Lake Superior christian church (2)

EARTH,CHRIST,ANDCOMMUNITY.

RESEARCHMETHODSPR250

LAKE SUPERIOR CHRISTIAN CHURCH

DEC

EMB

ER 2

015

- N

MU

Mackenzie Fedorinchik, Katerina Gombar, Aniela Mularz, and Sam Modell

A STEP BY STEP PLAN OF ACTION TO INTEGRATE THE NEEDS OF LAKESUPERIOR CHRISTIAN CHURCH WITH THE ENVIROMENT

The following research was completed under the instruction of Dr. Shawn Davis at NorthernMichigan University. For further information, questions or comments please contact Dr.ShawnDavis at [email protected] or by phone (906)227.2034

Contents .

we believe.Lake Superior Christian Church

Executive Summary...pg. 2

Secondary Research ...pg.3-5

SOCIAL MEDIA AUDIT... pg. 3DEMOGRAPHIC DATA... pg. 4VALUES, ATTITUDES &

BELIEFS... pg. 5

Qualitative Analysis...pg. 6-9

INTERVIEW ANALYSIS...pg.6OBSERVATIONAL FIELD NOTESSUMMARY...pg.7-8FOCUS GROUP ANALYSIS...pg.9

Quantitative Analysis...pg.10-21

Our Recommendations... pg. 22

Annotated Bibliography... pg.23 -

25

E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y

Executive Summary.

To gather the parishioners prior knowledge about

the environment we started with interviews, focus

groups and surveys of the church members. To

gather the surveys we went to the church and

waited in between services to be sure we would

gather enough responses to create this content.

A QUICK LOOK INTO OUR IN DEPTH RESEARCH

Our client, Lake Superior Christian Church, is a non-

denominational Christian Church that is interested in

becoming more environmentally friendly. Our goal for this is

to figure out the beliefs, attitudes, values and behaviors that

the members have of the environment, to ultimately create a

campaign that in effect will help to change the beliefs,

attitudes, values and behaviors of the members, to become

more environmentally conscious.

somewhat knowledgeable about global warming

they recycle

willing to make environmental changes

make small sacrifices: shorter showers, making soap

educating their youth

B R I E F F I N D I N G S

LAKE SUPERIOR CHRISTIAN CHURCH | 2

E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R YE X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y

SOCIALMEDIAAUDIT

When google searching and using the websites provided in thesocial media audit there wasn 't much information on Lake SuperiorChristian Church. Nothing came up on Socialmention.com about thechurch and Topsy.com only showed one tweet in the past thirtydays. When typing the church ’s name into google, i t ’s Twitteraccount didn ’t show up, but two different Facebook l inks show aswell as a Vimeo account and a couple PDFs that they have posted.From what we could see there were no reviews on their church.Page visitors can quickly determine the brand name. The churchdoes a great job at keeping up on postings to Facebook. Whenarriving to the facebook page we could see that LSCC were veryactive with their congregation. The church does many things tokeep their parishioners active, such as Vacation Bible Schoolpictures, concerts, bounce houses and many others. Not manypeople talk about the church ; there wasn ’t much action on theirfacebook page. Participants had one question every few posts.LSCC did a great job at responding but not keeping them active.LSCC has 54 followers on twitter and 418 l ikes on facebook. Theengagement ratio on Facebook is 76% . The f irst thing you see ontheir Facebook page is their location and contact information. Thechurch seems to post every few days and sometimes more thanonce in a day. LSCC post pictures and updates on what their churchis doing. There seems to be a pattern of their community notengaging enough in their posts.We think the company is trying to gain more involvementthroughout their social media. The target audience can beconsidered parents because of the LSCC post about Vacation BibleSchool and a Truck or Treat event they are doing for Halloween.Children enjoy this kind of activity and could beg their parents totake them to these sort of events. The company uses social mediaas more of a broadcast system instead of showing their care for theenvironment. We believe, though i t would be good to aware theiraudience of environmental sustainabil ity, however their main focusis to relay their services.

Secondary Research .

