What is a Flourishing Congregation? Leader Perceptions, Definitions, and Experiences

Abstract

How do Canadian congregational and denominational leaders in Catholic, mainline, and conservative Protestant settings perceive and define what constitutes a flourishing congregation? Drawing on interview and focus group data with over one hundred leaders across Canada, we bring to description the perceptions, narratives, and experiences that church and denominational leaders hold about flourishing congregations. We highlight three central findings: (a) there is a divide between those who believe that flourishing entails numeric growth and those who do not; (b) depending on the Christian tradition in question, there are several partially overlapping and conflicting pictures of what constitutes a flourishing congregation, evident in three overarching domains and several subsequent dimensions—organizational ethos (clear self-identity, leadership, innovation, and structure and process), internal factors (discipleship, hospitable community, engaged laity, and diversity), and outward variables (evangelism, neighborhood involvement, and partnership); and (c) supernatural discourse figures into how leaders discuss flourishing congregations over and against secular or human-controlled narratives. We draw on cultural sociology, notably discussions on group boundaries (between Christian traditions, within Christian traditions, and between Christian and non-religious organizations), to describe and explain the similar and dissimilar cultural narratives that Catholic, mainline, and conservative Protestant leaders hold about flourishing congregations. We then encourage social scientists to pay greater attention to how leaders themselves perceive and define a flourishing congregation, including the narratives and boundaries that contribute to leader constructions of reality.