ST. STEPHEN’S COLLEGE RELEASE FORM NAME OF AUTHOR: John Alfred Steele TITLE OF PROJECT-DISSERTATION: UNDERSTANDING GROWTH: THE ROLES OF EVANGELISM AND A CHURCH’S IDENTITY IN DETERMINING WHETHER NEWCOMERS ARE INVITED TO BELONG DEGREE FOR WHICH PROJECT-DISSERTATION PRESENTED Doctor of Ministry YEAR DEGREE GRANTED: 2012 Permission is hereby granted to St. Stephen’s College to reproduce single copies of this Project-Dissertation and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. The author reserves other publication rights, and neither the thesis nor extensive extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author’ written permission. DATED: 05 November 2012 UNDERSTANDING GROWTH: THE ROLES OF EVANGELISM AND A CHURCH’S IDENTITY IN DETERMINING WHETHER NEWCOMERS ARE INVITED TO BELONG A PROJECT-DISSERTATION Presented to THE DOCTOR OF MINISTRY PROGRAM COMMITTEE at St. Stephen’s College Edmonton, Alberta in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF MINISTRY by John Alfred Steele Victoria, British Columbia Dedication To all who are called to share the Good News of God in Christ. Abstract The admission of children to communion on baptism without confirmation introduced a debate about how to define membership in the Anglican Church of Canada. Declining membership raised concerns around attracting new members. Using a Grounded Theory approach the researcher interviewed individuals from three numerically growing Anglican Church of Canada parishes. The purpose of the interviews was to determine their understandings of parish identity, evangelism, membership and belonging. Analysis of the recorded and transcribed responses from the Rector, one long term member and two newcomers included identification of key words, repeated phrases and common themes. Respondents did not identify belonging to the Anglican Church nor the Body of Christ when referring to membership. The only criteria for belonging and membership were attendance and participation. In contrast to the normative method of group endorsement that churches use to define membership respondents understood membership to be through self-definition. The paper concludes that growth was unrelated to evangelism. Identity in general affected the way parishes understood people to belong but it was the negative attitude to evangelism which had the greatest impact on their understanding of belonging and invitation to belong. Acknowledgements My thanks for helping bring this work to a conclusion are owed to many people. To Bill Close for his encouragement to undertake this programme of study; the many DMin coordinators and the St Stephen’s community for their continued patience and support; Bishop Barry and Bishop James for their urging to get it done; my DMin Committee for all their work, Wally Fry, Logan McMenamie and Kim Murray; for Rene Warburton in guiding me in the sociological work; those who must remain unnamed but who generously participated in my study; Ann-Marie Gilbert for being the catalyst which brought this to birth with her expectations of deadlines, careful editing, insightful comments, laughter and time generously given; Angela McIndoe who improved my final corrected copy through her careful proofreading; the members of my parish who have continually encouraged me and held me in prayer; my Mother and Father for their prayers and knowing that I could do it; and my wife Franciane, and children, John-Daniel, Jessica and Luc for living with this for so long. And those whom I have forgotten, do thou, O Lord, remember Lord God, when you call your servants to endeavour any great matter, grant us also to know that it is not the beginning, but the continuing of the same, until it be thoroughly finished, which yields the true glory; through him who, for the finishing of your work, laid down his life for us, our Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Table of Contents Dedication .................................................................................................................................................................. vi Abstract ...................................................................................................................................................................... vii Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................................................. viii Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................................... ix List of Tables ........................................................................................................................................................... xiv List of Figures .......................................................................................................................................................... xv Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1 Boundaries and Identity .................................................................................................................. 4 Factors influencing Identity ........................................................................................................................... 4 Current Understandings of Identity ............................................................................................................ 5 Mead: How One Understands The Good News .......................................................... 5 Woodbury: Lifestyle, Decisions and Faith Stances ..................................................... 6 Crawley: Congregation as Persona ............................................................................. 7 Jones: Congregations As Theological Worlds ............................................................. 7 Bowen: Evangelising community ................................................................................ 9 Hiebert: Bounded and Centred Sets ......................................................................... 10 Reflections on set theory ............................................................................................................................... 19 Centred Set Theory ................................................................................................... 19 Chapter 2 Evangelism .......................................................................................................................................... 23 My Foundation ................................................................................................................................................... 23 Biblical Usage of the Word “Evangelism” ................................................................. 25 Is It Appropriate To Evangelize? ................................................................................................................ 28 Exclusivist .................................................................................................................. 29 Relativistic Pluralism ................................................................................................. 29 Inclusivist ................................................................................................................... 30 Implications For Evangelism ........................................................................................................................ 32 Proselytism .......................................................................................................................................................... 34 Where We Are In Current Thinking .......................................................................................................... 36 Walter Brueggemann: Biblical Perspectives on Evangelism ..................................... 37 Abraham: Believing to Belong .................................................................................. 38 Finney and Hunter: Belonging to Believe ................................................................. 40 Cox and Butler Bass: Age of the Spirit, Belonging, Behaving, Believing ................... 41 Wagner, McGavran, Wimber et al: Church Growth ................................................. 42 Bowen, Percy, Willis: Anglican Approaches to Evangelism ...................................... 43 Summary .............................................................................................................................................................. 47 Organizational Anglican Evangelism - Church Army ......................................................................... 48 Reflections ........................................................................................................................................................... 49 Chapter 3 Conversion........................................................................................................................................... 51 Biblical Understandings of Conversion.................................................................................................... 51 Sociological Studies on Conversion ........................................................................................................... 55 Participation in Conversion by the Convert: Richardson and Kilbourne, Barker...... 56 Sequential