A leading researcher on church growth and decline will receive this year’s Wartburg College Graven Award.
Dr. Kenneth Inskeep, director for research and evaluation in the Office of the Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, will accept the award and deliver an address at 11:30 a.m. Thursday, March 22, in the Wartburg Chapel.
The event is open to the public and will include music by Dr. Karen Black, college organist, and the Wartburg Choir, directed by Dr. Lee Nelson.
The annual Graven Award is presented to a person “whose life is nurtured and guided by a strong sense of Christian calling and who is making a significant contribution to community, church and society.” It is named for the late Judge Henry N. and Helen Graven, natives of Greene, Iowa, whose lives reflected those same commitments.
Inskeep is co-author of “Chasing Down a Rumor: The Death of Mainline Denominations,“ published by Augsburg Fortress. His studies on church growth and decline, church-giving trends and the social implications of church pension-fund investments have informed the work of the church, according to the Rev. Ramona Bouzard, dean of the chapel at Wartburg.
“He has dedicated his career to helping the Christian church tell the good news of God’s love through its willingness to hear and respond to the needs of the world,” said Bouzard, adding that Inskeep’s pension fund research provides a unique connection with award namesake Judge Henry N. Graven, who developed the first pension-plan outline for church workers in the American Lutheran Church, a forerunner of the ELCA.
Inskeep was named director of research and evaluation in the ELCA Office of the Presiding Bishop in 1992. He joined the churchwide staff in 1988 after teaching sociology at Trinity College in Illinois, his alma mater. He holds a master’s degree from Marquette University and a Ph.D. in sociology from Loyola University of Chicago.
Inskeep’s “Views on Social Responsibility: The Investment of Pension Funds in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America” and “Giving Trends in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America” appeared in the Review of Religious Research, and his “History of Church Growth Research,” was published in Understanding Church Growth and Decline. His studies also include “The Social and Religious Context of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America” and “Faith Communities Today,” a survey of ELCA congregations.
Inskeep has addressed the ELCA Conference of Bishops Academy on a variety of topics ranging from church growth to “speaking Lutheran” in the contemporary religious context of the United States.