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Citation: Thiessen, Joel. “Signs of Life and Vitality in Canadian Congregations: 
Drawing on Data to Inform Practice.” April 29, 2021, Tyndale University, 
Toronto, Ontario: MPEG-4, 1:09:58 min.

***** Begin Content ******


Good morning to you all. Welcome to the 2021 Wesley Studies Symposium at Tyndale. I'm glad you've chosen to join us for this 
event taking place for the 11th time. I wish we could be together, but I'm thankful for the technology that's allowing us to 
meet virtually and which is enabling some people to join us who would not have been able to make the trip to Toronto for an in 
person event. The Wesley Symposium is a forum to share research on the Wesleyan tradition and research by Wesleyans on various 
subjects of interest to Wesleyans. And we have both types of presentations on the schedule today. I hope you're going to enjoy 
the day and find that it stimulates your mind, but also inspires you in some way and equips you for Christian life and mission. 
And as we begin the day, I would like to first welcome Dr. Arnold Newfeld Fast. He is the dean of Tyndale Seminary, and I'll ask 
him to bring greetings.

Thank you, James, and welcome to everyone. It's indeed my privilege to welcome you here to Tyndale Seminary. I wish we could meet in 
this space behind me. Okay, it's virtual, it's in my house, but perhaps next year we'll be together at Tindale. The Wesleyan 
denominations, the Free Methodist, Nazarene, Salvation Army, and Wesleyan Church have been in partnership with Tindale since 
1993. That's a long time, and that developed into a number of initiatives, like the funding of the Donald N and Kathleen G. 
Bastion Chair of Wesley Studies, which our colleague James Peddler holds. Our creative partnership together gives opportunity 
for preparing pastors and lay leaders in the Wesleyan tradition, a home here at Tindale in this broader tent evangelical family. 
And there are many traditions around that table, and the Wesleyan Holiness Tradition enriches everything that's happening around 
the table. And we're really thankful for this partnership. The annual symposium, james, you said this is the 11th is just one of 
those gifts that has really enriched us over time. It started small, and it has now grown to I think we have 217 people registered 
for today. It's stunning, actually, and so is the content that's happening, the agenda online pastoral education.

We're talking about that every day at Tyndale. Scripture, theology, grace, communion, formation, ethics, and an analysis of the 
state of flourishing congregations in Canada today at Tyndale. All things considered, it's been a good year. Online education 
seems to have been embraced by the vast majority of graduate students, and we also now have approval from our accrediting body 
ATS to deliver our entire Mdiv and MTS curriculums and programs in a distance format. So online. But the Wesleyan shareholder 
was a pioneer of some of this, even pre pandemic. So, James, James Pedlar knows your constituency and has delivered courses in a 
virtual manner even prior to the outbreak of COVID. So in that sense, we're continuing with some of those gifts that are here 
around the table. And I think we're all now very familiar and comfortable with online video conferencing, et cetera. And like 
other institutions, we're looking ahead for next year and we're just not sure yet. We're hopeful that we can gather together. 
If so, we're not sure how closely we can gather together. But one of the things we do know is that Dr. Petra will be offering a 
course on Holiness Monday afternoons, and that will be accessible via livestream one way or another, and church renewal in the 
winter, so maybe that's of interest to you.

So in any case, despite COVID, it's an exciting time to be doing theological education, and we're really glad for this event and 
everything that will be happening today. And I wish you God's richest blessings for the rest of today. Thank you.

Thank you, Arnold. It's good of you to be with us this morning. As you have seen in the email instructions that we sent to you, 
we are asking that you keep your microphones muted, and we also recommend that you turn off your cameras. I know that might seem a 
bit unfriendly, but the reason is so that we can maximize the bandwidth for the presenter during each presentation, and there is an 
opportunity for question and answer after the presentations, and you may be called on to participate, and at that point you can unmute 
and turn on your camera. So we are going to have discussion after each paper, and if you have a question that you would like to pose, we
 ask that you would put it into the chat. So as a moderator, I will keep my eye on the chat and I will pick questions to pass along to 
the presenter. I may call on you to share your question, or I may just read it and I'll be moderating the panels today, the papers today, 
except for Chris Payks, which will be moderated by Adam Klein and Jason Mills, which will be moderated by Dan Sheffield.

Now, it's our pleasure to welcome Dr. Joel Thiessen as our keynote speaker today. Dr. Thiessen is the professor of Sociology at Ambrose 
University, where he also directs the Flourishing Congregations Institute. He has an impressive list of publications, including his book 
The Meaning of Sunday: the Practice of Belief in a Secular Age, and another book, None of the Above: Non-Religious Identity in the US. 
And Canada with Sarah Wilkins, Laflam and most recently, Signs of Life: Catholic, Mainline and Conservative Protestant Congregations in 
Canada. Authored with Bill McAlpine, Keith Walker and Arch Wong and published by our own Tyndale Academic Press this year. So Dr. Thiessen 
has established himself as a leading authority on the sociology of religion in Canada. He's also a man of faith. He cares about the gospel, 
and he wants to see the church flourish and use his intellectual gifts and expertise in order to help the church to flourish in its God 
given mission. He's also part of the Wesleyan family. As a member of the Nazarene church. Please welcome me now welcoming join me in 
welcoming Dr. Joel Thiessen. Great.

