Is a church's financial health somehow connected to its spiritual vitality? The new survey, American Congregations 2008, is released today and suggests this is the case. A press release from the Hartford Institute for Religion Research at Hartford Seminary gives the broad strokes.

Produced by Faith Communities Today, the survey is based on responses from more than 2,500 Oldline Protestant, Evangelical Protestant, Catholic & Orthodox and World Religions congregations.

The Cooperative Congregational Studies Partnership (CCSP) conducted the survey. It updates results from surveys taken in 2000 and 2005, and is the latest in CCSP's series of trend-tracking national surveys of U.S. congregations.

Several of the key findings of the survey were reported earlier:

American congregations, as a group, continue to struggle, facing declining attendance at worship, eroding financial health, waning spiritual vitality and increasing uncertainty about their mission and purpose.

At the same time, some congregations have shifted to a contemporary style of worship that has catalyzed growth, and other congregations have benefited from focused leadership.

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Among the new findings:

• Oldline Protestant congregations spend close to half their budgets on salaries and benefits compared to 31 percent spent on salaries and budgets by Evangelical Protestant congregations. Oldline congregations' pay premium is even more striking when one recalls that Oldline congregations are, on average, considerably smaller than other Christian congregations.


• American congregations have gone electronic. Web access is more the norm than the exception.


• A newly emergent trend is satellite congregations in which sermons are beamed in from the primary congregation.


• Congregations that changed to contemporary worship in the past five years show elevated levels of spiritual vitality and growth in worship attendance.


• Conservative congregations place more emphasis on the quality of their internal relationships than do liberal congregations; liberal congregations place more emphasis on ministry to the world outside their doors.


• As in 2000, money, worship and leadership lead the way as the areas of congregational life most riled with conflict. Conflict about leadership is the most likely to produce serious negative consequences.


• Creating strong interpersonal bonds and purposefulness decrease the likelihood of conflict.


• In clergy time usage, worship and teaching about the faith are the top task priorities for both Protestant families. The Oldline congregations put higher priority on worship and the Evangelical congregations put higher priority on teaching. Catholic/Orthodox leaders spent more time and attention on administration than any other task.

You can download the survey here. Check it out and come back to discuss.