​​​The Stories Congregations Tell: Flourishing in the Face of Transition and Change (New book released December 2024!)

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Congregations are story-telling communities. The stories they tell, which link a community’s past, present, and future, can play an important role in whether a congregation flourishes or not. The Stories Congregations Tell features detailed case study research from seven dynamic Canadian congregations across theological traditions and geographical regions. Readers will encounter narratives that congregations tell themselves through a myriad of congregational and social transitions, accounts that shape how congregations interpret, frame, approach, and ultimately flourish in ministry. On the surface congregational descriptions appear specific to local contexts. Yet, cultural analysis reveals several commonalities across distinct congregational cultures that appear resilient in the face of challenge and change. These factors include visionary leadership, clear congregational identity rooted in spiritual formation, hospitable community among members, and intentional systems and structures oriented toward a congregation’s mission. This book offers social scientific analysis and theological reflection on the stories congregations tell and the function those stories play for a congregation’s culture, along with practical and hopeful applications to arise from this research.

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Spiritual Alienation and Yearning in the Face of Death​

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One implication of a less religious society is that religion no longer fulfills the many functions it once did for as many people (e.g., related to death and the afterlife). This social shift has repercussions for how individuals see and relate to themselves, others, and the world more generally. This is evident in late modern society, for example, in various signs of spiritual alienation and yearning among those who say they are spiritual but not religious. To sharpen our sociological understanding of spiritual alienation and yearning among the spiritual but not religious, it can be helpful to compare the religiously affiliated and unaffiliated. Comparative research is useful for clarifying distinctive elements to a social group. This research, tied to collaborations on Spiritual Yearning and Alienation as well as Nonreligion in a Complex Future, draws on interviews with ninety people in Canada alongside existing data in the literature related to (non)religion and death and dying. I use a sociological framework to explore how the religiously affiliated and unaffiliated conceptualize death and the afterlife, including the ways these understandings intersect with one’s identity, relationships, and construction of meaning in life. Sub-interests include where, how, and why spiritual alienation and yearning rise to the surface, plus the normative assumptions that people hold about death and the afterlife, and thus how one should live. In exploring these themes, I pay attention to variations that exist within and between the religiously affiliated and unaffiliated, with an overarching interest in how the religiously unaffiliated and/or spiritual but not religious view death and the afterlife.  

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Congregations at the Nexus of Faith Transmission and Spiritual Formation

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Along with parents and schools, congregations are part of a “religious transmission ecosystem” with children. This project at the Flourishing Congregations Institute draws on case study data with Canadian congregations to explore how churches define and approach various roles and initiatives across the religious transmission ecosystem, along with perceived and experienced obstacles and responses related to religious transmission.

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Mental Health in Congregations

 

What attitudes and perceptions regarding mental health, mental illness, and mental health challenges exist in Canadian Christian congregations, and what congregational supports and resources related to these topics exist? These questions anchor this survey, in partnership with Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries and the Flourishing Congregations Institute, with nearly 1000 church leaders and congregants across theological traditions and Canadian regions. This research also offers a way forward for churches, informed by these data.​​​​​​