Social Service and Transformation in Christian Faith

Ms Alison Hui

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Social and community service has always been an important part of church’s outreach ministry. Congregational participation and church-wide engaged in concerning for community problems and underprivileged groups can bring about different aspects of changes among believers. Although very few studies look into the impact of believers’ participation in community service, Hugen et al. (2006) found that congregants engaged in community ministry experienced changes on faith, value, attitude, behavior and lifestyle.

 

As Hong Kong churches become increasingly aware of the needs of disadvantaged groups in the community and city, we hope to study the impact of social services participations among church members in Hong Kong. This study is a joint study by Institute for City Transformation and the “Gospel in the Community movement”. Evangel Seminary launched the "Gospel in the Community movement" campaign last year, with Rev. Erica Chan of Hong Kong Christian Shuen Tao Church as a lecturer, leading more than 20 churches to master how to connect the gospel with community needs. Rev. Chan works with participating churches to help them transform and provide training support. This year "Gospel in the Community movement" will publish a book that collects the testimonies and transformations of the campaign, and the results of this study will also be part of the book.

 

We aim to conduct a mixed method study, starting with a quantitative survey understanding church congregants’ self-reported changes after frequently participating in social service. Preliminary data shows that participants reported changes in Christian faith, relationship with God, and attitude towards social services and social needs. A qualitative study will be done to follow up on the leads from quantitative data and further understand how church congregants experience changes and specifically impact of their Christian faith after frequently participating in social service. The impact and learnings from social service participation are important indicators for church leaders to reflect on their approach in nurturing congregants’ faith and spirituality through encouraging them to practice faith through community service participation (Myers et al., 2008)

 

Reference:

Hugen, B., Wolfer, T. A., & Renkema, J. U. (2006). Service and faith: The impact on Christian faith of community ministry participation. Review of Religious Research, 409-426.

 

Myers, D. R., Wolfer, T. A., & Garland, D. R. (2008). Congregational service-learning characteristics and volunteer faith development. Religious Education, 103(3), 369-386.