these facilitated dialogues will help bring them together and build bridges for future collaboration.”

Amanda Cady, one of the student researchers from the Clinton School of Public Service, said “It is an honor to be able to work with the Little Rock community! I am looking forward to the opportunity to provide actionable ways for Little Rock Congregations and nonprofits to partner and better meet the needs of the community.” To learn more about Amanda and the other members of the research team, click on their student researcher profiles below.

All interested members of the Little Rock community are invited to attend the facilitated dialogues, especially those from faith communities and nonprofits, but space is limited, so please register via this link as soon as possible: . If you need more information or have questions, please email Dr. Rebecca Glazier at raglazier@ualr.edu. You can also read our 2020 Little Rock Congregations Study executive report or explore our website: .

The post LRCS Partners with the Clinton School on Community Dialogues appeared first on Little Rock Congregations Study.