Thanks, James. I'm going to share my screen here. Give me 1 second. All right. I was saying to James earlier on that I feel like I have the 
jet leg this morning minus the actual jet fest a couple of hours earlier here in Alberta. But great to be with you. Of course, wish we were 
all in person. I am, as has been noted, a sociologist of religion. And I'm also deeply committed to the local church, among other things, 
that I'm involved in chair the local board of Nazarene Church here in Calgary. And I care deeply about our church and our denomination, 
along with my work as a sociologist of religion. As a sociologist of religion, my work is very much grounded in empirical data, and my own 
bias is that churches can benefit greatly by leaning into empirical data in ways that actually inform practice. And I'm going to provide a 
few examples in a moment before I jump into the actual core area of my talk, looking at signs of life and vitality in Canadian churches. 
Three brief examples to perhaps demonstrate from different areas of my research over the years on discoveries that might have been surprising 
to me or potentially the churches that are grounded in data that might inform practice. A first example and, as James mentioned, one of my 
earlier books, The Meaning of Sunday, and then more recently, and None of the Above. Drawing on interview data with individuals who attend 
religious services mainly for religious holidays and rites of passage and those who say they have no religion, we've heard many different 
surveys and studies that talk about this group of individuals across Canada who potentially desire greater involvement in local congregations. 
And what I've discovered as you talk to such individuals is that contrary to what they might say on surveys, that they aren't necessarily 
open to greater levels of involvement in local congregations. Or more pointedly, when you have congregations who operate with the premise 
that if we just have better music or better preaching or better programming that this will yield greater involvement, we find this isn't 
actually true. And I think from a practitioner perspective, it would be wise to pay attention to some of this kind of empirical data so 
that we aren't operating with well intentioned but perhaps misguided assumptions when we make different decisions on the ground. In fact, 
we know from empirical data that of course, better music and better preaching and programming are important to give attention to.
But this primarily intersects with retaining those who are already within one's congregation or drawing people from other congregations, what 
we call transfer growth. So it's not that we don't pay attention to these things, but we need to be clear about the actual effect on the other 
end of such things. So one example was on my earlier work where data might inform practice in some different ways. Another area of interest for 
me is millennials in Canada and often asked the question in different settings or millennials from another planet. There's the sense that younger 
people are completely different in how they view the world, how they experience the world, and so forth. And again, we find Dr. Reginald Bibby and 
Dr. Manetta Bailey and I in our recent book The Millennial Mosaic, is that millennials in Canada today are far more similar than dissimilar to 
previous generations of young people. There are some exceptions, of course, when you look at young people's views on sexuality or gender, certainly 
quite different than older generations or younger people of earlier generations. And yet what we find is that there's a lot more in common than 
not in common between young people today and young people of previous generations, as well as older generations today. And there you see the top 
five values, for example, that are common across generational. Groups of freedom, family life, being, love, friendship, and self reliance is just 
one example among others. So my point is simply that when we look to empirical data, some of our common perceptions might not actually align with 
that data. And thus the question, how might this shape some of our practices in local congregations? One final example that will be of interest to 
all of us is what impact is the pandemic having on congregations and what might this mean moving forward? And I think there's a lot of concern, a 
lot of angst from many church leaders in Canada today that people are going to leave the church because there aren't in person services or people 
are not following online and so forth. And there are many studies that have come out over the last year. And if you visit our website at the 
institute and I'll provide that on the next slide, we have about a dozen or more studies related to the pandemic and congregations. And here before 
us, we see one that came out just a few weeks ago by the Angus Reid Institute, one of the best ones, I would say, that's come out related to 
congregations in the pandemic here in Canada. And what you find when you look at that data is that the main storyline is while there are some 
clear drawbacks, and I'm sure we could all name those drawbacks, most say that they are doing okay spiritually. Most particularly among weekly 
attenders prior to the pandemic, have remained connected to others in their congregation. They've watched or attended services during the pandemic, 
and they plan to return to in person services post pandemic. So these are the kinds of data points that I think might be helpful for us to know, 
to then think about, okay, what decisions might be made in our local church context. So what I want to do in our time together today is turn to 
some of our work at the Flourishing Congregations Institute, and in particular, this recently released book, Signs of Light to look at interview 
data with over 100 Catholic, mainline and conservative Protestant leaders, church leaders, denominational leaders across the country, as well as 
survey data with over 250 churches and over 9100 participants mostly congregates within these congregations to look at different dynamics and aspects 
of congregational life. I'm not, for the sake of time, going to go through all the methodological details, but if you're interested, I can answer some 
questions afterwards related to those. But I'm going to look at three particular areas today. I'm going to look at innovation, neighborhood involvement, 
and evangelism, topics that I think will be of interest across the Wesleyan spectrum. And I think here during the pandemic and coming out of the pandemic 
might be of interest as well. Final thing I'll say, just by way of introduction here, is we provide resources related to some of our research and data on 
our website and on social media. So encourage you to check that out with a newsletter that we put out a couple of times a month with empirical data, as 
well as some practitioner reflections, theological reflections on what all of this might mean for local church settings. So you can access some of those 
things on our website as well for those who are interested. So one of the first logical questions that many will ask is what do you mean by a flourishing 
congregation? How do you actually define that? And there's a strong debate, and we certainly see this within our research as well, a debate between does 
flourishing entail numeric growth and church growth, or can it happen in the absence of and there's strong polarized views, I would say, on either end of 
that continuum. And I'm not here to ultimately land on that other than to say sociologically, of course, you need some kind of numeric threshold for an 
organization to actually survive and hopefully thrive. So numbers do matter, but it's not the total story. I would also point out that there's an important 
question to ask of are all numbers equal, or is all church growth equal? And by this I mean if you think that evangelism is important and a central anchor 
to what a congregation does, and a church is growing quite rapidly, but it's growing primarily in means other than evangelism, that is, it's growing primarily 
from transfer growth from other congregations. Would you say that this is a marker of flourishing? And of course there'll be varied responses to that question, 
but it's the kind of nuance and complexity that I think is important to give attention to in dealing with this question. The second thing I would say is that 
no church flourishes in every way, and few churches are without flourishing in some way. And this, we learned early on in our research, is really, I think, 
insightful, because sometimes we have this perception that larger churches or ones that are growing must have everything working for them. And I think there's 
many examples and points of evidence where this isn't true. And likewise, and maybe more to the point, particularly for smaller congregations, this sense that, 
well, do we have any sign of flourishing within our congregational context? And one of the things we unpack in our research is that there might be, and indeed 
in many cases are areas of flourishing in these eleven different areas that you see within the construct on the right hand side of your screen. The final 
thing I'll say here is that these dimensions that you see before you are not mutually exclusive. There's points of overlap between them and there's different 
points of emphasis within these different areas depending on theological sector. That is, a Catholic or an Anglican or a Nazarene or Alliance or Pentecostal, 
Salvation Army and so forth might emphasize different areas of this construct as particularly Scalian or of interest. For one's definition of flourishing. 
I think that's really important to keep in mind. This is not a one size fits all narrative. Theology matters, and theology shapes what we ultimately 
deem to be important. And so with that as a bit of a pretext, I want to lean into ideas of innovation within organizational ethos and then move to the 
outward dimension and look at areas of neighborhood involvement and evangelism. So looking at flourishing and innovation, when we speak of innovation, 
we are referring to the idea that a congregation introduces something new or alters something that is already established. And I think there's a really 
timely topic during the pandemic because all congregations, whether they wanted to or not, were basically forced into the position to innovate. And there 
are a range of successes or failures, if you will, in attempts to innovate. But there has been an introduction of something new, ie. Going online in various 
forms along with other ministry areas, but also altering something new that has already been established. And one of the things that we learned in our 
research, of course, pre pandemic, is many different areas and examples of congregations that are flourishing where they were innovating, they were dreaming, 
they were trying new things, they were experimenting with a variety of different initiatives. And what was important to this group is that they did not 
interpret failure as failure, but rather they interpreted different initiatives or quote unquote, failures, if you will, as feeds for new ideas. That is, 
what do we learn from this attempt at something new that maybe didn't work out as we anticipated, and how did that actually contribute to the next new idea 
or area of innovation that contributed to what we have found and experienced within a congregation's life? And I find this image before us of a boat and 
water is quite helpful that we heard some church leaders talk about this metaphor of getting out of the boat. What does it mean to get out of the boat, to 
take risks, to innovate and to try something new unsure and uncertain of what the outcome might be of taking that step of faith. And a repeated narrative 
among congregations that are flourishing is that we consistently stepped out of the boat, we tried something new and we innovated and found a range of 
experiences on the other end of that experience. So have this metaphor in the background. And as we looked at some of our survey data and again, this 
survey data comes from over 250 Catholic, mainline and conservative Protestant churches in all 13 provinces and territories across Canada, over 9100 
respondents, both leaders and congregants, but mostly congregants here. So we'll present some of that data. You'll see some comparisons here between 
congregations believed to be growing, staying the same or declining. And I want to state here that I am not inferring that just because you're growing, 
you are flourishing, or if you're declining, you're not flourishing. Yet, when you look at the statistical data and compare among a variety of variables, 
this is consistently one of the strongest differentiators between different types of congregational contexts. And so I use this for hopefully a helpful 
lens to compare different group contexts. So here's one of the questions we asked on our survey. Which of the following best describes your congregation? 
Are you resistant to change, reluctant to change, ready and willing to change, or resilience in change? And what you find when you compare congregations 
beliefs to be growing relative to those who are declining is that they're far more likely to say that they're ready and willing to change or resilient in 
change. Over 80% among growing congregations versus 44% among declining congregations. Now, this alone does not mean that a congregation is flourishing 
and this alone does not mean that innovation has worked or what the particulars are of what that innovation entails within a congregational setting. But 
it does reveal a particular posture, if you will. It is a way of thinking as an organization and individuals within that congregation that matters, that 
can set the context by which congregations take those steps forward. And so it's important for leaders to pay attention to what is the appetite, if you 
will, the temperature among our congregation for their level of readiness for change, because that sets the foreground for how much change you might 
actually lean into and the level of potential reception among congregants within one setting. So there is something that seems to be distinct within 
growing context in this respect. We also ask this question again, this is pre pandemic. If a person was away from your parish for congregation for 
three years and then came back, to what extent might they notice changes and how things are done? And again, you'll find within growing context far 
more likely to say that you would find many noticeable changes, 35% versus 19% in declining context, and then more similarity, a few noticeable 
changes, 56% growing to 61% and staying the same, and 51% and a few noticeable changes. Now what I haven't done here, and we do in our book A 
Signs of Life, is we provide some different examples of different kinds of changes. And it's somewhat beside my core point here, because innovation 
looks different in different church contexts and what might be innovated in church A will not necessarily be innovative in church B because the 
context is different based on who is within that congregation, the neighborhood context, the history of that church and so forth. So it's important to 
pay attention to those things. But again, the underlying idea is that an openness to change, an openness to innovation and then actually stepping into 
some of those areas is potentially important. It needs to be stated, however, that not all change is good. And I think it's wise for local church leaders 
and congregations to pay attention to what are the elements of tradition, the elements of what has made us to who we are today that is significant for 
who we are. Becoming moving forward such that we're not just kind of changing all things just because but rather asking the question, how might our core 
identity, the things that we are called to be and do as a congregation for this? Time and this place shaping and informing the areas by which we might 
innovate moving forward all the while giving attention to the things that we might hold on to moving forward. So it's not just that innovation in and of 
itself is inherently good or better, full stop, but it's giving measured entrances into this area and dynamic. And so some questions that I would put 
forward that are intended to help local church leaders think about and perhaps contextualize these things within their own setting.
And I'll say that at the end of each chapter in Signs of Light, we provide different questions that would help churches and their boards and 
ministry leaders to reflect on particular questions, but also to have a few questions whereby you can actually kind of do a mini little survey 
of your own congregation to test some of these things out. So that's the spirit or intent of posing these kinds of questions. So where are the 
opportunities for your church to experiment again relative to your core identity or vision? And here I think there's a number of things that we 
can think about and take tangible steps toward in light of COVID, depending on your perspective. Here is a wonderful opportunity for 
congregations to give attention to the areas with which they might branch out into some new areas of ministry of different forms and functions, 
of how ministry looks. And churches that are wise within this period will not waste this opportunity. There is no time or space to grumble over 
the last year and whatever lay ahead of us. For congregations who aspired to flourish, the space that has opened up is to say how can we see this 
as an opportunity to actually leverage the ways in which we are ministering to, those that we have been called to minister to. And so maybe those are 
online activities, maybe it's reframing the content or the focus of our weekly liturgy. Yes, many of us are doing this because we need to, given 
regional restrictions and so forth. But the larger question is what will this look like and mean for our weekly liturgy coming out of the pandemic?
 We include a post script in our book and we title it but there is no returning to normal, right? There is no going back for congregations, whatever 
you conceptualize as normal pre pandemic, that will be the last time you saw and experience that. And it's important for congregations to name 
that and potentially to grieve the losses were understandably. So those losses exist. But to have an eye forward, to say, okay, what will the new 
form of us look like, whatever that is. And that might involve adaptations to what our weekly liturgies look like. Congregant care. I think one of 
the things some congregations experienced early on in the pandemic is pastoral care and congregate care spreading out across the congregation so that 
congregants are calling one another rather than saying, actually, Pastor, this is your job now. You need to call all 100 people or 50 people or 
300 people or what have you within our congregation. What does it look like to re envision and equip and empower the lady to minister among and for 
one another within church settings, midweek community gatherings, of course, there's conventional ideas of small group settings and so forth. There's 
also the informal gatherings of meeting up in people's backyards and around a fire pit and parking lot meetups and all these kinds of things. But I 
think there's some distinct opportunities. I know in our own church context here have leveraged the opportunity for food trucks and our parking lots 
within all the standard local regional restrictions, et cetera, but has been a great community opportunity to interact with members in our community. 
So these are just examples, but really the question for all of us to consider is where might our church actually experiment relative to our core 
identity and vision? A second question and opportunity is to imagine the new and imaginative on ramps for people to be connected or get involved. How 
do people who first intersect with our congregational settings actually become more involved over the course of time? And in particular right now, those 
who are watching online services. I hear some church leaders are quite excited and perhaps rightly so, about those who are watching their services from 
afar and they see sort of their numbers going up based on the number of views. And I think we need to hold those numbers with a high degree of caution. 
There's lots within the analytics that would help us to better understand what that data actually means or not. But I think the question is how do we 
invite those who are watching online into deeper levels of connection and involvement with one's congregation. And I think congregations who are giving 
attention to that, who are providing some tangible structures and processes and steps to draw people in, will be quite prudent, not just now, but also 
after the pandemic. And we have lots of research prior to the pandemic that congregations who are flourishing in part have some clear structures and 
processes to help toward this end. One final question regarding innovation is how might board and finance decisions help to equip and or empower staff 
and lay leaders to try new initiatives? There's nothing worse for leaders to have ideas and to be told by its congregation or ministry leaders, et 
cetera, to yes, go try these new ideas, but you're not actually resourced for success. And so this raises the possibilities of decisions both at a 
board level or finance level to provide some fuel to the fire, how are we going to set you up for success? And with that, what areas might we say, we're 
actually going to turn our attention away from this and over to this, but we might actually reallocate some of our funding or human resources, et cetera, 
to actually help create a good possibility for success within a particular area. So some questions that hopefully will be helpful to congregations as 
they think about the ways in which innovation might actually come to pass within their setting. A second area that I want to look at here pertains to 
the neighborhood. And more than any other topic in our conversation with church leaders across the country, this one arose in this way that if your 
church is not involved in its community or neighborhood, many leaders of flourishing congregations would say you cannot actually flourish. In other 
words, you could do all these other things that we talk about within that larger construct. But if you're not doing this one thing, then this is a 
significant opportunity with which congregations ought to think about. And here we often heard this question, and I suspect that many of you have heard 
this, maybe you've raised this in your own setting. Would our neighborhood notice if we were no longer here? And it's a dangerous question to ask. It's an 
honest question. And as a social scientist, it's a question that we need to ask. We need to look in the mirror and ask that question and answer the question 
honestly to give us a point of departure by which we actually engage within the community around. In a few moments we'll look at evangelism. But as a 
pretext for looking at evangelism, I think this conversation of engaging one's neighborhood is an important one to also thinking about and leveraging 
that conversation on evangelism as well. And so we asked some questions in our survey here. We asked their level of agreement on this statement. Your 
parish or congregation has an active presence in the wider community, and here you find 74%. Among those in growing contexts say that their churches 
have an active presence in the community versus 50% within a declining congregational setting. Again, we think there are some clear differences 
between growing and declining contexts in this respect, and you always have to think about these things relative to a series of other variables. 
In other words, you can't just look at this single question or the single topic of neighborhood to capture the total sum of flourishing, but it can 
be an important marker in one area of flourishing in congregations. Like, we then asked survey respondents whether they believe that their 
neighborhood would notice if they were no longer there. And here you find 80% in growing context versus 68% in declining context, say that they 
strongly agree or agree with that particular statement. Now, if we're going to be completely honest, as social scientists hopefully are, as we 
lean into this data, we would say, and we would expect that many who are attending congregations want to think the best of themselves. We want to 
have positive self evaluations that of course our neighborhood would notice if we were no longer here. It is quite another thing to actually go 
and talk to one's neighbors. So if you were to do this in your own context, if you were to actually go to the local businesses and homeowners and 
those who live in different condos and so forth and ask them, tell me, what do you think about I'll use my own church example Skyview Community 
Church. And then, Azarine, what do you think about Skyview? Have you heard of them? Are your thoughts generally positive, negative, neutral, et 
cetera? It would be interesting to do that kind of study and then compare that with what church leaders say and to what extent do those data 
points align or not. I think that latter question is actually the more interesting one. And our research team with a group of scholars across the 
country are charting out in the 19th in the future to do some in depth case studies with churches across the country. And part of our intention, 
pre COVID, was to actually incorporate this kind of question where you could go around your neighborhood and ask some of these questions. And so 
we'll see if we can tap into some of this data. But I think that is an important thing. We can't just look at our self assessment. We need to 
actually talk to our neighbors, engage their thoughts and experiences of one's congregation in the community. We heard lots of fascinating examples 
of churches who were trying to make a positive impact in their neighborhood. And this is just a sampling of those. One church shared with us that 
they partake in the Eucharist every single week. And when people partake in the Eucharist, when they come to the table, they bring each individual or 
family will bring fresh fruit and vegetables and put it in a basket beside the Eucharist table. And it's a reminder both that they come to the table 
with a sense of abundance, but also in an act of generosity, that we want to give this fresh fruit and vegetable in their context to families in need 
within their community around. And so this is a weekly practice as they engage their community. Another congregation engaging university students 
in their neighborhoods. They asked university students in their neighborhood what it is that they wanted or needed. And they talked about they want 
a space to study, and they want good food. And so once a week, this church puts on an event for university students to come together and eat and 
hang out with one another and study community gardens. We hear more and more stories of this. One church shares stories of local university students 
who designed a community garden, and all the produce was donated to recent immigrants in the family. And then more recently, this is actually just 
during the pandemic, a congregation that provided what they called a weeping tree. And so during the season of Lent, neighbors in the community could 
write out the things that they were lamenting, and they would write those things down on a ribbon, and they would hang it on this tree. And during 
the period of Lent, this tree out in the neighborhood for that community was filled with the lament of members of that community. And then that church 
prayed each week for the different areas of lament. So, again, just different ideas and examples of innovation, if you will, for engaging the 
community. So some questions, some opportunities to give consideration to. Many of you will be familiar with what I'll put our own, sort of the 
broad tent, James Watson and his fantastic work in community based work and many different examples out of his work and some others that we unpack 
within our research on opportunities for tangible actions and next steps and partnerships to engage in one's neighborhood. And so these are some 
possibilities, in your own context, of what does it look like to just walk the neighbor of it? What do you learn by walking the neighborhoods? There 
was a fascinating study by Geographers a number of years ago where they were interviewing church leaders, and they asked them to draw a picture of their 
neighborhood. And it was fascinating to see how in some contexts, those who knew their neighborhood quite well were very detailed and accurate in 
depicting the particular cornerstone. And here's where Mrs. Jones lives and so forth, and others who are wildly inaccurate on what was in their 
neighborhood or community and their drawing. So just walking the neighborhood can open our eyes to who and what exists within our community of 
actually talking with neighbors. What does it look like to talk with our neighbors, to learn about who lives there, to learn about their needs, 
their areas of interest, and so forth, of reading local newsletters, finding out what are the topics of issues of interest and so forth within our 
community of learning the demographics of the community. And we provide some resources and tools and signs of life that can help congregations to do 
that. So do you know what are the age demographics? When you look at ethnicity, when you look at socioeconomic status, gender, family type and so 
forth, these fairly basic entrance points to learning about one's community can be quite powerful and significant to then take some next steps. 
And then finally, and there are many other ideas, to be sure, hosting roundtables some congregations who are inviting different stakeholders within 
the community. Leaders from local schools and libraries and police force and businesses and restaurants and so forth. Coming together to talk 
about what are the things we love about our community, what are the things that are working well, what are the areas of concern? What are people 
already doing in response to some of those concerns? And how can we explore partnerships? So, different examples, ways of engaging one's own neighborhood, 
and then finally, the topic of evangelism. And this builds in some broad respects on neighborhood engagement, but they are distinct areas. We know 
that congregations grow in one of three ways. One is transfer growth. Either people leaving one church to go to another church within the same city 
or town. This also includes people who move, say, from Calgary to Toronto. If I attend my church here in Calgary now I moved to Toronto and I'm 
looking for a church there, there's another type of transfer growth. And also we would include in this category those who immigrate. So those who 
immigrate who are attending a church in a different country before coming to Canada, who then are looking for a church here in Canada. And we know 
that immigration certainly is fueling much of the life and vitality in Catholic and evangelical contexts in particular. Second, you have births 
and retention. So those who have children and more children, it's a fantastic church growth strategy as you have a lot of children and you actually 
retain them. This is another form of church growth. And then third is conversion. And this intersects with the topic of evangelism. We know as 
Sarah Wilkins, Will Flame and I talked about it in None of the Above that religious nons, those who say they have no religion, is the fastest growing 
religious group in Canada and many modern western nations today, a quarter of Canadian adults and a third of Canadian teens. And this is really 
the wheelhouse of this conversation, I would say of evangelism, that if we want to do evangelism well, we need to understand those who say they have 
no religion. How do they see the world? What's their background, how they view religion and spirituality, broadly speaking? And so, None of the Above 
is a book that really charts some of those data points and answers a number of those questions in our work on congregations in return to the 
congregational survey, we do ask questions about evangelism, and we try to unpack a myriad of questions related to how important evangelism is. 
Do people evangelize? In what forms? And so forth. So this question, our congregation, gives a high or essential priority to evangelism. 
Comparing between growing and declining context on the far left hand side, you find that 37% of those in growing contexts give a high or 
essential priority versus 17% within declining context on the far right hand side. And I would say quite important to note is the neutral or 
unsure responses ranging from 22% to 29%. Sometimes we too quickly dismiss these neutral or unsure categories. We infer that, well, they don't 
really know they're unsure and so that's not really helpful data to us. And yet, as a social scientist, I would say it's quite helpful data on 
this question because if congregants are telling us that they're neutral or unsure on this question of whether a congregation gives a higher 
essential priority to evangelism, if nothing else, it probably tells us that at the very least, evangelism is not a high priority. In other words, 
if you can't discern if evangelism is a high priority within your congregation, this probably is one indicator that it likely is not a high or 
essential priority within a congregational setting. Another way of putting this is if you think evangelism ought to be an important priority 
within your congregation, to what extent is this front and center among the various activities within one's congregational life? And it seems 
to be as kind of an initial prong here that those in growing context seem to be more likely to give a high or essential priority to evangelism.
Second, we asked individuals about different ways in which they evangelized, if you will. And I'll say right off the bat, we're just about to release 
a version 2.0 of our survey and we very much broadened this particular area of the survey if you look at many other ways by which individuals might 
evangelize. But these three initial barometers I think, give us a bit of a touch point for engaging this. So this captures data on individuals who 
do this monthly or more. So I show my faith to non Christians, and this is with the pretext or the idea that this might actually invite a person 
into a deeper faith with Jesus or into Christian faith or community. So 95% say that monthly or more they show their faith to others. So an example 
is I shovel my neighbor's walk. My neighbor is 92 years old. And so I'm showing my faith with the idea or hope that this is a tangible expression 
of the gospel and perhaps it might serve as an avenue by which they might notice those things, potentially ask me about my faith and an opportunity 
to potentially, in the second context here, actually share my faith. Those who verbally share their faith with nonchristians, it's a more assertive 
form, if you will, of sharing one's faith, of proclaiming the Good News, if you will. And then third, inviting non Christians to one's church. We see 
it. 17%. This isn't perfect per se in terms of thinking of this along a continuum, but you might think of showing one's faith as the most passive 
form of evangelism. And inviting someone to one's church is perhaps the most assertive form by which one might show their faith. And what I would say, 
not just from this data, but other research as well in Canada, is that there is, generally speaking, an aversion to more assertive forms of evangelism 
for all kinds of social and cultural and historical reasons. That we are far more comfortable doing these more passive forms of evangelism. That I could 
be a good, nice, kind, tolerant person, if you will, to those around me, hoping that they maybe ask me why I'm kind and generous and so forth. And then 
this is my opportunity to share one's faith. And I'm not convinced, looking at the data, hearing lots of anecdotal stories in various contexts across 
the country, I'm not convinced that this is a particularly effective form of evangelism. If you just think in your own experiences, the last time 
someone asked you why you were a kind or pleasant person, why you did these nice things for them or for others as a gateway for evangelism, per se. 
And so there is a variation here. I will also note when it comes to inviting a person to one's church, that we know that this is one of the lead 
catalysts for people who actually connect to a faith community. Now, attending church is not the total sum of joining a faith community per se, 
but it is one marker. And we know that personal invitation from family and friends is the number one catalyst for a person to actually join a 
religious community. We then asked individuals to highlight for us the greatest challenges for them personally in evangelism. And here you see the 
top five things. We gave a long list. We we asked them to identify the top three challenges, and here are the top five lack of confidence, 42% 
increased antagonism or resistance to Christian values, and the Christian church, 34% fear of rejection, 29% few nonbelievers as friends, 25% and 
lack of training. 23%. If I were leading a church, and I'm not I'm not a pastor, I'm not a clergy member, I'm a social scientist. But if I were leading 
a church, I would look at this kind of data and ask myself the question what are the areas whereby I, as a leader and us as a congregation, can help 
equip and empower those within our congregation in areas whereby they find evangelism challenging? When it comes to lack of confidence, for example, 
lack of training, how do we actually equip and empower members in our community toward this end? So this is where I think data can help to inform some 
of the practices within a local church setting. And so the last thing I want to say, and then we'll open it up for some questions and conversation when 
it comes to one's own congregation, if evangelism is particularly important or we aspire for it to be important, how central is evangelism within one's 
congregation? Going back to that first survey question earlier on, in terms of how much priority do we actually give to it? How much airtime does it 
receive within the different ministry areas of our congregation? To what extent do we teach on it? And here we're not just talking about frequency, 
but we're talking about the content. What is the basis by which we frame and talk about evangelism? So if I'm thinking of a sociologist of religion in 
Canada, I'm talking about the growth of those who say they have no religion in Canada. That we can't take for granted that my neighbor or my coworker 
knows anything about the Christian gospel or message, unlike previous generations, who at least, more than likely have some degree of familiarity 
within that setting. So we're talking about a different starting point altogether. How do we actually equip people for evangelism? And this points to 
the recent slide and data on the barriers and challenges that people experience. How are we actually equipping people toward that end? What opportunities 
are there for evangelism? Some congregations are working with something like Alpha or other programs like that that provide opportunities for 
congregations to come together in a concerted effort toward evangelism within their social sphere, their neighbors, their coworkers, their family 
and friends and so forth. They can actually rally people together. This might involve things like block parties. If we talk about neighborhood, what 
does it look like for my wife and I to host a big block party in our neighborhood and community? And this is something we're giving consideration to 
when the pandemic is over, to host a massive block party and to make it an annual type thing. How do we do these things with an eye towards ongoing 
fostering of relationships with our neighbors whereby evangelism is certainly part of it, but it's not the total sum. These opportunities, I think, 
are significant celebrations. To what extent do we celebrate those who are new to the faith community? Some congregations will do this in and through 
sharing stories and testimonies those who are new to the faith. And this serves a powerful sociological function, both for the new convert, but also 
for the rest of the faith community, because it sometimes can awaken things in us that we perhaps forgot about when we were new to the faith. It 
awakens the sense of urgency and life transformation that happens for those who have come to faith that might ask this question of to what extent 
might I participate in these things in my community around? And then finally, measurements. Whether you like measurements or not, it is one 
barometer for assessing both how central evangelism or any of these other markers are, but then how effective we are. And so if the ledger sheet, 
so to speak, has a consistent flat line in terms of like zero new converts or new baptisms or what have you, then what might we do in response to 
that data relative to our evangelistic efforts? And so in our chapter and evangelism, we talk about some ideas and provide some resources that might 
be helpful toward that end. So to conclude, many different areas one could think about in terms of life and vitality within Canadian congregations. 
But my goal and my intention here is that data would inform practice. That data is not something to be feared, but it's actually something to be embraced 
within the right context. And hopefully some of our work at the Institute and some of our other research would be helpful to local church leaders 
for the sake of congregations who are seeking to flourish within the things they believe God is calling them to do and to be. So I will stop there 
and happy to open it up for some questions and conversation. 

