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Tag: 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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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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The Truth about Churches Discipling Children and Teens

The truth about churches discipling children and teens is they are doing so in a religious transmission ecosystem that includes and depends upon parents, schools, peers, media and social media, and other adult influences. Drawing on recent Canadian-based research, this blog explores some of the challenges congregations confront when discipling children and teens and offers some ideas for churches who want to help the next generation “believe, behave, and belong” as religious groups might wish.

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How Mothering Can Inform the Mission of the Church

Mothers know something about God that can help shape a church’s approach to mission. Based on my dissertation research where I look at the theology within maternal narratives, I propose that what women know about God through the practice of mothering can help shape a maternal missiology that is timely for our current age. The mothering experience reminds us that our world is enchanted with the Divine, that God alone brings new life, and that divine participation includes waiting, uncertainty, and suffering.

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Sharing spaces, sharing visions: The ethics and politics of making Quebec’s churches public

Across Canada, historic churches are closing their doors. In Quebec, the pace is accelerating as local dioceses struggle to reallocate funds for repair and maintenance amid the province’s aggressive funding cuts to religious heritage preservation. Once-sacred spaces are becoming luxury condos, gyms, and even nightclubs. These privatized, for-profit transformations often spark public grief over the loss of a collective inheritance built through generations of tithing and volunteerism.

This church property crisis crystallizes broader political tensions around secularization into concrete decisions about authority, access, and responsibility: Who should profit from the sale of church buildings: religious institutions, private developers, or local communities? Should church properties keep historic tax privileges? Can these buildings ever truly become inclusive spaces if they remain privately-owned religious properties?

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