SECONDARY RESEARCH LAKE SUPERIOR CHRISTIAN CHURCH | 3

DEMO -

GRAPHICDATA

According to the graphs that we have createdthrough our demographic data, it shows that mostof the parishioners are married, which means weshould aim towards families. Families being thosethat may have children or live in a household ofmore than one person. After targeting families wecan reach out to those who are single and divorcedas they make up a majority of the other maritalstatus’ . Based off of the master excel sheet createdin class, we came to find that of the surveyedmembers, 237 are female and 196 are male, with agrand total of 433. These numbers of gender areclose so we need to find a way to reach both ofthem. The most parishioners come from theMarquette and Gwinn area. This means we need tofocus on how we can target this group ofparishioners first and then reach out to the variousother locations.


Pictured above is marital status of research participantsPictured to left is table of research participants residence

SECONDARY RESEARCH LAKE SUPERIOR CHRISTIAN CHURCH | 4

VALUES,BELIEFS,AND

ATTITUDES

According to pewforum.org, Catholics seem to care the most about economicand welfare issues. Christians as a whole are above 30% which seems to meanthat Christians care about our environment. In the graph found onenvironment.yale.edu the Catholic religion most recognized that there is aproblem within our environment. This could mean that’s why they care themost about the economic and welfare issues, because they have recognizedthat there is a problem.Table 3, is showing the different religions and how in touch they are with thesespecific issues, economic, foreign, cultural and political. As you can see on thetable there are higher percentages for economic issues and lower percentagesfor political; from what we understand in general is that a lot of people'senvironmental and global knowledge comes from economic and politicalissues.The global warming chart shows us that majority of the people surveyedunderstand that global warming is happening. Catholics, Protestants and TotalAmericas all come in close around 60%, this shows us that they care andunderstand the concept of global warming. Evangelicals have higherpercentages of “don't knows” and “no, it is not”, this shows that they may bemore unsure about global warming.


LAKE SUPERIOR CHRISTIAN CHURCH | 5SECONDARY RESEARCH

LAKE SUPERIOR CHRISTIAN CHURCH | 6Q U A L I T A T I V E R E S E A R C H

Qualitative Analysis .

During the interview, I don’t believe that Carolyn got off track at all. She answered all of the questions asked to the

best of her ability, and really gave us some interesting ideas of what we could implement. Clearly, Carolyn knew a

lot about the environment before we interviewed her, and more than from our focus group after. I think one of the

biggest ways she shared with us, that had already been set in motion, was the new addition of the recycling bins.

Later, we learned to find that the office staff is using it as Carolyn had told them to, our focus group informed us of

this.

The interview itself took just under 24 minutes, we were able to probe her a little bit for more information, but

honestly did not need to as often as we thought we would. Carolyn answered right off the bat, with little

clarification needed.

The interview gave plenty of insights on what we can do, at least at the point of children. The fruits and spirits

garden would be a great way to collaborate the need to care for the earth as well as one’s self. This could also be

pointed in the sight of adults, Carolyn mentioned many times her vision of a community garden. Our group

agreed that it would be a great initiative for the community and the church. Other than educating the younger

children, the emphasis of communication was key, especially not communicating the issues with fear. The fear

will the create pressure and make people think, is it really worth it?

The idea of recycling, especially in Marquette, was one of the biggest patterns seen throughout not just the

interview, but the focus group as well. The main patterns in just the interview alone were like stated, the emphasis

of communication and implementing it at a young age, and to the adults.

These findings inform our survey questions as they can point to the issues that people think are the biggest

for Marquette, one being the significant recycling problem: not that we don’t recycle, but that it is becoming

increasingly more difficult to recycle than before. Another issue being the lack of educating and communicating

to the publics of the issue.

We think ultimately this interview with Carolyn helped make the issue more clear, and set our goal of our

research further in motion. We now know some better ways to primarily communicate the issues of the

environment to LSCC in particular.

The overall goal of our research is to gain an understanding of the members of LSCC’s views, values,

attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors regarding environmental sustainability, so that we can create an effective

environmental campaign to create pro-environmental behaviors. A few of our informational objectives were

reached through the interview with Carolyn Davis: identifying top trusted sources in general and sources for

information on the environment; identifying favorable terminology related to global warming and climate change.

In the interview alone we didn’t really hit any motivational objective as they all relate to our survey, which was not

created at the time. The behavioral objectives that we started to hit or reached were discovering three

environmental behavior categories (recycling and renewing/tending to the earth were two that were touched);

and we found out what some current environmental behaviors are: sharing recycling bins in the church’s offices,

and already having ideas to implement in the future.