Thank you, Joel, for that excellent presentation. You've given us a lot to think about, and I'll just remind you, if you have any questions, to put them 
in the chat, and I'll keep an eye on that. First, I wanted to just start off, though,  by asking you talk about innovation, and you're an expert on Canada,
right. And the Canadian sort of context and culture. Is there a bit of an anti innovation kind of maybe our Canadian is not as innovative as others, 
especially thinking of American culture, which tends to be more entrepreneurial. 
People will talk about the frontier mentality, and I remember Northrop Frye comparing Canada and America said, Americans have a frontier mentality, 
Canadians have a garrison mentality. We just want to get into the fort and hunker down. Right. Do you think that's the case? And do you see that in 
your research on Canadian churches? Yeah, I think there's an element of truth to that. And this is partially a reflection of the different 
expressions of religion in both countries. So, for example, evangelicalism is much larger in the United States than it is in Canada. Right. 
Canada is dominated by more mainline Protestant traditions and Catholicism that, generally speaking, are not known for innovation, for being 
on the frontier entrepreneurial context. So I think there's an element of that. What is interesting in our research is that innovation is often 
spurred when groups have their back against the wall. I e. Our numbers are dwindling. Like, if we don't do something, we're actually going to 
close or we're going to have to shut down these kinds of things. And for some, that has been the best thing for them because they've had to try 
just throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and see what sticks. And while that isn't necessarily my advice, for the best pathway towards flourishing. 
It can be effective for some because they have nothing left to lose. And so we have seen different areas of flourishing in that respect.
Okay, thank you very much. 

