DuPage County, Illinois is a vibrant suburban county with over 930,000 residents, lots of jobs, and numerous communities. Like many suburbs, it has become more complex in recent years due to demographic, cultural, economic, and social changes. It is also home to hundreds of religious congregations.

As part of a larger research project looking at the congregations in the county, I am also pursuing work on what happened to former religious buildings. I will report the findings to Partners for Sacred Places in Spring 2024 and here is their summary of my project:

Brian Miller (Professor of Sociology, Wheaton College, and co-author of Building Faith: A Sociology of Religious Structures) is using a quantitative approach focusing on DuPage County in Illinois, which is home to hundreds of religious organizations. He is documenting the number and types of transitioned congregations in the suburban context, looking for patterns of building usage and community impact.

I have started looking at sources that will help with the project. Here are two that are proving very helpful:

This builds on earlier work I have done regarding religious buildings. Based on existing research, I would expect a variety of outcomes for former religious buildings from no building present on the site to empty structures to buildings converted for other uses.