INTERVIEW ANAYLISIS

OBSERVATIONAL FIELD NOTES AND SUMMARY

Since our group was unable to participate the weekend every other group went, we did our observations

the same time as the surveys, so the observations may differ more from the rest of the class, but here is

what we were able to observe:

There was a wide variety of ages, from infants to elderly. There were children crying in the “cry room”, which

I thought was a clever idea. Some people left the first service quite early, assuming to beat the rush to the

parking lot. Right away people came straight to us students holding iPads, to take the survey, with smiling

faces. There was a mixture of emotions, some people looked a little grouchy (maybe because of the time),

but most were overall happy and smiling or no emotion showed. Everyone whom we saw seemed as if

they knew everyone that walked past them. Most people started conversations or joined them. Kids were

running, jumping, skipping through the halls. I saw an assumed Grandfather jump out to scare his

Granddaughter. There were people dressed in sweats, casual clothing, and fancier clothing as well. Many

people did stay in the Sanctuary (learned the name of the service area by asking a woman who was

passing out pamphlets). Heard “Good Morning Bob!” come from around the corner to me, with Bob

following after. The people who were taking surveys were either sitting in a chair or awkwardly standing

next to our students (also standing awkwardly). Some of the people taking surveys kept the iPad in a

student’s hand and took it like that, others would take the iPad and stand a few feet away. There was coffee

and goodies available to the church-goers. At this point it was about 11:00am, so the second service was

about to start, and there was a good chunk of people in the Sanctuary and a good chunk of people still in

the hallways. I overheard a group of ladies, one who looked in her 60s, and two others who looked early to

mid-40s. These ladies, unfortunately, said they don’t care about the environment, taking our surveys, or

saving the environment. Very pessimistic and concerning comments can from them. After this I heard a

younger woman scream “Jesus loves you” and walk to the coffee. There were more people there for the

next service. I was a little surprised to see so many younger adults with facial piercings. I spoke to a woman

who wanted to take the survey, she told me she wasn’t “tech savvy”, and then proceeded to take the survey

and not finish. There was an older gentleman who looked like the Grandfather from Little Miss Sunshine. A

lot of people were using actual mugs or recyclable cups, rather than styrofoam cups for coffee or water.

Lastly, I saw a group of children spinning around in the chairs by where our class gathered.

r




Observational Field Notes and Summary CONT.

Overall, Lake Superior Christian Church and the members gave off a welcoming feel, they all seemed happywhich made everyone else there happy. It was a warm, endearing place. As soon as we got there, there werevery few members outside of the Sanctuary, as we got there before the service ended. It’s a fairly largehallway that we were waiting in, and once the service ended it felt much smaller, but not crowded. Everyonemade it feel not crowded or overbearing, but like I said earlier, welcoming and warming. All of the peoplethere, besides our class, were there for the same reasons, the services. Whether they just left the first one orthey just got there for the second one. Everyone’s experience, from my point of view, was similar; that being ahappy occasion in which they are joining in religious services. No one seemed to have the mindset of “Do Ireally have to be here”? To tell the ages apart, or student versus adult, and so on, you could tell simply in theclothes they were wearing or the hairstyles. I saw a younger, maybe pre-teen, wearing bright patternedleggings and a cardigan, an assumed high school boy, based on his hairstyle and the shirt he was wearing, Ican’t remember exactly but it was an animal of sorts. Most of the older adults were wearing clothes I see mymom or grandparents wear- wool cardigans, not too bright colors, slacks, etc. Most of the adult men werewearing jeans or slacks and a polo of some type. I think the most shocking observation made wasoverhearing the three women discuss the environment, and the fact that they truly do not care. Asunfortunate as it was to hear that, that is exactly what we are looking for: people of the Church’s opinions onthe environment. I want to change the way these women feel. I know it will be hard, but that was just as hardto hear. Other than that specific group of women, everyone seemed ready and willing to help with ourresearch specifically and plenty of them were excited to even learn what we were doing there. Overall, like Istated previously, the feel of the Church and the members was warm and welcoming, excited to know moreand to help us with our research.