We have a question from Jane Peck and she asks what are some examples of on ramps for people moving from online 
viewing to deeper levels of involvement? Have you encountered any of those? Yeah, great question. So some congregations are providing opportunities 
to meet with other pastors and clergy or newcomers from one's church. So, for example, hey, we're thrilled all of you have joined us for this service. 
One of the things we're really interested in this church is helping people to learn more about some of our pastors. Those on staff meet some of the 
others in our congregation. And so this Wednesday night, we're going to gather on Zoom with those of you who are joining. So it's an explicit 
invitation. This is comparable to churches in an in person context who might have like a monthly newcomers gathering. So on the last Sunday, 
we're going to have a potluck for anyone who is new to our church and wants to learn a bit more about us, for us to learn a bit more about you, 
those kinds of things to explicitly name that. We want those who associate with this congregation to become more involved. That actually we don't 
want to encourage a passive form of observance, what sociologists of religion call free writers. And this isn't intended in a pejorative way, but 
basically people who are just consuming but not contributing. And so we'll actually name that and then provide opportunities for we've got some 
midweek gatherings in these different areas and so we'd like to encourage you to join in for one of those things. So those would be different 
examples of explicitly naming that. We actually want people to be actively involved, and here's why we think that's beneficial. And then to provide 
an opportunity, whether it's meeting with clergy, meeting with other members, or it might be through volunteering. So some will say we're doing more 
of this tech related stuff right now. We're looking for people who have skills in these different areas. And maybe this is like your third time joining 
us and maybe you have some expertise that volunteering can be a primary avenue to actually get to know others with anyone's congregational community 
and become more involved. So a few examples anyways, that I've seen or heard during the pandemic and before. Great, thank you. 

