LIMINAL LEADERSHIP:
Congregational Life in the 21st Century
by Chad Martin
Chad Martin, Director of the National Fund for Sacred Places, recently sat
down with The Rev. Katie Day to discuss her book, Partners for Sacred
Places’ Economic Halo Effect study, and the importance of understanding the
relationship between congregations and their neighborhood contexts.
Chad Martin: Your book, Faith on the Avenue: Religion on a
City Street, is a unique contribution to congregational studies
and a deep dive into one particular place. Can you describe
what you hoped to achieve with the project?
Katie Day: Germantown Avenue is a historic street. It
cuts through Philadelphia for eight and a half miles. It goes
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through the wealthiest neighborhoods and through some of
the poorest in the city. The whole range of religious experi-
ence of Philadelphia is captured on this one street.
The project unofficially began when I grabbed a friend
and said, “Let’s go take some photos and throw them to-
gether in a slideshow,” for a seminary student orientation.
At that point I had gone up and down Germantown Ave-
nue for years. I work there. I had lived off of Germantown
Avenue. My kids’ school was on Germantown Avenue. I
thought I knew it. And then, when we started capturing
images, I started seeing things in a new way and realized
that there was so much that I had missed. That led to my
doing a deeper analysis.
The research, from the time I started until when the
book was published, took 10 years. During that time I went
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