Q U A L I T A T I V E R E S E A R C H


Focus Group Analysis


The staff and congregation of Lake Superior Christian Church all seem to be relatively on the same page.Both the responses from the interview and focus group for our team were very similar. Most of theseparishioners weren’t confident when it came to knowledge about the environment; you can tell that theycare but maybe don’t have the resources to be knowledgeable. Patterns that we saw in our focus group were that they know about the same or similar topics.Collectively, they did talk about global warming and recycling. They do believe that God has given us theworld so we need to treat it with care and love. When it comes to the body language, the patterns thatexisted were relaxed seating, lots of hand movements that showed they were and are passionate aboutcaring for our world. They all sat very close to one another, showing their familiarity with one another andcomfort levels. They also held eye contact and scanned the room every time they would talk. They tookthe conversation seriously but were able to crack jokes when needed or when they thought it wasappropriate to lighten the mood. The answers that were given helped us decipher what kind of campaign to implement, for a fewexamples, a recycling program or even an informational service on environmental sustainability (to providefurther aware the members). We now have an understanding of what information they are knowledgeableabout, recycling and recyclable goods, and what topics they would like to learn more about, pretty mucheverything else. We know the type of actions that they have already taken and the actions that they arewilling to take. This information can help us with our survey questions by breaking down what questionswe should ask now. We need to be able to probe better to gain more and better information, as it seemsthat they proceeded to talk in circles about the same topics even when we asked others. They alwaysreverted back to the topics they know and understand. With a survey we can get more concise answerson other topic. To reiterate the goal of our research: gain understanding of LSCC members’ beliefs, values, behaviors,and attitudes of environmental sustainability, so that we can create a campaign to promote a pro-

environmental behaviors throughout the church. We weren’t really able to achieve a lot, if any, objectives.The informational objectives achieved were what we assumed, they only knew about certain things, e.g.,environmental issues are real, and recycling is important. We weren’t really able to identify any top sourcesof information, people mainly said they tried to look for articles from a Scientist, rather than a typical newsarticle; same for terminology, they did say ‘global warming’ and ‘climate change’ a lot, but didn’t give thefeel of really understanding what it means. As for behavioral objectives, the majority of the group came toan agreement that recycling is important, and that LSCC should be doing something to bring awarenessand information about environmental sustainability, but no recommendations or ideas.

Quantitative Research .

Based on previous literature and results from interview and focus group questions, a 39 question

survey was designed to better understand the environmental values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors

of regular attenders to Lake Superior Christian Church (LSCC). The survey was distributed in two ways:

on Sunday, November 15th 2015, students from PR 250 – Research in Public Relations distributed

electronic tablets containing the survey to church members as they exited morning services from 10am

to 12:30pm. The response rate for this portion of the survey collection was 76%. The survey remained

active in an online version from November 15th until November 30th 2015. Links to the online survey

were distributed via the church bulletin as well as through the LSCC Facebook page. At the end of the

two week survey period we obtained 92 responses giving a confidence interval of + 8.5 at a 95%

confidence level. Detailed responses to each question are shown on the following pages.


Q U A N T I T A T I V E R E S E A R C H

Q U A N T I T A T I V E R E S E A R C H

QUESTION #1

When asked “how often do you attend religiousservices?” most participants responded thatthey attend once per week.

Most participants, nearly 45% consider themselvesto be “very religious” and closely following thosenumbers, 37% consider themselves “moderatelyreligious”. Much less on the chart, only 9% ofpeople consider themselves slightly religious and9% do not consider themselves to be at allreligious. Overall, our population is a leastmoderately religious.

QUESTION #3

Over half (60%) of the respondents considerthemselves to be very spiritual, followed by 36%

of respondents are “moderately spiritual” andonly 4% responded “slightly spiritual”. Zerorespondents consider themselves to be “not atall spiritual”.

Q U A N T I T A T I V E R E S E A R C H LAKE SUPERIOR CHRISTIAN CHURCH | 11

QUESTION #2


QUESTION #4

When asked, “how important are the followingto you?” the majority of respondents consideredcaring for the world’s poor and for futuregenerations of people more important thancaring for the natural environment. All responseswere at least rated ‘A little important’ and noresponses were considered ‘not important’ or‘not sure.’

QUESTION #5

When asked how often the individual thinksabout environmental issues, 35 percent of thosesurveyed answered “a lot,” 47 percent answered“some,” while 18 percent answered “a little.” Thisreflects that the majority of the populationsurveyed thinks about environmental issues tosome degree.

When asked “how worried are you about thestate of the natural environment?” 72 percent ofpeople were very worried or somewhat worried.Only 3 percent were not at all worried.

