Leadership Development Among Youth in Latino Congregations: The Relationship of Religious Participation to Social Service Involvement and Engagement in Leadership Tasks

Abstract

Personal observations and anecdotal accounts attest that some of the young people in U.S. Latino churches are developing as leaders within their congregations. This seems to come as a result of the organic or less-formalized leadership development dynamics and practices present within Latino congregations, where leaders often develop by being actively involved in leadership actions without necessarily first following a curriculum of study, completing a training program, or fulfilling a set of theological education requirements. In this way, many are acquiring roles and responsibilities by which they actively contribute towards local congregational and community life, and by which they develop as leaders through hands-on experiences. This less formalized leadership development dynamic in Latino congregations has yet to be empirically studied, as a means to further understand and learn from this unique characteristic that can be helpful to the church at large in our search for how to develop the next generation of leaders. Thus, there is a need to identify, describe, and empirically analyze some of the specific phenomena involved in these observed dynamics within Latino congregations that seem to be contributing towards youths' leadership development. Method Therefore, this descriptive and explanatory ex post facto study examined key congregational practices within Latino churches and the level of participation young people have in these as a means of analyzing the association of both with leadership development. The study drew on existing data collected through the Chicago Latino Congregational Study-Youth Survey (CLCS-YS) of 63 randomly sampled Latino congregations in different Christian denominations: Catholic, Evangelical, Mainline, and Pentecostal. The sample population consisted of 307 Latino youth ages 13 to 19. After examining the 104 questionnaire items of the CLCS-YS for applicability, 23 were selected to analyze youth's religious participation, social service involvement, and engagement in leadership tasks, while controlling for demographic characteristics. Aspects of Positive Youth Development (PYD) theory pertaining to youth leadership development provided a means to select and create the variables studied, which were derived from socioreligious descriptions of Latino congregations that are linked to the aforementioned organic leadership dynamics. v Socioreligious Description of Latino Congregations .