Creating Shorter Scales to Measure Congregational Vitality

After Bobbitt (2014) created the Congregational Vitality Survey (CVS), it began to be used by congregations primarily in four pilot synods. While these scales were helpful in expanding the concept of vital congregations, the 29-item scale was too long to use in other settings. A shorter scale would have great utility when included with other instruments as a vitality subscale or used as a self-scoring survey for congregational leadership.

The following criteria were establish to form the revised scale. It had to:

Represent each of the original scales conceptually. Connections with God, each other, and the world.

Correlate well with the original scales aggregated to ensure that the shorter scale is measuring the same thing as the longer scale.

Show equal or greater internal consistency (reliability) as the original scales.

Demonstrate face validity for denominational, synodical and congregational leaders so that people will trust the shorter scale.

Coincide with observed congregational health as determined by a multi-factor external rating system. Unless the scale scores connect to real life conditions, the scores are not helpful.

This study used CVS results from an every member survey administered to 37 ELCA congregations from six synods in 2013 and 2014. It used the individual responses to each item of the CVS averaged together to create congregational-level data. Congregational-level items were averaged to create scale scores.

For an external comparison, all congregations were rated on an A-D scale using a variety factors including self-assessments from phone interviews with key informants (usually the pastor and/or lay congregational president), average worship attendance, financial stability, survey respondent's description of the congregation's overall vitality, and synod staff assessments of the congregation.

Survey items that best matched the criteria were used. The result was the creation of two scales. A 15-item scale retained greater face validity, while a 5-item scale was the best predictor of external health. Both scales explained a significant amount of variance in an external observation of a congregation's health and ANOVA and Tukey post hoc tests showed significant differences between high and low scoring congregations. This suggests that using these scales (particularly the shortest scale) can yield a reasonable estimate of a congregation's overall vitality and sustainability. But caution is advised. While congregational scale scores under 3.0 suggest that a congregation is probably struggling and scale scores over 4.4 suggest that a congregation is probably maintaining or thriving, there is some overlap. Therefore, scale scores should be used as initial observations, baseline data collection for synods and denominations (with hundreds or thousands of congregations) and conversation starters. They should not be used for making high-stakes decisions about congregations.

The ELCA encourages other denominations and religious researchers to use these scales and share their results. The full methodology, analysis and survey items may be accessed at: www.elca.org/research. Select “View Research and Evaluation Resources” and the “Potpourri Reports” tab. Link: www.elca.org/vitalityshortscales.