Perceptions and perspectives of innovation in a liberal religious education program: An exploratory case study.

摘要

A suburban, tradition-oriented Unitarian Universalist congregation selects an urban, evangelical, charismatic minister to affect change in its religious education programming. The changes proposed by the change agent are rooted in his own values and meaning and may or may not match the values and meanings already embedded in the congregation's culture. This scenario provides the context and direction for this research project. The purpose of the study is to identify factors perceived by church members which support or hinder the adoption and implementation of innovation in a specific Unitarian Universalist congregation's religious education program. An organizational culture perspective is used in order to provide as broad a view as possible of the congregation and individual member's perspectives. Three questions guided this research: (1) What are the key features of the innovation(s) being implemented in the Great Lakes religious education program? (2) How do members of the congregation, representing a variety of constituencies, perceive the innovation? (3) What factors in the congregation's culture are supporting or hindering the adoption and implementation of the innovation?; This research is in the form of a single case study. Twenty semi-structured, open-ended interviews were conducted with a total of 23 participants resulting in approximately 28 hours of interviews that were transcribed and coded. Data included interview transcripts, approximately 60 hours of observation and accompanying field notes and journal entries, and written materials collected from the congregation, including such artifacts as meeting minutes, newsletters, printed sermons, orders of service and brochures.; As a result of investigating the first research question, the key features of the innovation emerged as an innovation cluster, with five core values (experiential education, social action orientation, faith articulation, and community building both inside and outside of the congregation) embedded in varying degrees in all of the eight program areas identified by study participants. Disagreements within the congregation about specific elements of the innovation cluster were uncovered as a result of the second research question. The third research question identified factors that supported or hindered change that matched well with Rogers' 1962/1995 theory of diffusion of innovations, but revealed much greater complexity than a general theory can address, including the complicating factor of two subcultures co-existing in the congregation.