Appendix B Summary Report of the Reentry Congregations Initiative Survey Background. The goal of the Reentry Congregations Initiative Survey was to find out what congregations of different sizes in different kinds of communi- ties across the U.S. were doing to welcome and serve people leaving incarcer- ation. Over the course of two years (2022-2023), we sent the survey out via email to hundreds of congregations. We received complete or partial respons- es from 66. In a number of cases, we followed up with phone calls or online meetings to get a fuller picture. The survey questions were designed to discover what congregations were do- ing directly with and for returning citizens as well as any activities that were designed to be “returning citizen-friendly.” We wanted to find out what ap- proaches were having the most success and what challenges were arising. While our intention was to hear and learn from communities in different faith traditions—and we made a concerted effort in that direction—in the end vir- tually all the responses we were able to gather were from Christian churches. After covering some basics, we’ve grouped the responses we received accord- ing to the eight models presented above. Please note that the percentages given are based on the number of responses to a particular question. RC = returning citizen.
General Survey Questions Q40:
Congregation’s setting: Suburban: 52%; Urban: 39%; Small town: 6%; Rural: 3%
Q41:
Congregation’s average weekly worship attendance: Fewer than 75: 23%; 75-125: 30%; 126-250: 17%; 251-750: 3%; More than 750: 27% How RC-friendly is your congregation: Extremely so: 40%; Quite a lot: 21%; Somewhat: 23%; To a limited extent: 7%; Not at this time: 9% 63% have weekly worship that’s intentionally RC-friendly 50% have occasional special worship services focused on RCs What does that look like? • One congregation is entirely geared toward RCs and their fam- ilies
Q20:
Q1: Q2:
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