Half of all congregations, according to the report, contain fewer than 100 adults who regularly participate in those congregations. In an interview, Roozen said some people had had a better sense of these congregations when he compared them with small businesses. That's part of their strength and vitality. I think that's why so many more Americans are involved in religious organizations than you find in European countries. But their size also limits what these congregations can do.
Some small congregations function without even written budgets.
But it's hard to imagine that kind of congregation moving easily into an application for federal funding. Again, he cited the analogy with small business. It's one thing for IBM to keep track of federal regulation, but with small business, it's hard. But Roozen said there was another way to look at how these small congregations might relate to the possibilities the White House has suggested. GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS Religious life abroad, specifically Jewish life in the former Soviet Union, is the concern of Rabbi Berel Lazar, who as a youth studied in the Chabad Lubavitch yeshiva in Brooklyn, and now serves as elected chief rabbi of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, which represents Jews in 84 cities.