Three-year study will look at what does and doesn't work for churches struggling with declining congregations

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BY KRIS MCDAVID
Times & Transcript Staff

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SACKVILLE - As churches across Canada struggle with declining congregation numbers, a Mount Allison University professor is going to spend the next three years trying to figure out how to reverse the trend.

Dr. Gina Grandy, who teaches and researches within Mount A's commerce department, said her curiosity in exploring churches as business organizations was piqued when she noticed the peculiar sight of a neon 'open' sign on a Baptist church in Sackville while she was out for a stroll.

And although the topic of churches has been covered extensively in the fields of history, political science, sociology, economics, and religious studies, Grandy said an in-depth examination of the church in the context of business studies was relatively untapped.

With that in mind, Grandy will embark on a three-year study, courtesy of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada grant, and uncover the reasons behind why some churches perform better than others.

"What I'm interested in as a strategy researcher is finding out why it is that some churches appear to survive or grow over time, but others don't -- what are they doing that is creating value for their constituents?" she said. "Is it strict rules, charismatic leadership, innovation, a strong presence in the community, their size or marketing? My suspicion is that there are a lot of ways that churches create value, but we don't really yet know what that formula is."

Grandy will be working with a handful of Atlantic Canadian churches to determine various strengths and weaknesses within the church as they adjust to rapidly changing religious trends.

She said one of her main goals is to help churches find ways to bring people back to the congregation, and hopes that her study could be used as a blueprint for churches struggling to adjust to the changing times.

"We still have a highly religious population, but attendance levels have been going down despite people saying they're affiliated with a particular denomination.

"And there are changing trends with more people identifying themselves with no religious organization, and in many respects churches are also eager to find out why."

Grandy said she's already received several e-mails from various churches in the region who expressed interest in what she's trying to uncover.

She said the first part of her research will seek to examine what seems to be working for certain churches in different denominations through conversations with church leaders, councils and members.

From there, she'll develop an initial draft that will hypothesize what the apparent issues are, and hopes to host focus groups with representatives from 30 to 50 Maritime churches who will provide feedback to her findings sometime next summer.

The final stage of her study will consist of a cross-Canada survey, which will put her theories to the test on a nationwide scale.

"In the end, we will be fairly confident in what works for some churches and what doesn't work for others.

"All churches should be able to take something away from this."

According to Statistics Canada, 21 per cent of Canadians aged 15 and over reported they attended a religious service at least once a week in 2005, down from 30 per cent in 1985.

Meanwhile, the 2001 Canadian Census shows that 80 per cent of Canadians identify themselves as having a religious affiliation and that most of those are Roman Catholic or Protestant.