There's no one else  asking anything right now, so if anyone has something, please feel free to post it, but I'll throw out another one. 
The meaning of neighborhood is  an interesting question and it varies, right, if you're comparing a small town in a rural context versus an 
older part of a big city versus a suburban  sort of environment, right? So I'm thinking particularly where tyndale is and the sort of inner 
suburbs of Toronto. They don't have much of a neighborhood  feel, right. The streets, the urban planning, the major arteries are designed more 
like highways than anything else. And people don't live with much of a sense of neighborhood because it's not laid out that way. They drive everywhere 
and so forth. And so sometimes also churches in those contexts mimic the ethos around. Right. So you have people driving from all over who don't live 
in the neighborhood. And so there's this ongoing discussion, right, in church leadership. Okay, what do you do then? Do you try to refocus your church 
on the physical neighborhood where your building is, but then you're sort of fighting against the whole way everything is designed and the way people
live their lives, but maybe that's the best way. Or do you encourage people to engage their own neighborhoods wherever they are? Or what are you seeing
in that respect? And what's your gut tell you  as a social science researcher? Yeah, we deal with all these scenarios in our chapter on this subject 
because this is the lived experience with so  much variety. So the short answer is all of the above. Right. So this is a combination of the physical
neighborhood that I personally live in, as  well as the physical neighborhood around the church building. If it's located within a particular neighborhood 
that warrants that kind of engagement,  this is a challenge. This is a shifting reality, particularly in large urban centers where people are commuting
further and further away to the  churches that they attend because of the different choices that are available to them or where their particular
denominational allegiances lay  and where the closest church might be in that context. And it does reflect, and I don't mean this again in a pejorative
way a bit of the consumerist  or individualist narrative that we have within society that I'll actually drive by this church and my denomination to get
to the next one in my denomination because I like that one better for a variety of reasons. So you have that, and then you have others who are definitely
moving towards  more of a parish mentality. That is, we actually want people to be embedded in this physical community, and we want people to attend this church 
who live in this community, and we want to collectively partner together to impact this community. In other words, some churches will actively 
discourage people who are driving more than ten minutes away from attending this particular church because of the particular ethos that they're 
trying to engage. So I think you see all of those things in play. I think what's important for churches to do is to clearly articulate what they 
mean by neighborhood for their particular setting, and then to intentionally seek out what it means to positively impact that neighborhood, 
whether it's around the church building where congregants live or a combination thereof. And of course, the strategies are different, right. If 
you live in a high rise condo in downtown Toronto, for example, that will look very differently than if you're in the suburbs and so forth. So 
giving attention to those particularities. Very good. Thank you. 