QUESTION #7

Participants were asked to rate their level of agreement on a number of different statements. Thestatements that participants agreed with most were: “despite our special abilities, humans and stillsubject to the laws of nature” and “the Earth has plenty of resources if we learn to develop them”. Thestatements that participants disagreed with most were: “the balance of nature is strong enough to copewith the impacts of modern industrial nations” and “humans will eventually learn enough about hownature works to be able to control it.”


QUESTION #6


QUESTION #8

Using a scale, participants indicated how well thefollowing statements described their view where“1” meant “it is people’s responsibility to protectand care for the Earth and its natural resources”

and “7” meant “you think it is people’s right to usethe Earth and its natural resources for our ownbenefit”. They were able to use any number onthe scale to show their opinion on this issue. Theresults were mixed, with more people leaningtowards the statement meant “it is people’sresponsibility to protect and care for the Earthand its natural resources” as shown by a mean of3.09. Over half of the respondents chose answerone or two.

QUESTION #9

In the past 12 months, most of our population has been involved in at home environmental conservation activities,such as recycling and turning down their thermostats. However, a lot of our population is not involved with politicalenvironmental conservation activities, such as signing petitions, giving money to environmental groups and contactingmembers of Congress or other government officials.


QUESTION #10


How many of your friends share your views about theenvironment? It appears that “some” and “most” of the majority ofthe respondent’s friends share their views on the environment.“Some” was the number one most chosen answer with a 52%

rating while the “most” option had a 36% answer rating. Thisobviously shows that the respondents have a similar view aboutthe environment with most of their friends or at the very leastsome of their friends, whether that be a positive or negativeconnotation. This graph also conveys, how very few people havea friend group in which they all have the same views about theenvironment since only 1% chose the “all” option.

QUESTION #11

Using a scale, participants indicated how wellthe following statements described their viewwhere “1” meant “you think God expects peopleto be good stewards of nature, which is not hereonly for human use” and “7” meant “you thinkGod expects people to rule over nature, which ishere for human use”. The results were mixedwith more people leaning towards the statement:“you think God expects people to be goodstewards of nature, which is not here only forhuman use” as shown by the mean score 2.78.The most common answer we received was “1”

at 41%.

Respondents were asked to rank the followingitems in terms of trusted sources forenvironmental information with "1" being themost trusted and “10” being the least trusted.The mean of the values and answer options areranked below by most trusted first. The datareflects that the most trusted sources areenvironmental scientists, family and friends,and the Environmental Protection Agency. Theleast trusted sources were Barack Obama,mainstream news media, and the U.S militaryleaders.

QUESTION #13

Using a scale, participants were asked toindicate how well the statements describe theirview, where “1” meant “when scientificexplanations about the natural world conflictwith my religious or spiritual beliefs, I accept thescientific explanations” and “7” meant “whenscientific explanations of the natural worldconflict with my religious or spiritual beliefs, Iaccept what my religious or spiritual beliefs tellme”. Fifty-two percent of the participants votedfor the 7th option that says their spiritual beliefswith science. The mean result was 5.38meaning that most people were leaningtowards the statement, “when scientificexplanations of the natural world conflict withmy religious or spiritual beliefs, I accept whatmy religious or spiritual beliefs tell me”.


QUESTION #12


QUESTION #14

When asked, “how much do you think currentenvironmental problems will harm you?” mostpeople reported current environmentalproblems will harm them “a moderate amount”,only five percent less believe currentenvironmental problems will harm them “only alittle”. The third highest majority said it will affectthem “a great deal”. Eight percent answeredthey don’t know and four percent said not at all.

A majority of church members feel the environment is an important issue for Christians and most believethat taking actions, such as buying environmentally friendly products and conserving water and electricity,helps the environment. A large number of church members feel a personal obligation to help theenvironment.

QUESTION #16


QUESTION #15


When asked if climate change exists, 43 percentof those surveyed reported that yes, it does,while 57 percent claimed that climate changedoes not exist.

QUESTION #17

Of the 43 percent who believe climate change isoccurring, 17 percent were extremely sure, 33percent were very sure and 43 percent weresomewhat sure that climate change ishappening.

When asked what is causing global warming,most members believe that global warming isoccurring and is caused by natural changes inthe environment, there are a number (15%) ofrespondents who believe global warming is nothappening. Thirty-five percent of respondentsagree with current scientific consensus thatglobal warming is caused mostly by humanactivity.

