Joel Thiessen is a professor, author and sociologist working at Ambrose University. We talk about what sociology has to teach us about church planting.
In this episode we cover all kinds of things Joel has written on that relate to church planting: why 'nones' and 'dones' vary across Canada, how this impacts church attendance, why and how evangelism still is effective in Canada, how much effective evangelism actually leads to church growth, why moving to plant a church isn't a great idea (sociologically speaking), how much of your church really is new to the faith and much more.
The three articles referenced in our conversation are the following:
https://secularismandnonreligion.org/articles/10.5334/snr.126
https://5c6ae412-7eda-4fd5-aa92-49c06363da01.filesusr.com/ugd/68e091_25df2ee227b64fcda1509ee01b0b757c.pdf
https://www.joelthiessen.ca/single-post/2015/02/27/do-we-really-need-another-church-plant
If you'd like to read more from Joel, he has a list of all his publications, articles and books on his website: https://www.joelthiessen.ca/publications
If you'd like to get in touch with Ben or the podcast, please email canadianchurchplanting@gmail.com.
If you'd like to find out more about the Grace Network, please visit gracenetwork.ca