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Category: Congregation

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Congregational Flourishing in a Canadian Context

This video is part of the Maple Spirit Pulse video series from the Institute for Religion, Culture and Societal Futures (IRCSF) at the University of Waterloo. 

In this video, Joel Thiessen, Professor of Sociology, Chair of the Social Sciences department, and Director of the Flourishing Congregations Institute at Ambrose University, explains the concept of flourishing congregations, and what this phenomenon currently looks like in the Canadian context.Twenty participants from across Canada—12 denominational leaders and 8 CoVo pastors representing 17 different denominations—engaged in in-depth conversations about co-vocational ministry.

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Thriving Co-Vocational Congregations: Six Key Areas for Consideration by Pastors, Denominational Leaders, and Congregants

In the summer of 2025, Co-Vocational Canada launched a new study to better understand the characteristics of thriving co-vocational (CoVo) congregations in Canada. The term “co-vocational/co-vocationality” is here used as an umbrella term to reflect the lived experience of a pastor who is appointed to serve in a local church while also working in outside employment.

Twenty participants from across Canada—12 denominational leaders and 8 CoVo pastors representing 17 different denominations—engaged in in-depth conversations about co-vocational ministry.

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The Synergy of Faith Transmission: Connecting Home and Parish

Drawing on recent Canadian research, this blog explores the vital synergy of religious transmission between parents and congregations. By shifting from rigid instruction to a model of “gracious choice” and active participation, churches can provide the necessary scaffolding for the next generation to “believe, behave, and belong.”
Concerns of American annexation are not new to the Can-Am dynamic. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick seemed fated to become the 14th colony in the early days of the Revolutionary War (1776-1783). After Britain defeated France in the mid-1700s, the Acadian (French) inhabitants of those lands were deemed too French to occupy such valuable real estate. After the expulsion of the Acadians, the Crown invited interested colonists from the south to populate these regions with more loyal subjects.1 This was the birth of the Nova Scotia New Englanders—a group of people named for their new colonial location and their place of origin. When, just twenty years later, the members of the 13 colonies declared their independence from the British Crown, it seemed a natural fit for these former New Englanders to join the cause.

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Before the 51st State, there was the 14th Colony

Canada and America appear to be in a deteriorating relationship. When Donald Trump expressed an interest in making Canada America’s “51st State” near the end of 2024, an overwhelming amount of Canadians brought their “elbows up” in protest. The hockey term—meaning a player is on the ice to defend and bring physical violence to members of the opposing team—communicated a rejection of such a possibility in a very Canadian way.

Concerns of American annexation are not new to the Can-Am dynamic. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick seemed fated to become the 14th colony in the early days of the Revolutionary War (1776-1783). After Britain defeated France in the mid-1700s, the Acadian (French) inhabitants of those lands were deemed too French to occupy such valuable real estate. After the expulsion of the Acadians, the Crown invited interested colonists from the south to populate these regions with more loyal subjects.1 This was the birth of the Nova Scotia New Englanders—a group of people named for their new colonial location and their place of origin. When, just twenty years later, the members of the 13 colonies declared their independence from the British Crown, it seemed a natural fit for these former New Englanders to join the cause.

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Collect Their Stories: What Women in PAOC Leadership Are Teaching Us

This research examines the lived experiences of credentialed women leaders in the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, revealing a persistent gap between the denomination’s egalitarian theology and its leadership realities. Through interviews with 24 women, three key social processes—affirmation, making space, and mentoring—emerged as critical factors shaping women’s ministry journeys. The study proposes the Lived Experience Cycle, a framework that shows how women navigate institutional challenges while sustaining their calling and resilience in ministry.

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The Varied Landscape of Women’s Church Experiences

This is a recording from the fourth of four webinars in our Flourishing Forward webinar series. This webinar contains information about Lindsay Callaway’s recently released study, Women in the Canadian Evangelical Church. Drawing on findings from Women in the Canadian Evangelical Church, this presentation explores how women understand and participate in local church life. The findings reveal complex, generational, cultural, and theological dynamics, offering a nuanced picture of women’s church experiences as multifaceted, dynamic, and in flux.

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Shaping the Future of Denominational Organizational Cultures

When considering the future, some denominational organizations are imagining how new congregations can be formed given the religious and cultural shifts taking place in Canada. By asking leaders focusing on this direction what actions they have taken, it is possible to identify some of the organizational developmental steps which move towards mobilizing new church development. This video, based on a report by Dr. James Watson at The Canadian Institute for Empirical Church Research, offers perspective from the experience of Canadian leaders to suggest important principles and practices which can offer ways forward.

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A Christian Social Engagement which is like the Yeast in the Dough

Both practical theology and sociology of religion are interested in how local congregations in urban contexts are dealing with their environment. To say it bluntly, two attributes exist: on one hand, there exists a model which sees local congregations as citadels besieged by dissolving secular forces and insists on the necessity to limit interactions with non-Christian organizations; on the other hand, a second model contends that being truly Christian in an urban context implies committing to the local environment. Commitment doesn’t necessarily mean evangelizing and calling people to repent in public spaces, but it means living distinctively Christians lives in a secular world.

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Engaged Laity: A Case Study of a Certificate in Catholic Leadership

Are you a leader who is Catholic or a Catholic leader? This is one of the fundamental questions for participants in the Certificate in Catholic Leadership program at St. Jerome’s University. This non-credit program runs on an employer sponsorship model; organizations such as school boards, parishes, and non-profits send a range of participants for the year long experiential program that includes lectures and other foundational teachings, a local or international service learning experience, a cohort retreat, and a capstone project that brings something back to their home organization. Participants are supported both by liaisons at their organization and assigned mentors. The program was designed to meet the needs articulated by church and school leadership who identified a need to help form leaders and engaged laity. In particular, a gap was identified for people who need more than a workshop or in-service training but want something less than a Masters degree– either because they are in the season of family life that might make a traditional program too much of a commitment or because they are already (multiply) credentialed and simply want something more focused.

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Comparing Youth Engagement on Either side of the 49th

When it comes to religion, Canadian and American young adults display a remarkable similarity on at least one point: they’re hungrier for transcendent truth and more interested in matters of faith than previous generations. That’s just one key finding after think tank Cardus partnered with the Angus Reid Institute (ARI) to survey 5,000 Canadians and 5,000 Americans on the state of North American religiosity and faith in public life. This commonality between Canadians and Americans aged 18 to 34 stands in marked contrast to what this massive survey found more generally—that religion is different and operates differently on either side of the Canada-US border. (If you’re interested in those differences, you can read more about them here and here.)

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