QUESTION #18

On the other hand, of the 57 percent of thosewho surveyed that climate change is notoccurring, 18 percent were extremely sure, 28percent were very sure and 49 percent weresomewhat sure that climate change is nothappening.


QUESTION #19


QUESTION #20

When asked, “how worried are you aboutglobal warming?” a majority of participants(43%) responded that they are “not veryworried” about global warming.

QUESTION #21

When asked, “how much do you think globalwarming will harm you personally?” over half ofour participants reported that global warmingwould harm them “only a little” or “not at all”,whereas 13% believe that they will be personallyharmed a great deal by global warming.

When asked “how much do you think globalwarming will harm future generations ofpeople?” about 28% of them reported thatglobal warming will not affect future generationsof people at all. While about 26% reported at theother end of the spectrum that global warmingwill harm our future generations of people agreat deal.

QUESTION #22

When asked “how much have you thoughtabout global warming before today?” themajority, 48% reported that they thoughtabout global warming “some” , whereas 13 %

reported they have never thought aboutglobal warming.


QUESTION #23


QUESTION #24

When asked they though global warming wouldstart to harm people in the United States, nearlyhalf of the respondents (45%) reported that theywould “never” be harmed. The next highestcategory (19%) of the respondents reported thatpeople in the United States “are being harmednow” as a result of global warming.

QUESTION #25

When asked how important the issue of globalwarming was to them individually, 30% saidglobal warming is not at all important to themand 36% said it was not too important.Meanwhile, 20% said that global warming was asomewhat important issue to them and 9% said itwas a very important. Overall, the peoplesurveyed did not find global warming wasimportant to them personally.

When asked, “how many of your friends shareyour views on global warming?” only onepercent of people agreed that all of their friendsshare their views on global warming. Themajority of the respondents, 75 percent, believethat most to some of their friends share theirviews on global warming.

QUESTION #26

When asked, “how much do you agree ordisagree with the following statement, ‘I couldeasily change my mind about global warming.’”the greatest percentage of participantsdisagreed with 42 percent reporting theysomewhat disagreed with the statement, andanother 28 percent of participants reportingstrongly disagreed. Less participants agreedwith this statement overall with 29 percent ofparticipants reporting somewhat agreed and 1percent reporting strongly agreed.


QUESTION #27


QUESTION #28

When asked, “which of the following statementscome closest to your view?” 22 percent ofrespondents do not believe in global warmingand 22 percent believe humans could notreduce global warming. The largest percentage(34%) think that humans could reduce globalwarming but do not know if we will do what isneeded. Only three percent believe we canreduce global warming and we are going to doso successfully.

QUESTION #29

When asked, “do you think citizens themselvesshould be doing more or less to address globalwarming?” the highest majority, 44 percent,believe citizens themselves should be doingmore to address global warming. The smallestamount of people responded saying we shouldbe doing less to address global warming.

Participants were asked, “how much do youagree or disagree with the following statement: ‘Icould easily change my mind about globalwarming.’" While only one person believes thatthey “could easily change their mind aboutglobal warming”, the majority of respondents(70%) either somewhat disagreed or stronglydisagreed with this statement.

QUESTION #31

When asked, “do you think global warmingshould be a low, medium, high, or very highpriority for the President and Congress?” themajority of the respondents answered that globalwarming should be a low priority for thePresident and Congress. The next greatestamount was medium, with a few respondents(12%) answering high and a smaller amount (4%)

answering very high. The majority of people donot feel as though the President and Congressshould make global warming a priority.


QUESTION #30


QUESTION #32

Nearly 67% of participants never punishedcompanies that oppose steps to reduce globalwarming by not buying their products over the last12 months. The next most common answer, “a fewtimes”, is drastically lower at (17%). Only threepercent have punished these companies multipletimes over the last 12 months.

QUESTION #33

As we can see from the pie chart above, therewere primarily more females than males (61%

and 26%, respectively) and three percent haddecided not to answer. This gives us more ofan idea of the sociological demographics ofthe church and survey-takers.

When asked their age, the largest amount ofpeople (31%) surveyed were in the age group of34-55 followed by 55-64 (26%). The smallest agegroup (3%) was 65+. Unfortunately, this questioncannot be considered valid as the age groupfrom 45 – 54 is absent.

