Research on Canadian Congregations

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This exploratory study used an online survey from the Flourishing Congregations Institute to investigate how Canadian Catholics grow spiritually within their parishes. Using an exploratory factor analysis, we explored the interrelationships among a set of spiritual growth variables. A three-component solution resulted in the Environmental Context of the Community Scale, the Pathway for Spiritual Growth Scale, and the Connecting in Community Scale. Next, we performed a Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient to assess the relationship between the items in each scale for spiritual growth. The findings indicated strong, positive correlations for both the Environmental Context of the Community and Pathway for Spiritual Growth Scales, while the Connecting in Community Scale showed moderate correlations. Cluster analysis helped to categorize participants into three groups: Flourishing, Maturing, and Developing Spiritual Growth Catholics. The analysis also identified unique characteristics for each group, based on variables such as age, gender, marital status, income, parish tenure, and Mass attendance.