We've got a couple of questions. Come in now. Bob Ward asks, did you find 
organizational ethos from your pie chart had an overriding positive, negative or neutral impact on evangelism and innovation? Yeah, I would say the 
key dynamic within organizational ethos pertains to structures and processes, and I didn't go through those earlier. But structures and processes 
means that there's a degree of intentionality and there's a clear system by which we draw people into these particular areas, whether it's innovation 
or evangelism that is, evangelism is important. Here are some specific steps that we're taking to help equipment and power, and here are the particular 
initiatives that we're taking as a church to evangelize. So that's what I mean by structures and processes, that those things are particularly key. 
And I would say this overall actually for flourishing, that few churches flourish by accidents, that churches almost always flourish with a high 
degree of intentionality, that we are intentionally pursuing these things and we seek to align the dots, the structures and processes that help us 
to get from A to Z, however defined, on different areas. And that is one of the recurring threads that ties these groups together. As a social 
scientist, I would say congregations are human organizations. They are run by humans, they are guided by human interests and human decisions, et 
cetera. And yes, theologically there are all kinds of things that we do and we believe relative to prayer and the work of God and the Spirit of 
God and so forth. But these things are also running in parallel tracks to what we do as humans, as a human organization. And that's where I think 
those structures and processes are particularly important. And it's important to have leaders who think in those kinds of ways. And it doesn't mean 
that your senior leader needs to do all of those things or think in that way. But if that is the case, it means you need to surround that leader with 
others in leadership who do think that way, so that you can help to align the dots so that there's a clear synergy that moves in that kind of 
direction on any of those topics, whether it's evangelism, innovation or so forth. Very good. And I would say that's a way Wesley in insight, because 
when we look at early Methodism and what separated from other revival moments at the time, right, is that they were organized and there were other 
preachers who were better than John Wesley, there were other revivals that were more dramatic. But Methodism had a lasting impact because of the 
structures they put in place. So it's not to think of things like prayer and the work of the Spirit as opposed to organization and structure, that 
God can use those things. 

