On the Ignoring and Smothering of Church Visitors

Once upon a time, evangelical church services, usually during the announcements, would include the question, “Are there any first-time visitors, today?”

Some folks would sheepishly stand and then (horror of horrors) be asked to say their name, and perhaps where they were from.

Given the stress people might feel getting up to speak in a room full of strangers, and in the name of being “seeker sensitive,” this practice was scrapped in the 1980s, along with the practice of making them wear a sticker that said “VISITOR” as you might in a hospital or a factory. (Going public wasn’t entirely without its blessings however; given the right church you might get a gift bag with a church coffee mug and a copy of the pastor’s latest book.)

Instead today, we have the practice where visitors can attend our churches with complete anonymity, but then, in churches of over 300 adults in attendance, they leave not having had anyone speak to them at all, for the simple reason that in today’s larger churches everyone figures that someone they don’t recognize is simply someone who has been there before — which is sometimes true — but they simply haven’t met or noticed them before. (Interesting that it moves from not wanting to embarrass visitors to longtime church members not wanting to embarrass themselves.)

After hanging around for five to ten minutes, and perhaps even taking a self-guided tour, many first time visitors eventually give up.

So tell me… how is this an improvement over the way things were?

Many times I’ve heard people say, “I visited that church and nobody spoke to me.” Or the one that really got to me, “The three of us went for three weeks and afterwards stood in a spot by the wall in the lobby smiling, just to see who would be friendly and initiate conversation, and for three weeks, nobody said a word.”

They moved on, as they should have.

Part of this is simply a liability of larger churches. Note that I said “over 300 adults in attendance.” It wouldn’t happen in a church of 50. I can’t see it taking place in a church of 100 adults. I still think it’s remote in a church of 150.

Conclusion: Even as the evangelical megachurch dominates the conversation, there’s something to be said for the smaller church communities (under 100 adults regularly attending) which before the pandemic made up over 25% of U.S. churches and nearly half of Canadian churches. Furthermore, I’d propose that maybe the fallout effects of the pandemic won’t be entirely all bad.

Pages from a Church-Planter’s Diary

Review: Why Would Anyone Go to Church? A Young Community’s Quest to Reclaim Church for Good by Kevin Makins (Baker Books, 2020)

Kevin Makins has assembled the story of planting Eucharist Church in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada so vividly, that there were times I felt I could actually smell the buildings and hear the floors creaking in a succession of five inner city locations.  Eucharist Church is located in the urban core of a city that is now part of what is called the GTHA — the Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area — and the book is packed with insights and practical lessons for anyone who wants to do ministry in the inner-city. Learn more from the publisher about the book at this link. Follow Kevin on Twitter at this link.

As I mentioned here just days ago, the period post-2000 brought a bounty of church growth books and no end of people making the attempt to create alternative church experiences that would make it past the critical five-year mark. It had been a long time since I’d looked at this particular book genre, but after some superficial email exchanges with Kevin about book publishing and distribution, something drew me to ask the publicist if any print copies were still available.

I’m so glad I did.

Why Would Anyone Go to Church? arrived on a Tuesday, but I didn’t pick it up until Friday. Before suppertime on Saturday I had consumed its 192 pages. The chapters are somewhat equal parts story and teaching and the story also resonated because my youngest son now lives in Hamilton, where he’s involved with two very different churches in the urban core so it was somewhat easier to picture the environs where the story takes place.

The story is told with generous amounts of humility. That the church has existed in five different locations in ten years offers one indication how it would be hard to proceed otherwise. But Kevin and his wife Meg also demonstrated great resolve and self-awareness as to what projects to accept and which ones to pass, as various opportunities arose. Their giftedness for such a church as this is evident, even if a ‘professional’ team of church planting experts didn’t agree.

Eucharist Church clearly lacks the homogeneity you see in the sprawling suburban churches conveniently located at the intersection of two freeways with a massive parking lot for Becky and her husband to park their van and take their well-dressed 2.4 children to a very age-specific Christian education program tailored just for them.

Rather it’s a mix.

Kevin writes,

Part of our family is toddling. They help us not to take ourselves too seriously.

Part of our family is married. They practice love together for the sake of the community.

Part of our family is single. They strengthen the bonds of friendship.

Part of our family is contemplative. They model how to listen.

Part of our family is faith-filled. They urge us to keep hope alive.

Part of our family is doubting. They remind us that skepticism has its place.

Part of our family has immigrated. They carry in their bodies and culture a different side of the Imago Dei.

Part of our family is queer. They remind us that God is found uniquely among those who don’t fit neatly into our societal boxes.

Part of our family is building its career. They teach us about the importance of work and hustle.

Part of our family is retired. They remind us that there is life after work.

That list just scratches the surface.

