Flourishing Congregations

Flourishing Congregations in Atlantic Canada — Illusion and Reality

by Dr. Steve McMullin

When examining the health of our churches, some of us may believe it’s important to be successful and success is having a balanced budget or keeping our buildings well-maintained. Perhaps we think that having investment funds providing good financial returns means we are healthy, or that having people getting along and feeling like family is the mark of achievement. Others of us may believe our church is healthy if it is filled with “good” people, including respected professionals. There can be a tendency to measure a church’s health using worldly standards and, in my years of researching churches, I have witnessed this form of measurement often.

Today, I am thankful to be a member of a flourishing congregation. However, it wasn’t always that way. When I became the pastor in the summer of 1997, many things looked good. The mortar had just been repointed and the stained-class windows were being repaired. Proceeds from the recently sold parsonage had been invested. There were talented members and there was a wonderful sense of camaraderie in the congregation. However, the leaders recognized that the congregation was in trouble. Despite how well the organization was operating, the church did not believe they were carrying out their mission. The baptistery had seen little use, few from the local neighbourhood attended the church, and the budget had been balanced by reducing ministry and outreach programs. With an aging congregation, the church knew they would eventually have to close.

Three months after I began my ministry, the invested money had been spent and money was tight. However, members voted to increase the annual budget by almost 20% so that the church could focus on outreach initiatives, believing God would provide. People began to meet for concerted prayer that the church would reach others. By year’s end, nine new believers had been baptized and welcomed as church members.

During the next ten years, we never had a balanced budget and we lost many members (137 members died in those years). Yet, we fed the hungry and cared for those who needed friendship. We welcomed people with addictions and mental health challenges and dysfunctional families. We added a Community Outreach Pastor even though we didn’t know where we would get the funds to do so. There was a renewed focus on reading and studying the Bible. Nearly 200 new believers were baptized as we reached new people with the gospel, and our congregation outgrew its historic church building.

During those years, we saw lives transformed, and many new families began attending. But, to do what we believed God was calling us to do, we had to trust Him to a greater extent than we had before.

Too often, I think we believe that a healthy congregation is the one that has lots of money and well-maintained buildings, as well as emotionallyhealthy members who all agree with one another. From my research, I have found that congregations like this can easily fall into patterns that lead to decline. When we feel self-sufficient and talented, there is a danger of ceasing our dependence on God and, instead, focusing inwardly. We begin to focus on what members want instead of looking at those who are in great need all around our neighbourhoods. Instead of considering what God wants (which requires faith, confidence in the promises of the Bible, and love for our neighbours), we may tend to focus on what keeps the members of a congregation happy.

When that happens, people inside the church may be happy, but the mission to those outside of the church is not carried out. Some of the unhealthiest congregations have wonderful unity—because everyone is so similar they think the same way. However, that is not the unity of the Spirit. God’s Spirit brings unity among people who are very different from one another but who, with a deep Biblical understanding of the church’s mission, work together to move the church forward in the same direction. Some churches growing in numbers are unhealthy: the congregation that attracts the most unsatisfied members from other churches may be growing in numbers, but it may not be carrying out its Biblical mission, and it may even be harming other congregations.

A flourishing congregation is characterized by a willingness for adventure and change because genuine spiritual vitality continually produces new challenges for a church. When we welcome people with different backgrounds and different opinions, we must depend on the Holy Spirit to work together. When we love the people in our neighbourhood who do not know Christ and understand the urgency of the gospel, the church budget takes on a whole new meaning. It is not just about paying the bills; it is about faith and generosity and finding ways to make disciples. When congregations recognize that the need exceeds our earthly resources (and with billions of people in this world who don’t know Christ, the need always exceeds our resources), we are forced to depend on God’s grace instead of our wallets. As God provides the resources, he receives the glory instead of us.

If a church believes that the gospel will transform people, the congregation will reach out to everyone, including those whose lives seem unhealthy. That diversity results in a flourishing congregation in which the only common factor is our faith in God, experienced as a shared life in Christ and a unity of God’s Spirit. That diversity is also a witness of the power of the gospel to the surrounding community. A church made up of people with different backgrounds, different experiences, different opinions, and different economic situations could only be sustained as a loving, united congregation by the power of God.

To borrow language from the world of social work, many congregations choose a pathological approach when thinking about the church’s life. Their focus is, “How do we stop the decline?”, “How do we recruit good givers to replace those who are dying?”, or “How can we attract young people to our aging church?” Their starting point is what they lack—financial resources, young people, effective leaders, and children’s workers. Instead, to become a flourishing congregation, it’s important to have a strengths-based approach: “What has God already given to us that will empower us to carry out the Christian mission in our community?” God’s resources will always be sufficient, but it will require faith that at times it will stretch us to think in new ways.

From a Biblical perspective, this means that for congregations to flourish they must be characterized by faith, hope, and love. Many congregations in Atlantic Canada are flourishing; they are accomplishing their mission by trusting God in new ways, by faithfully living according to the Bible’s teachings, and by loving God and loving their neighbours as themselves. This is a time of great change in our society, and God is raising up congregations and leaders in Atlantic Canada so that the gospel will be proclaimed as he continues to build his church.