Karen Heft is asking, as we move to healing treated relationships with our indigenous nations in Canada, have you seen 
much on how we change the words of conversion to more of journey or circular language that Wesley was known for? And how can we, as a church 
congregations participate in this journey? Yeah, great question. Language comes with baggage in a variety of contexts, and this is certainly 
one of those contexts, and I certainly hear many different church environments using different language, whether it's journey, whether it's kind 
of on a shared path together, doing life together. There's all kinds of synonyms. I don't mean to dismiss the question or the particular language, 
but at the end of the day, we are talking about a similar phenomena, but it's different language to capture it in ways that are more understandably. 
So given the social context here in Canada with indigenous communities, that the language might be different, but the same kind of undercurrent is 
still present. Now, there's a much larger question to be asked there than what does it actually look like to engage in relationship with people 
potentially for the purposes of evangelism, but maybe to the exclusion of evangelism as well? And there's some really good writing that's coming 
out these days that engages that question. What is the purpose for being in relationship with others? Full stop, with relationship with my neighbors, 
with indigenous communities, with whatever the different type of community in question is. And while, yes, there might be a narrative of evangelism, 
and this is where theology matters greatly, how do we theologize about evangelism? What is it? What is the end goal? What are the intermediate steps, 
et cetera? Because that profoundly impacts practice of how I think about what I'm doing when I'm talking with my neighbors, when I'm having people in 
my home for dinner, like all those kinds of things. I think that's probably the stronger undercurrent. And what happens when it seems like a person is 
potentially not going to join our religious group or isn't going to take steps closer toward the personal relationship with Jesus to be quite sort of 
evangelical or orthodox in how that's understood? I think those are some of the larger questions. But absolutely, language matters in terms of how we 
frame those things. And I think some are moving away from even the language of evangelism because that comes with its own baggage or conversion. So 
those things are out there. But I still think as a social scientist, the underlying phenomena is fairly similar regardless of the language that's being used.