It includes people who technically speaking, don’t actually come, at least to weekend services. It includes people who only show up after their latest relationship has crumbled, stop at the church for a reset, and return when the next relationship has collapsed.

The cycle of any given year might include a children’s ministry for which no children show up. Or a Sunday service where everyone stretches out on the pews and shuts their eyes and snoring is absolutely permitted.  Or perhaps a Sunday where, instead of a longer sermon, everybody just shouts out the name of the denomination or type of church they came from, and the list becomes quite lengthy.

It includes potluck dinners which are almost sacramental in nature, a statement I make in this context realizing it could be the subject of a whole other book.

Finally, it includes laughter; it includes tears. Sometimes a lot of tears.

This is church in the margins, the type of church I truly believe Jesus would choose to attend over the mall-like complex in suburbia; and this is a book about a team of people who were willing to risk and willing to get their hands dirty to make it happen.

---

I used an excerpt from the book last week at Christianity 201. I won’t say this is a typical passage, as I had to choose something devotional for C201, but I wanted to create further awareness of the book. You can read that section at this link.

To recommend a book like this and just continue to go on with Christian life as usual isn’t possible. I have the good fortune of being married to someone who herself demonstrated a great heart for people on the fringes and now serves a church that could hardly be called upscale. Before we got married, I spent several winters doing street ministry in nearby Toronto. Maybe that’s why I get this book.

You don’t need to travel to Africa to go to the mission field. My guess is there’s one not far from where you live.

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A copy of Why Would Anyone Go to Church? was generously rushed to me by Graf-Martin Communications – Providing Integrating Marketing in Canada.

Additional media:

• Interview with The 700 Club Canada
• Podcast interview with Jonathan Puddle (one of Kevin’s favorite interviews)
• Interview with Context-TV
• Book Trailer

Winter: A Test of Faith

101 Degrees of Separation: On New Year’s Day 2009, Ippswich in Australia was expecting a high of +38C, which is about 100F. Meanwhile, back at home, my Weather Network indicator on my computer was showing that we were heading to a low of -18C, which is about -1F. The Aussies high temperature on a summer mid-afternoon Thursday would be occurring at the same time as my Wednesday mid-winter night. That’s 101 Fahrenheit degrees difference. That day I was asking, “Are we even on the same planet?”

While every post here every day is supposed to be faith focused, a lot lately have had the church life tag. Today is no exception. The pictures are repeats that I’ve now used four times here — I find the contrast fascinating — but the written part is new.

It’s anecdotal and it’s subjective, but it seems to me like whenever a massive storm system is moving through our region, it impacts Sunday morning church attendance. Yesterday was the second week in a row where the crowd size was down in our part of the world. The week before it was a snowstorm. Yesterday it was a threat of freezing rain.

The word threat is key here. The Weather Network seems to send out more warnings than necessary, but of course each time you tap the prompt on your phone, they are selling more advertising, I guess. I use something called Weather Underground, which I’m told is connected to AccuWeather. They seem to be in panic mode fewer times each month.

Threat is also important because as Canadians, we know how to drive in winter, and part of that knowledge is that sometimes you just stay home. We’re just that extra bit laid back so that if we don’t make the sales appointment, or don’t make it to the office, it’s not the end of the world. I get the impression that most Americans think they can just force their way through the elements to get where they perceive they need to be. And then the 6:30 newscasts in the U.S. are peppered with accident video. Cars spinning out of control, trucks flipped over, wreckage being towed away.

But back to our subject.

I would think pastors get discouraged with weather developments. After all, they’re playing on God’s team. It’s not supposed to be that way. Talking to a Children’s Ministry director yesterday, I also considered that if your kids are local, and therefore make it to church, but your volunteers live a greater distance away, then you’ve got other problems. There are also fewer visitors. Lower offerings. And preaching a series means that some people, if they don’t catch up online, have missed key developments in the teaching sequence.

So Sunday at lunch I prayed and asked God if he would at least consider arranging the weather elements so that churches in our area could catch a break next week. These storm systems take days to develop and migrate, so I figured a week’s notice was giving him a lot of time to put something together.

Faith Itself is Not a Destination

Bruxy Cavey: “We treat faith in our culture much like a painting that you hang on the wall. It’s something you go and look at. Look at my faith. Faith is a beautiful thing. But biblically faith is a connecting concept to connect you with something else. It’s not an end point destination that you stare at but it’s something you stare through. In other words, faith is more like a window that you install in a wall, not a painting you hang on a wall. It is something designed to help you see through the wall or whatever barrier is there to see … the outside of your particular world.” ~Bruxy Cavey, author of The End of Religion and Teaching Pastor of The Meeting House, an eightteen-site church in Ontario, Canada from the series Get Over Yourself, part six, December 13, 2009

Christian Denominational Heads in Israel With Canadian Prime Minister

The Canadian falls at Niagara are probably frozen as you read this

Sometimes I make a discovery online only to recognize that another blogger can handle the story better. Besides, with a 72% American readership, stories about my home and native land aren’t really all that interesting. So I passed on this and besides, the link list took priority yesterday.

