sustain:if:able kiwi

social impact of religious practices: pilots and letter boxes

I’m researching the social impact of selected religious practices. The 12 month research project is funded by John Templeton, located in the University of Birmingham and administered through the University of Otago, where I am a Research Affiliate with the Centre for Theology and Public Issues.

I am using an action research approach, in which I invite people to share a selected religious practice for a period of time. I conduct a survey at the start and end, using several established psychological scales, to explore if participants experience any changes in aspects of social connection and human flourishing. I ask participants to keep a journal, writing weekly about their experience of the practice. I also host a focus group in which participants reflect together on their experience of the religious practice. These three modes of gathering information uncover how religious practices are experienced in relation to social aspects.

In November, I gained ethics approval.

In December, I began a pilot. Undertaking a pilot allows me to get things up and running. It also gives me feedback on different parts of the research, testing the questions I am asking and understanding how much time is involved.

This pilot involves working with a local congregation who have an established religious practice. During Advent, the congregation are invited into four weeks of slowing and silence in daily life. This is facilitated by lighting a candle for a defined period of time. The practice occurs during the worship service. People are also invited to take and light a candle daily in their homes, as a way of continuing the practice in daily life. During Advent, the length of silence slowly increases (in this case, one minute in week one, two minutes in week two, and so on). Could this practice, of slowing and being silent, impact social connection and human flourishing?

In this pilot, I am testing two of my three modes of data gathering. Participants interested in being part of the research have given their ethical consent. They have each been sent a survey. They have also been given a journal, in which they are invited to respond each week to four questions about their experience.

Which meant that this week my time as a researcher included dropping journals in letter boxes and wondering what people will write, as they reflect on their experience of this particular religious practice. Such is the joy of undertaking empirical research into the real life experiences of religious practices in daily life.

The social impact of selected religious practices research project is one of seven different research projects I am currently involved in. For example, I’m also involved in researching digital activism, experiences of reading out loud, knitting as craftivism and race, justice and mission in the history of Oceania. Plus I’m undertaking longitudinal evaluations of different interventions in two church organisations and have just wrapped up a project writing resources to encourage ecological readings of Advent and Christmas Bible readings.