Thank you. According to schedule, our time is up. I do have two more questions, which, Joel, I don't know if you mind answering them. If people want to leave 
and take their full 15 minutes break, please feel free to do so. But we'll just take up these two more questions for those who want to stay and listen. 
Ellie has asked, do you have data on homogeneous cultural subgroup trying to engage in a different cultural environment. And Pastor Ellie is a pastor of 
a Filipino Methodist church, so I know that's why he's interested in that question. Yeah, lots of really good research coming out on this, 
particularly in the United States and a little bit in Canada. There's so many directions to go here. I suppose the short answer from data is 
that the most effective form for engaging different cultural communities is including different voices within positions of leadership and then 
trickling through different aspects of congregational light so that it avoids sort of that classic missionary posture of us coming to help you 
and a very kind of strong line between the two. What does it look like to facilitate and foster relationships with people of different communities 
and then including those voices in leadership discussions and in different leadership activities? And this just sounds simplistic, and I don't 
mean for it to come across simplistically, but this does grow out of personal relationships that people have. So to what extent do we know those 
in our neighborhood or community? Like, go to the local restaurant and get to know folks who are running that restaurant or the local business 
within the neighborhood or within one physical neighborhood they live in, having people order for dinner from different cultural communities and 
contexts, et cetera. I think it grows out of those personal relationships first and foremost that can help to bridge a gateway or pathway to be trusted 
and to be known and sharing over food. This is a common conduit, if you will, for fostering those relationships. But the leadership piece is key, 
particularly as groups seek to become more multiethnic and multiracial in its configuration. And it has just a ripple effect on the music that sung 
to the programs that are run, to who's making decisions for the congregation as a whole that these things are all pertinent. So, yeah, that's 
probably a short and too simplistic response. There is a lot of data, we do cite a bunch of that data in our chapter on diversity that would be 
quite helpful on that front. So a good plug for the book there to pick up that copy. And Tabitha did list it in the chat here a little earlier. 

Last question. It seems Zoom this is Dennis Chadwick. It seems Zoom has the potential to take us back to the days of circuit or our tinerant preachers. 
But there does seem to be a preference for local people to gather virtually locally, even though they can tune into services all over the world. 
Is this inward looking comfortable or something more being expressed here? Yeah, correct me if I haven't understood the question correctly here, 
but I think there is actually sorry, can I just need you to repeat the question, James, or just clarify? Sure. Well, I think since we're late on 
time, I won't ask him to come on and explain, but I think what he's saying is even though we can tune in the services anywhere, people still seem 
to prefer to tune into their local church. Right. And so what's going on there? I guess that's what's behind that, I guess, is this question.
Yeah, that's great. That's helpful. Thank you. I think there's something about the personal social ties within one's local community. There's 
a sense of familiarity and progressively embedding oneself within their life. And I haven't done research on this. Maybe there's research out 
there, but I imagine that most who are tuning into churches from afar who might, may or may not be plugged into a local congregation, are obviously 
doing so for the preaching or the music or what have you, that they aren't doing so for the sake of community. And there's a very distinct reality 
that's present within those settings. I think those who are doing so local. There is that community piece that is one of the central hubs that draws 
people together. It's one of the reasons we see within that Angus Reid survey that I noted earlier, why people are continuing to plug in, by and 
large, throughout the pandemic. Here why I think people will return. By and large, there are always exceptions to in person services when they're 
able to. There is that value for community and that watching services from afar is either augmenting for some what they're already doing. And there 
is data in that Hanga Street study that shows that what people are doing in their local setting, that they're also tuning into some of these other 
groups. And then you do have that fraction that the most extreme end are the most passive forms of engagement, as, if you will, with local churches 
by tracking from afar without any kind of local involvement, if you will. Yes, sir. I hope I've answered that somewhat sufficiently.
I think so. And thank you very much for your presentation, Joel. It's been wonderful and appreciate you being here, and you've given us a lot to think about. 
It's been a pleasure.


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