In Canada, many of our political scandals have to do with the misspending of funds. With one tenth of the U.S. population, budgets are smaller and errors generally don’t run into the billions, as they might south of The 49th Parallel. But when the Prime Minister decides to take 208 people with him to Israel, it’s hard not see a future scandal in the making. At the very least, it’s an obscene amount of spending. The government is covering the airfare for 30 of the 208, and hotel (and presumably this entails some food) for all of them.  This does not include an official delegation of 31 which traveled on whatever the Canadian equivalent is of Air Force One.

But a handful of the travel party were the heads of some of this country’s largest Evangelical denoms.

Don Simmonds from Crossroads Christian Communications
David Wells, Pres. of Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (PAOC)
Don Hutchinson, Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC)
David Hearn, president of Christian & Missionary Alliance (C&MA)(and his wife)
Stephen Jones, president of Fellowship of Evangelical Baptists of Canada (FEBC)
Shawn Ketcheson, pastor Trinity Church, Ottawa

The EFC thing actually duplicates the three denominations since it is the umbrella group to which they all belong. No mainline churches are represented; no Presbyterians, no Anglicans, no Roman Catholics and no one from the United Church of Canada, whose ministers are now moving to become Canada’s first clergy trade union.

Should the Evangelicals have accepted this gift? Honestly, methinks not, especially should the word ‘scandal’ ever become attached to this little junket/photo-op. Okay, for the business representatives that are part of the 208, it’s more than a photo-op, but for a Member of Parliament who was caught by CBC news begging to be allowed in to the Western Wall with the PM for some pics, it was more about domestic politics back home than foreign relations.

But like I said at the beginning, this type of story really isn’t my beat, so we’ll throw you over to investigate journalist Bene Diction.

(you were supposed to click that!)
(Bene can take all the tough questions!)

Head Counting at Worship

Every summer I attend camp meeting where one of the ushers not-so-surreptitiously does a headcount during the sermon. In most churches we count heads. The apologetic goes like this, “God likes Numbers, he has a whole book of them.” (People seriously say that.) But didn’t King David get in trouble for doing that sort of thing? Anyway, this week, I did some studying of the churches in the U.S. and Canada with the highest attendance, and thought I’d share the top 20 for both, as well as links where you can access this information and sort it by state (or province) and denomination.

First, for the U.S.:

Church Name	City	State	Average Attend.	Denom
Lakewood Church Joel Osteen	Houston	TX	43500	NONDENOM
North Point Community Church Andy Stanley	Alpharetta	GA	30629	NONDENOM
LifeChurch.tv Craig Groeschel	Edmond	OK	30000	EC
Willow Creek Community Church Bill Hybels	South Barrington	IL	25743	NONDENOM
Fellowship Church Ed Young	Grapevine	TX	24162	SBC
NewSpring Church Perry Noble	Anderson	SC	23055	BAPT
Church of the Highlands Chris Hodges	Birmingham	AL	22184	NONDENOM
Saddleback Church Rick Warren	Lake Forest	CA	22055	SBC
Southeast Christian Church Dave Stone	Louisville	KY	21764	CHRISTIAN
Gateway Church Robert Morris	Southlake	TX	21403	NONDENOM
Central Christian Church Jud Wilhite	Henderson	NV	21055	CHRISTIAN
Phoenix First Assembly of God Tommy & Luke Barnett	Phoenix	AZ	21000	AG
Second Baptist Church H. Edwin Young	Houston	TX	20656	SBC
Christ’s Church of the Valley Don Wilson	Peoria	AZ	19931	CHRISTIAN
Christ Fellowship Todd Mullins	Palm Beach Gardens	FL	18965	NONDENOM
Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale Bob Coy	Fort Lauderdale	FL	18521	CAL
Woodlands Church Kerry Shook	The Woodlands	TX	18385	SBC
Eagle Brook Church Bob Merritt	Centerville	MN	17091	BGC
Cornerstone Church John Hagee	San Antonio	TX	17000	NONDENOM

Second, for Canada:  (by province) (which is basically the entire list)