What is a FlourishingCongregation?

by Dr. Joel Thiessen

What is a flourishing congregation? This is a question that our research team at the Flourishing Congregations Institute is grappling with.

The answer? As we discovered during our interviews and focus groups with over 100 Canadian church and denominational leaders across Protestant and Catholic sectors … it depends. The answer is contingent, in part, on theological tradition. Distinct denominations stress various elements of Christianity, and thus define the markers of a flourishing congregation differently. For example, Baptists might accentuate evangelism while those in the United Church of Canada might stress diversity. Region also matters. If you live in a rural region with declining populations due to ageing, low birth rates, and migration away to other provinces, you likely think about congregational life differently than those in an urban center.

Congregations and denominations interact with their theologies and social contexts in diverse and complicated ways, which leads us to conclude that a single answer to the question at hand is neither an accurate or helpful way to proceed.

Of course, we do have some clues from our research to date, which include data from an ongoing national congregations survey. I will focus on three key insights. The first is that most (perhaps all) congregations are flourishing in some ways. Moreover, few (if any) congregations are flourishing in every way. When you think of your own congregation:

• Where do you see signs of life and vitality?

• What are the strengths of your church?

• What draws you and others to return to your church week after week?

Asking these questions of your leaders and congregants could be an excellent way to take the pulse of those in your congregation. The answer might be the hospitable community that you encounter with one another. It could be your leaders. Perhaps it is the meaningful discipleship that takes place, which could include excellent preaching, or music, or programs. Maybe it is the impact that your congregation has in the surrounding neighbourhood. Regardless of how you answer, our team has concluded that congregations have some areas where they see greater signs of flourishing than others, and that congregations should celebrate, accentuate, and build upon these strengths.

Second, there is a great debate about whether flourishing entails numerical growth. Can a congregation that remains the same size, or possibly declines in size, be considered a flourishing congregation? Many in our study believe there is a link between flourishing and numerical growth in attendance, membership, financial giving, baptisms, conversions, and so forth. From our survey data thus far, those who say their congregations are growing are most likely to also believe their congregations are flourishing. At the same time, we heard many times that congregations can flourish without growing numerically. For example, from our survey, 20% of those in declining congregations say their churches are flourishing. Here people tend to stress transformed lives – “even if our congregation is not growing, people’s lives are being changed and for us that is an important hallmark of flourishing.”

The discussion about numbers is a complex one. In one sense, if you don’t have numbers, you don’t have a viable and sustainable organization. Without bums in seats, and money in the offering plate, and volunteers to assist with the many good things that take place in a congregation, it is difficult for a congregation to thrive. As many Canadian congregations have experienced, the absence of human and financial resources means that churches close.

Still, there are countless examples of congregations that have massive budgets and thousands of people who attend each week, yet confront significant challenges of leadership scandals, hostile relationships among members, and neighbourhoods who experience no tangible benefits from these congregations. To complicate things further, the source of church growth might be interpreted differently, depending on your theological perspective. For instance, our survey data indicate that very few churches are growing due to new converts; growth occurs mainly because of transfer growth, either from one church to another, or from those who move from one city to another. Is this a sign of flourishing? The answer likely depends on who is answering and in what social context.

Third, several traits rose to the surface when we asked leaders and congregants to identify what they thought constitutes a flourishing congregation. We have analyzed that data to build our Flourishing Congregations Construct (available on our website at www.flourishingcongregations.org). We focus on three core domains with several dimensions (see graph below).

Beginning with Organizational Ethos, congregations benefit when they are clear on their identity, have leaders who develop and equip other leaders, experiment and try new initiatives, and have organizational structures and processes that help them accomplish the things they believe they are called to do and be in their specific context.

Internally, flourishing congregations prioritize robust and intentional discipleship practices, laity who are engaged in various facets of congregational life, hospitable communities where people are loved and cared for, and the involvement of people from diverse demographic backgrounds.

The Outward dimension involves congregations whose neighbourhoods would notice if they were no longer there, who emphasize and practice evangelism, and who partner with other organizations to strengthen their collective capacities to accomplish shared goals.

Again, congregations from different theological traditions place more emphasis on some of these traits over others. Which of these variables would you identify are integral to a flourishing congregation, and why? Where would you say your congregation is or is not flourishing in each of these dimensions?

So, what is a flourishing congregation? Perhaps you hoped to read about three things that you should do to help your church grow. Such an article might be interesting; however, there are many resources available already that try to deal with that task. I hope that this article helps clarify why the question of flourishing congregations is not as straightforward as most assume – and in the process, offers an accurate and honest engagement with what our team is hearing on the ground in congregations across Canada.

If you are interested in learning more about the research at the Flourishing Congregations Institute, or you wish to include your congregation in our national survey, visit us at www.flourishingcongregations.org or email us at flourishingcongregations@ambrose.edu.

Dr. Joel Thiessen is the Professor of Sociology and Director of the Flourishing Congregations Institute at Ambrose University. Check out his website at: www.joelthiessen.ca and follow him on Twitter: @joelthiessen.

Dr. Thiessen is the lecturer during the 2019 Simpson Lectures taking place at Acadia from February 11 to 13.