By Jim Coggins

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

LOOKING back over the past year, the editors of CC.com have selected several stories which represent key trends in the Canadian church. Fifth and last in a series.

One of the largest gatherings of Canadian Christians in 2008 was Heaven's Rehearsal, held in Toronto's Air Canada Centre November 1.

It was "a purely worship event," supported by evangelicals, but also by Roman Catholics, charismatics and some mainline Protestants. A similar event was held in Vancouver's GM Place July 1.

The Toronto event drew an even larger crowd than the Roman Catholic Eucharistic Congress in Quebec City in June.

These worship events are further evidence of the recent emphasis on worship in evangelical and charismatic churches, especially. In 2008, CC.com posted lengthy interviews with two well-known worship leaders, Canadian Brian Doerksen and the Iona Community's John Bell.

The worship events also suggest a significant change in focus. For much of the 20th century, the largest gatherings of Christians, especially evangelicals, were evangelistic crusades. No such large-scale events seem to have been held in Canada in 2008. As mentioned in the first article in this series, CC.com posted very few news stories on evangelism in the past year.

Outreach events

This does not mean that there were no efforts to reach out to people outside the church, but that such outreaches tended to be more low-key than such events in the past. They also were not confined to evangelical groups. Some of these events were:

1. Quebec Espoir 2008 was a major outreach headed by Fellowship Baptists on the occasion of Quebec City's 400th anniversary.
2. David Harrison's Bus Stop Bible Studies ministry has had some response from its ad campaigns on public transit systems, supported by local churches. However, it has often had to fight transit authorities for the right to have its ads posted in the first place.

   It is interesting that a United Church ad campaign in 2006 also seemed to arouse considerable controversy, although for different reasons. Those ads were accused of being too expensive (costing $10 million) and straying somewhat from orthodox theology.

3. While evangelism is often seen as the priority of evangelicals, the Roman Catholic Church is giving more attention to it. The Catholic Christian Outreach to university campuses hopes to more than double its ministry in the next 20 years.
4. Sixty percent of the local churches affiliated with Lutheran Church-Canada offered a variety of "open houses" for their neighbours in September, in what has become a fairly successful annual event.
5. In recent years, the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada has been encouraging churches in each community in Canada to band together and celebrate the love of God by doing random acts of kindness. This has no doubt improved public perception of churches, but this program is more pre-evangelism than evangelism.
6. Many local churches have channeled their evangelism efforts through the highly successful Alpha program (and Christianity Explored, which is similar). The success of this program obscures the stark reality that there is often not much else going on. The Alpha program is being used by evangelicals but also by mainline Protestant churches and by Roman Catholic parishes.

Since 1997, Church Planting Canada has been urging evangelical denominations to evangelize Canada by planting new churches, 10,000 of them by 2015.

This has resulted in considerable growth in some denominations and has been a factor in the growth of evangelicalism as a whole. However, the pace of church planting may be starting to slow somewhat, says Lorne Hunter, director of research for Outreach Canada.

This is partly because Church Planting Canada has shifted its focus from the numbers of churches planted to the kinds of churches planted, arguing that the new churches must be missional churches that bring new people to Christ and in turn plant new missional churches.

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Ironically, in spite of the increased academic interest in studying Canadian religion, it is becoming increasingly difficult to analyze, Hunter says. It is more complex to count churches because there are increasing numbers of house churches, independent churches and multi-site churches (churches which have a joint structure but which meet in several locations). Some denominations are having trouble getting data from their congregations, and some congregations are not keeping clear statistics on membership -- many Christians, especially younger ones, simply don't think institutional structures and formal membership are important.

Clearly the lack of mass evangelism efforts in Canada suggests that something has shifted -- but what? Does it mean that churches are becoming so focused on worship and on social issues that they are less concerned about evangelism? Have Canadian churches lost what Outreach Canada calls "a deep conviction that all people are lost without Christ and that God intends every believer to be involved in making disciples of all peoples in every nation"? Or is it only that the methods of evangelism are changing? Is the battle for souls being waged at the level of the local church and the individual person -- and is that perhaps a better way?

Both are true, suggests David Macfarlane, director of national initiatives for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association Canada. He says that "evangelism methods should always be changing" and some congregations are "doing very relevant, innovative things." He adds that evangelism has always been "relational"; even those brought to Christ through mass evangelism campaigns usually had a friend praying for them and inviting them to the event. On the other hand, he also says it is true that some churches are "moving away from evangelism" and "not as many churches as I would like" are truly committed to winning the lost.

The next generation

Somewhat related trends were visible in another significant event in the past year, the Canadian Youth Worker Conference in Toronto in December.

In the past, such an event might have focused on helping youth leaders learn how to bring youth to faith in Christ. This conference focused on issues such as economic justice, materialism and social ministries. This certainly suggests a broadening of evangelical interests beyond issues of personal salvation to the kinds of social issues that mainline Protestants have been concerned with.

A similar shift was evident in coverage of the US election in particular.

It was observed by political scientist John H. Redekop that evangelicals in the US are no longer focused just on "personal salvation and personal ethics." They are still generally pro-life (opposing abortion and euthanasia) and pro-family (considering homosexual practice sinful and opposing same-sex marriage). However, they are also interested in social issues such as alleviating poverty.

In Canada, election guides released by groups such as the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and REAL Women addressed a very broad range of issues, including the environment, national unity, homelessness, human trafficking, refugees, religious freedom, law and order, taxation, pornography and child care.

Besides providing evidence of a broadening of evangelicals' and Christians' social agenda, CC.com's coverage of the Canadian Youth Worker Conference also highlighted another trend in Canadian religious life. Speaker Shane Claiborne stated, "The questions when we get to heaven are not going to be doctrinal" but social -- did we feed the hungry, clothe the naked and visit those in prison? This comment spawned a vigorous debate on the CC.com website on the relative importance of orthodoxy (correct doctrine) versus orthopraxy (correct practice).

The debate suggests that evangelicalism now has its own 'liberal' theological trend. Particularly in what is called 'the emerging church' or 'the postmodern church,' there is a tendency to downplay theological doctrine and rationality in favour of heart issues, social issues and living out the faith. It is not that emerging church leaders are saying traditional Christian doctrines are wrong, but that these doctrines aren't very important.

The same issues came up in discussions of William P. Young's best-selling new book, The Shack. Some readers said the book was relevant and spiritually helpful, while others complained that it was doctrinally suspect, presenting an unscriptural view of God.

Proponents of the emerging church say a postmodern approach is necessary to reach the many people who are interested in spirituality but who have left organized religion. Critics argue that the emerging church has become too vaguely spiritual and unorthodox itself. The debate -- like the emerging church -- is likely to gain in strength in the coming years.

January 29/2009