Congregational Vitality among Evangelical Churches in Canada

Church Health and Congregational Vitality

What is a healthy evangelical church? How do you measure church health? I begin this article by briefly examining various efforts to understand congregational vitality, beginning in the 1960s with the “church growth” movement, which gave way to an emphasis on “church health,” which in turn was replaced with an emphasis on “missional church.” Using the Canadian Evangelical Congregations Study (CECS), I then attempt to get at qualities of vital congregations. The CECS consisted of 50 face-to-face interviews with pastors from across Canada, and then 478 phone interviews with lead pastors in evangelical congregations in 2009. The response rate for these interviews was roughly 40%. The congregations were from five major evangelical denominations in Canada – Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (PAOC), the Christian Reformed Church (CRC), the Mennonite Brethren (MB), the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA), and the four Baptist Conventions: the Convention of Atlantic Baptist Churches, the Canadian Baptists of Ontario and Québec, the Canadian Baptists of Western Canada, and the French Baptist Union / Union d’Églises Baptistes Françaises au Canada. (For more information about this study, see Reimer and Wilkinson, 2010.)

With regard to church health, there was little agreement on what it is, or whether it can be measured at all. At the start of this project, we ask two respected theologians how to measure church health. This was their joint reply:

Because the Church is the presence of the divine-human Christ on earth and His infinitely beautiful bride, it is impossible to measure her health. We are particularly concerned that theological categories not be taken over by (neutral) empirical measurements. These measurements lead us away from theological concerns and assume that we can find some other, neutral ground on the basis of which to measure the “health” of the Church. For example, we might be tempted to measure the health of the church by the presence or absence of a nursery, youth group, or hospitality committee. Each of these categories may be seen as transcending any theological viewpoints that exist (infant baptism or the meaning of the Eucharist). (Allert and Boersma, 2009)

Of course, these theologians are correct. One cannot measure the health of the Church (big C). Nor can one operationalize the work of the Holy Spirit. Such things are beyond human capacity and definitely beyond the social sciences.

Yet churches (small c, by which I mean congregations) are also institutions, like factories or banks, even though they are much more than that. They depend on (fallible) human actors to maintain their buildings, pay their budgets, run their programs, and define their goals. The tension between the divine and the human is built into any discussion of the church. Princeton theologian Darrell Guder states:

Sociological and organizational interests inform much of the contemporary discussion of the North American church. The results of those studies are informative and have helped us . . . While the church is always a real, human, social organism, it is also the body of Christ, a community grafted into the life of God in its baptism and by the action of the Holy Spirit. Elements of it are true that are not made visible by the categories and presuppositions of the sociologist. (1998, 12–13)

The social sciences have a long history of measuring the socially constructed part of institutions, often called institutional vitality or effectiveness. This is what I attempt to do here. Thus, I use the terms “congregational vitality” to focus on the institutional strengths and weaknesses of this human enterprise.(1) It should be clear that any attempt to comprehend, much less quantify, the work of God’s Spirit in and through the bride of Christ is impossible (and arrogant to the extreme). The theologians’ warning that scientific measurement can “lead us away from theological concerns” should give us all pause. Readers should be aware, then, of the limitations of such research, and should not allow empirical measurements to replace theological categories.

Even among those who agree that something like church health is empirically measureable, there are differences of opinion on how it can be operationalized. Starting with the church growth literature, Inskeep states that there are two streams within “church growth” research: religiously-committed researchers, such as church growth consultants or denominational employees, and social scientists from within academia. For the former, measurement of church growth/health probably began in earnest with the Church Growth Movement, started by Donald McGavran, dean of the School of World Mission at Fuller Theological Seminary in 1965 (see McGavran’s Understanding Church Growth, 1970). McGavran’s successor at Fuller, C. Peter Wagner, listed six irreducible presuppositions on which church growth was founded:

1. Non-growth displeases God;

2. Numerical growth of the church is a priority with God and focused on new disciples rather than decisions;

3. Disciples are tangible, identifiable, countable, people who increase the church numerically;

4. Limited time, money, and resources demand that the church develop a strategy based on results;

5. Social and behavioural sciences are valuable tools in measuring and encouraging church growth; and

6. Research is essential to maximum growth. (Towns, 2004)

Since McGavran’s principles of church growth were influential internationally, the emphasis on empirical measurement and numerical growth has lasted over time. Others have built on the tradition of measurement but have attempted to balance what is perceived to be an overemphasis on numerical growth. These include, among others, Lyle Schaller, the Alban Institute, and Natural Church Development (NCD). The missional church movement has also de-emphasized quantitative growth, emphasizing instead “incarnational” outreach with the goal of community transformation. I will look at these latter two in greater detail because the pastors and church leaders we interviewed indicated that they are currently influential in the five denominations we studied.

NCD was founded in 1989 by Christian Schwarz with the goal of helping churches “of all denominations experience qualitative and quantitative growth” (NCD, 2012). Now, they claim that 40,000 churches have conducted NCD surveys and they have national partner organizations in 70 countries. In their view, church health and growth is natural, just as plants grow and multiply naturally. “We should not attempt to ‘manufacture’ church growth, but rather to release the biotic potential which God has put into every church. It is our task to minimize the obstacles to growth (the ‘environmental resistance’) – both inside and outside the church” (Schwarz, 2006, 14). Schwarz recognizes that external factors affect church growth, but since they are difficult to control, one should focus on internal organic health. Based on extensive data from thousands of churches over ten years of research, Schwarz promotes eight essential qualities of healthy churches:

1. empowering leadership;

2. gift-based ministry;

3. passionate spirituality;

4. effective structures;

5. inspiring worship services;

6. holistic small groups;

7. need-oriented evangelism; and

8. loving relationships. (Schwarz, 2006)

Many of these eight characteristics are evident in my congregational vitality scale below. 

Footnotes:

(1) - I do not intend to imply that “church health” research is more focused on theological issues or “immeasurables” like the work of the Holy Spirit. I only wish to use a term that better captures the limited scope of this research.