QUESTION #35

The majority of the respondents (39%) statedthat they have a bachelor’s degree. All of therespondents had a high school degree or aboveand 1 percent preferred not to answer.


QUESTION #34


QUESTION #36

Most of the participants surveyed were marriedor in a domestic partnership (70%)

QUESTION #37

The total household incomes vary, however,over half of the participants (52%) reportedbeing within the $25,000-$50,000 and $50,000-

$75,000 household income ranges. A total ofnine percent preferred not to answer.

The majority of the respondents identified asbeing a part of or leaning toward the republicanparty (41%). This is in high contrast with theother major political party in the United States,the democratic party which only seven percentof the participants identified with.

QUESTION #39

Most participants surveyed (60%) thought ofthemselves as conservative while a minority(13%) considered themselves to be liberal. Theremaining twenty-two percent categorizedthemselves as moderate.


QUESTION #38


LAKE SUPERIOR CHRISTIAN CHURCH | 22O U R R E C O M M E N D A T I O N S

Our Recommendations .

After our research was performed we found that members of Lake Superior Christian

Church are not the best informed about today's issues involving the environment, but are

open to expanding their minds to help the environment through their relationships with

Christ. Our recommendations include implementing some ideas that were shared with us

by Carolyn Davis. A short nature walk around the church filled with informational posts on

the native trees and plants along with how to help save our natural areas. She also shared

with us the idea of a shared community garden. Ideas like these from members of the

church are wonderful and we hope that as a congregation LSCC will keep open minds,

hearts and ears to listen to ideas like those shared by Carolyn. As a team we agree that

easy and creative outlets to allow everyone to participate in small ways will really add up.

By doing simple things like placing recycling bins in shared spaces, discontinuing the use

of Styrofoam cups, and placing small signs near bathroom sinks aimed at conserving

water we believe LSCC can make a difference. When Dave spoke to us as a class he

brought to our attention the term of creation culture and shared with us words from the

bible about the world being left for us to tend to. We hope that Dave can work to produce

a sermon to deliver with these terms in mind in order to help inspire the idea of Christ and

the environment being one entity. On the more fun side of recommendations it was

brough to our attention the love for inspiring children that was universal in both our focus

group and interview. With the children in mind and through the use of summer bible camp

studies we thought the idea of a trashion show would be both fun and educational. By

having the children mock up a fashion show using only recycled material and "trash" to

teach a lesson in Christ and the importance of recycling.

LAKE SUPERIOR CHRISTIAN CHURCH | 23A N N O T A T E D B I B L I O G R A P H Y

Carmichael, C. (2011). The environmental crisis finds religion. Conservation Biology, 25(5), 1059– 1060.http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2011.01733.x

This journal article is essentially taking the writings of four different religious/spiritual and eco-friendly books todiscuss religion and the environment. The article author begins by explaining the beginning of environmentaltheology, and how modern theologists are beginning to examine environmental problems. Each of the fourdifferent books make specific points that aim in the importance of an “Eco spiritual view”. The term “Ecospiritual” refers to the idea that your views on the environment are directly important to your religious beliefs.This article is important to our research as it highlights new terms for us to try to incorporate.

Dekker, P., Ester, P., & Nas, M. (1997). Religion, culture and environmental concern: An empirical cross- nationalanalysis. Social Compass, 44(3), 443–458. http://doi.org/10.1177/003776897044003010

This journal article goes into anthropocentric values within cultures and looking at environmental crises asJudeo-Christian heritage is either the reason for the environmental issues, or if they have “green” views onnature. It essentially discovers that people of the Christian religion generally have a green view on nature andawareness rather than not.

Grim, J. (2011). The roles of religions in activating an ecological consciousness*. International Social ScienceJournal, 62(205-206), 255–269. http://doi.org/10.1111/issj.12008

This next journal article is primarily examining the way multiple religions (Christianity, Confucianism,indigenous traditions, and Hinduism) play a role in responding to environmental crises. Through each religionthe author goes into detail about each religion’s specific view of ecology and the awareness in general of theissues in the environment today. What we would consider the data section is labeled as ‘religious knowledgeand transformed consciousness’, furthering the prior statements. While coming to an overall idea that religiousenvironmentalism is a real mentality, and why the said religions need to be more aware of it and act upon it.

