Our Flourishing Congregations Institute research team—based at Ambrose University in Calgary, Alberta—spent April to June 2016 interviewing and facilitating focus groups with over 100 Catholic, mainline Protestant, and conservative Protestant leaders in Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, SW Ontario, and Halifax regions. The purpose? To explore how leaders of self-identified flourishing congregations describe and explain the optimal traits and characteristics of a flourishing congr

I still remember it like it was yesterday. I was about 14 years old when I experienced my first earthquake. It happened in Montreal, QC, an unlikely place, and it lasted just a few seconds. But that feeling that everything around you is shifting right before your eyes is unforgettable. The same type of thing is happening as it relates to the church and the shifting culture around us. We've read about it, we've studied it, but now we are feeling it. Things are moving and chang

I don’t know about you but sometimes I forget why I got into this in the first place. Sometimes I find I can lose my way and get focused on the wrong things. Sometimes it just seems like we are busy being busy and have forgotten the business we’re actually in! Ever felt that way?! Fortunately there are other times too though… Times where I can imagine and see a different reality, a church that is growing people into mature followers of Jesus and truly experiencing the power o

The experience of living in a Post-Christian culture is settling in as a reality for the contemporary North American church. The ongoing move to the margins can leave Christians feeling discouraged and even doubtful about where God is in this time of exilic experience. Why would God allow this to happen? Why does God not show his power more clearly in a time like this? How are we supposed to move forward in a time when the Christian message is losing traction in an increasing

Jim Collins writes that it’s not just good leadership that moves organizations or communities toward excellence, but “Level Five leadership creates the shift.” According to Collins, the two primary attributes “Level Five” leaders possess are professional will, and personal humility. By professional will, Collins is referring to both the vision a leader has of where the organization is going, and the passion to make that vision come to life. Level Five leaders hold an outward

Do you remember the children’s book The Little Engine that Could? The story was first published over 100 years ago in a curriculum for Sunday school children. It was re-published in 1905 under the title Thinking One Can. I think every flourishing congregation travels the flourishing path with the little tank engine’s attitude: “we think we can!” One cannot overstate the importance of capability beliefs when it comes to congregational motivation to pursue its vision for the fu

At the outset of this research project we delineated five traits from existing literature on flourishing congregations: clear self-identity, committed leadership, desire to grow, hospitable community, and vibrant spiritual life. We loosely held these five traits as starting points for conversing with leaders across the country, not because we set out to prove and reinforce these points but rather to engage what leaders would add, emphasize, or take away from this list. This w

In our first blog, Dr. Joel Thiessen outlined five aspects of flourishing congregations that will inform much of what we do together over the next few years of research and writing. Early in his blog, Joel made the following comment: “What binds the following together is intentionality. Like cultivating habits in one’s life, congregations do not flourish, develop, or thrive without intentionally seeking to do so.” If ever there was an element in the life of any congregation