Authors

• Church Research Institute

Keywords

church, equal opportunity, marriage, personnel, religiosity, religious beliefs, religious personnel, working conditions

Abstract

The 2012 church employee survey studied the views of people working in the parishes of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. Main themes of the survey included the meaning of work, the future of parish work, structural changes and strategic planning in the parishes, equality, marriage, religiosity, and ethics.

First, the respondents were asked to consider what their work meant to them. Questions included, for example, whether the respondents worked mainly to guarantee their income or whether it was important to them to be able to help others in their work. Views on the future of the Evangelical Lutheran Church were surveyed with various statements on what the main focus of the church should be moving forward. The statements included, for example, whether the church should be more direct in discussing social issues, have a stronger stance on marriage and family matters, support immigrants more, and be more visible on online platforms. Structural changes and strategic planning in the parishes were examined with questions on whether the respondents' parish had gone through a merger, how the respondents thought parish structures should be developed, and whether there had been changes in personnel in their line of work and how the changes had affected their work environment. Further questions charted the effect of different church strategies and guidelines on work in the respondents' parish as well as how important the respondents thought the strategies and guidelines were in their own work activities.

Next, views on an addendum to the hymn book of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, which was being prepared at the time of the survey, were charted. The respondents' values were examined with questions on same-sex marriage, ethical decision-making in the church, and use of visible religious symbols. The respondents were also asked whether they thought they were more conservative or liberal within the church, how often they attended worship services, and how often they prayed.

Background variables included the respondent's age, gender, job title, how long they had worked for the church, size of their parish, diocese, municipality where they worked, and political party preference.