Finding Success In Faith

"Regardless of your view on faith and the role of religion in society, churches are all around us, they surround us and they play a pervasive role in society" and they have lessons for the profit-driven corporate world, said Gina Grandy.

Grandy doesn’t teach religious studies or sociology, as you might expect. She’s an associate commerce professor at Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B., who she wants her students to understand organizations that business studies often overlook — in particular non-profit and public-sector organisations.

And that’s what brought her to studying churches.

Not long after reading about the United Church’s national media campaign WonderCafe, an advertising campaign aimed at reaching out to Canadians who don’t attend church, Grandy drove by a Baptist church that had a glowing, fluorescent Open sign in the window.

"I thought, really? What’s going on here? When did this start to happen?"

The incident caused her to begin reading up on church trends in Canada.

There was plenty of information out there, particularly on declining attendance, church closures and mergers but very little of it looked at churches from a business or management point of view.

She set out to find out how certain churches define their success, how they achieve that success and whether there’s anything business managers can learn from it.

According to Statistics Canada, 80 per cent of Canadians say they believe in God but only 21 per cent of those 15 and older went to church each week in 2005, down from 30 per cent from 1985.

Over the past two years, Grandy met with 21 churches of mainline Christian faith — Roman Catholic, United Church, Anglican, Baptist and Wesleyan — in the four Atlantic provinces.

She found they made concerted attempts to connect with youth and with their communities and have dynamic and innovative leaders.

"It’s been quite remarkable to see some of the things happening in some of these churches," Grandy said.

She pointed out how Dr. Seuss is used at St. Francis By the Lakes in Lower Sackville to connect with young children while the Moncton Wesleyan Church offers Sunday Jungle, which uses Disney and Nickelodeon to engage children up to Grade 5.

Some congregations have Messy Church, a non-conventional service during the week for busy families; others offer blended or alternate services to reach those who like a contemporary service and those who prefer the traditional.

"But what resonated most for me was the notion of community," said Grandy.

The congregations of the 21 churches she met with make concerted efforts to go beyond the church’s needs to that of the community as a whole, she said.

St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Parish in St. John, N.B., asked 900 people in the community what services they needed in the growing suburban area. It resulted in a community wellness centre being built on to the church.

It has a nurse practitioner, space for municipal police and the RCMP, a daycare and after school program as well as a vehicle parking lot for commuters who take public transit.

"It’s a really remarkable story," Grandy said, remarkable because all levels of government, corporate sponsors, the community and the congregation worked together to meet their goal.

"This goes back to how churches were viewed years ago, as integral to the community, Grandy said. "They had a central role to play in the community and they’re redefining that role in the community."

Church members are recognising that their faith means more than meeting the needs of the congregation, that they have "a greater responsibility and that’s to the community." Grandy said.

Today, successful churches are those that have their lights on seven days a week, hosting Alcoholic Anonymous and Brownie meetings, yoga classes and choirs, she said.

And while they see themselves as having a larger role in the community, Grandy said these churches must not lose sight of the congregation’s needs.

Parishoners at St. Mark’s Anglican in St. John’s, N.L., are writing stories about how their faith has touched their lives. The stories will be printed in a booklet to be given to the congregation in Lent.

Businesses can learn from this notion of community and the need to feel connected, Grandy said.

"Consumers want to see organisations that care about the environment and communities," she said. "Individuals want to be able to identify with someone or something with the organisation they’re buying from and employees want to feel they are part of something that’s larger, that’s beyond the organisation."

She said businesses and other groups are starting to recognise that employees and consumers want to be part of something more significant. Some companies give employees a day off to work for a non-profit, for example.

Grandy is entering her third and final year of research, with her study funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. She is taking her survey across Canada to see if her Atlantic Canadian findings apply to churches across the country.

She’s also taking her research to communities and churches across the region.

"Part of my responsibility is to take these finding to those who will find it useful" so that they can make change where needed and leave well enough alone where not, Grandy said.