Gudorf, C. (2012). Ecologies of Grace: Environmental Ethics and Christian Theology. By Willis Jenkins.Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 80(1), 248-252. Retrieved December 2, 2015, fromhttp://jaar.oxfordjournals.org/content/80/1/248

In this article, Gudorf begins by discussing the different strategies in environmental ethics, which she believesexist within Christians and non-Christians. Over the last few decades Christians have had to translate theirenvironmental perspectives for non-Christians to make them less secular, as well as making them applicablefor a wider audience outside of Christianity. Her main goal with this article is to bring Christians and non-

Christians together by discussing how all religions and people alike can come together and help repair thestate of the environment by blending their ideas and vocabularies.

Annotated Bibliography .


Koehrsen, J. (2015). Does religion promote environmental stability? Exploring the role of Religion in localenergy transitions. Journal. Retrieved September 28, 2015, fromhttp://scp.sagepub.com/content/62/3/296.full.pdf html

This article discusses implementing an increasingly sustainable lifestyle in Western culture. Itapproaches sustainability in different realms, one of them being religion. Discussions of religion andsustainability are mentioned as well as religion and ecology. The paper also approaches how religioncontributes to local energy transitions. This article helps provide insights into how we can help LSCCimplement a more sustainable lifestyle. With our community trying to implement the use of wind powerthis article is also very applicable to our community.

Miller, D. (2013). The Doctrine of the Trinity and Christian Environmental Action. 20-31. RetrievedDecember 2, 2015, from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j. 1741-2005.2011.01352.x/full

This article discusses the Trinity and how Christians view it as a model for understanding the church andtheir beliefs. Since the Trinity is so important to Christians, the author, Daniel Miller, believes that byattaching an environmental significance to the Trinity, Christians will understand the importance ofenvironmental action. By understanding the Trinity, Miller writes that Christians may be able to relate it tocaring for the natural environment. In the article he parallels Christians working toward the healing powerof the Trinity and the healing of the environment.

Neuhaus, R. (2005).("What Would Jesus Drive?" First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and PublicLife), (153), 61. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA132051879&v=2.1&u=lom_nmichu&it=r&p=ITOF&sw=w&asid=8c394a5d7418b4197e5088b6583a6c6f

This article is brief but packed full of, fairly biased, yet useful information into the minds of our public. Auseful quote from it reads "government has an obligation to protect its citizens from the effects ofenvironmental degradation." This campaign was very successful. It focuses on the evangelical’scampaign for hybrid cars yet points a focus to the idea that by helping the environment you as areligious practitioner are helping the poor and needy.

Spencer, D. (2010). The greening of religion: insights and principals for teaching about religion andecological sustainability. Retrieved September 28, 2015, from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&u=lom_nmichu&id=GALE|A293351685&v=2.1&it=r&sid=summon&userGroup=lom_nmichu&au thCount=1#

Religion, ecology and environmental sustainability are discussed. “Earth-honoring communities” and“greening religion” are topics the author elaborates on. Other religion’s environmental approachesthroughout history are discussed including different religious activists and groups. This article offersinsights into how we can help to teach the members on LSCC on the topic of sustainability. It also hasnotes on how others are trying to really “make religion green”. This article holds great terms that we canuse throughout our research and apply towards the change we are initiating.


Stange, M. Z. (2006, April 24). Is God an environmentalist? USA Today, p. 19.

This article boasts a lot of bold comments on how evangelangists look at both George W. Bush andenvironmentalism. It introduced some radical new terms that can be applied towards our study such as:Creation Culture, Responsible Creation Care, and the idea of “what would Jesus drive”. It also brings upmany ideas that have already been applied in some churches nationwide that we could apply to ourcase such as sustainable water collecting and solar panels.

Van Dyke, F. (2010). Between Heaven and Earth: Christian perspectives on environmental protection.Retrieved December 2, 2015, from http://ezpolson.nmu.edu:6396/

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In this article, Van Dyke focuses on reaching an audience outside of environmental Christians who readthe bible. He focuses on asking the questions that are interesting to everybody, not onlyconservationists who read the bible. He takes a look at the past, present and future approach ofconservationism and environmentalism. While he still makes an effort to include Christian perspectivesabout environmental stewardship, the bottom line of this article is that he wants to get everyone involvedin protecting the environment, Christians and non-christians alike.

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