When most people picture church growth, their minds automatically drift toward traditional metrics: expanding membership rosters, surging Sunday morning attendance figures, and larger budgets. For generations, religious institutions have measured their health and vitality by the sheer volume of bodies filling the pews. However, as shifting cultural landscapes challenge conventional paradigms, faith leaders are beginning to re-evaluate what it truly means for a religious community to flourish.
Rev. Cameron Fraser, the executive minister of growth and stewardship with The United Church of Canada, recently sat down for an interview published in Broadview to discuss these changing perspectives. Fraser offered a compelling counter-narrative to the standard growth obsession, explaining how small churches can look at expansion in much more expansive, holistic ways—regardless of whether their overall membership numbers are increasing.
What Do Growth Animators Do?
To understand how denominations are supporting smaller faith communities, it is helpful to look at the specialized roles being deployed on the ground. Within The United Church of Canada, professionals known as growth animators play a pivotal frontline role.
According to Fraser, growth animators work directly with small churches to help them strengthen their organic connections with their immediate neighbours and embody an intentionally invitational posture. Working alongside these animators are stewardship support staff who focus on how these congregations can develop and enhance a culture of generosity.
Crucially, Fraser noted that the data and observations coming out of these regions reveal a vital truth: being small does not equate to struggling. On the contrary, many small faith communities possess a beautiful, resilient, and deeply connected ministry embedded right within their neighbourhoods. Rather than viewing their modest size as a liability, these congregations are discovering unique strengths in their ability to foster genuine human relationships.
Is Growth Always About Numbers?
The conversation naturally turns to the traditional preoccupation with numerical growth. While numerical expansion is certainly one valid expression of vitality, Fraser emphasized that it is far from the only one.
Growth can certainly mean an increase in attendance or resources, but Fraser argues that it can also mean developing a deeper, more robust capacity to love God and one’s neighbour. It can manifest as a congregation’s ability to articulate its faith more clearly or to offer a true, welcoming beloved community to those who walk through the doors.
Ultimately, the goal is to live into the kind of growth that God is fostering wherever a community happens to find itself. Because every geographic location, neighbourhood, and demographic makeup is entirely unique, that growth will inevitably look very different depending on where a church is situated.
How Does a Congregation Discern Its Vision?
For many small congregations, the pressure to adopt corporate-style strategic planning can be overwhelming and counterproductive. When asked how a congregation should go about discerning its authentic vision, Fraser pointed to a much more fundamental starting point.
The process begins by asking a deceptively simple question: What makes the members want to get out of bed in the morning? From there, leaders invite the congregation to practice deep curiosity, encouraging them to explicitly name both the unique gifts and the persistent challenges present in their neighbourhood.
This requires an honest and compassionate look at how the church community spends its time and energy. Fraser challenges congregations to examine whether they are expending valuable resources on traditional activities that might exhaust them. While certain programs and initiatives make absolute sense for larger, well-resourced churches, they may make little to no sense for smaller, localized communities that have entirely different capacities and callings.
What Does a Realistic Vision Statement Look Like?
In the modern organizational world, institutions are endlessly pushed to craft concise, catchy vision statements. However, Fraser suggests that Christian communities might benefit from rethinking this approach entirely.
He encourages communities to think long and hard about what they are actually hoping a vision statement will achieve for them. Because Christianity is fundamentally a tradition of storytelling, Fraser proposes an alternative: perhaps instead of a rigid corporate vision statement, there is an overarching story that the community feels it is actively living into.
As an example, he points to a congregation that anchors itself in the scriptural promise that "God is making all things new." Such a community is not bound by a corporate slogan; instead, it is continually looking outward for places and situations where newness longs to be brought forward into the world. This narrative approach allows for organic flexibility and deep spiritual grounding.
What Is a Sustainable Pace of Change?
Implementing new ideas or adapting to shifting cultural realities can cause anxiety in any organization, but particularly in historic religious bodies. Addressing the issue of pacing, Fraser stressed that meaningful change always happens at the speed of trust.
True organizational and spiritual transformation requires a community to grieve, to lament, and to learn the difficult art of letting go. Because these emotional and psychological processes are vital for health, Fraser noted the importance of doing them well rather than rushing through them.
Interestingly, the Christian tradition already provides a built-in framework for this kind of transition. Congregations enter into these cyclical realities every single year through the liturgical calendar. For instance, the six weeks of Lent serve as a deliberate annual reminder that things do indeed end, that human beings die, and that the world around us constantly changes. By leaning into these natural liturgical rhythms, churches can process change in a spiritually grounded way.
What Gives You Hope?
As religious institutions look toward an uncertain future marked by complex ecological and economic crises, the challenges can occasionally feel daunting. However, Fraser remains deeply hopeful about the road ahead.
He points out that the crises of our time will increasingly demand a capacity to respond in a nimble, personal, and deeply contextual manner—qualities that massive institutions often struggle to muster quickly. In contrast, small churches are uniquely poised to respond directly and fluidly to the immediate needs of their neighbours and the call of God in their specific moment in history.
By bypassing bureaucratic hurdles and remaining closely tethered to the local soil, small congregations possess an agile spirit that positions them well for the future of ministry.