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 Tindale.
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 Peder 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 Pikes, 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 teasen as our keynote speaker today. Dr.
Teeson 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. Teeson 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 Teeson. 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 Slam 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 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 nuns, 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 Fry 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.