Crossroads Church	NONDENOM	2000	Red Deer County	AB	www.crossroadschurch.ca	Dan Cochrane
Sherwood Park Alliance Church	CMA	2000	Sherwood Park	AB	www.spac.ab.ca	Greg Hochhalter
Beulah Alliance Church	CMA	2400	Edmonton	AB	www.beulah.ca	Keith Taylor
Centre Street Church	EVAN	7000	Calgary	AB	www.cschurch.ca	Henry Schorr
First Alliance Church	CMA	3000	Calgary	AB	www.faccalgary.com	Scott Weatherford
Broadway Church	NONDENOM	2100	Vancouver	BC	www.broadwaychurch.com	Darin Latham
Trinity Baptist Church	ABC	2200	Kelowna	BC	www.trinitybaptist.net	Wayne Alguire
Willow Park Church	MEN	2000	Kelowna	BC	www.willowparkchurch.com	Mark Burch
Northview Community Church	MEN	2700	Abbotsford	BC	www.northview.org	Jeff Bucknam
Willingdon Church	MEN	5000	Burnaby	BC	www.willingdon.org	John Neufeld
Springs Church	NONDENOM	7500	Winnipeg	MB	www.springschurch.org	Leon Fontaine
Church of the Rock	NONDENOM	2500	Winnipeg	MB	www.churchoftherock.ca	Mark Hughes
The Meeting Place	MEN	5000	Winnipeg	MB	www.themeetingplace.mb.ca	John Neufeld
Southland Community Church	NONDENOM	3300	Steinbach	MB	www.mysouthland.com	Ray Duerksen
Agincourt Pentecostal Church	PAC	2200	Toronto	ON	www.apchurch.com	Keith Smith
Bramalea Baptist Church	EVAN	1800	Bramalea	ON	www.bramalea.org	Stephen Sheane
Rhema Christian Ministries	NONDENOM	2000	Toronto	ON	www.rhemaonline.ca	Denise Blagrove
Richmond Hill Chinese Community Ch.	EVAN	2800	Richmond Hill	ON	www.rhccc.ca	Daniel Splett
The Peoples Church	NONDENOM	3800	Toronto	ON	www.thepeopleschurch.ca	Charles Price
North Park Community Church	NONDENOM	2500	London	ON	www.northpark.on.ca	James Bekkers
The Meeting House	NONDENOM	4401	Oakville	ON	www.themeetinghouse.com	Tim Day
Eglise Nouvelle Vie	AG	3600	Longueuil	ON	www.nouvellevie.com	Claude Houde

Finally, as a sample of the global information — since I can’t figure out how to merge the various continents, Africa:

Attendance	Church Name	Continent	Country	State or Province	City	Church Website
75000	Deeper Christian Life Ministry	Africa	Nigeria		Lagos	http://www.dclm.org/
6000	Jesus Celebration Center	Africa	Kenya		Mombasa	http://www.jccmombasa.org
50000	Living Faith Church (Winner’s Chapel) – main campus	Africa	Nigeria		Lagos	http://www.davidoyedepoministries.org/
50000	Apostolic Church	Africa	Nigeria		Lagos (Ketu)	http://www.tac-lawna.org
40000	Redeemed Christian Church of God	Africa	Nigeria		Lagos	http://www.rccg.org/
35000	United Family International Church	Africa	Zimbabwe		Harare	http://ufiministries.org/
32000	Christian Revival Centre	Africa	South Africa		Bloemfontein
30000	Word of Life Bible Church / International Gospel Center	Africa	Nigeria	Delta state	Ajamimogha Warri	http://www.ayo-oritsejafor.org/tav/index.php
30000	Lords Chosen Charismatic Revival Church	Africa	Nigeria		Lagos	http://www.thelordschosenworld.org/
30000	Christ Embassy (Believer’s Love World Fellowship)	Africa	Nigeria		Lagos	http://www.christembassy.org/pilotsite/
30000	Doxa Deo	Africa	South Africa		Johannesburg	http://www.doxadeo.co.za
25000	Rhema Bible Church	Africa	South Africa		Johannesburg	http://www.rhema.co.za
22000	Christian Life Church	Africa	Uganda		Kampala	http://www.christianlifeministries.org/
20000	Eglise Protestante Baptiste Oeuvres et Mission Internationale (The Works and Mission Baptist Church Int’l)	Africa	Cote D’Ivoire		Abidjan
20000	Light House Chapel	Africa	Ghana		Accra	http://www.lighthousechapel.org/
20000	Mountain of Fire and Miracles	Africa	Nigeria		Lagos	http://www.mountainoffire.org/home/index.htm
20000	Dunamis International Gospel Center	Africa	Nigeria		Abuja	http://dunamisgospel.org/aboutus/index.html
15000	Winners’ Chapel International Nairobi	Africa	Kenya		Nairobi	http://www.winnersnairobi.org/
15000	Christ Is the Answer (formerly Nairobi Pentecostal Church)	Africa	Kenya		Nairobi	www.citam.org
2000	Parklands Baptist Church	Africa	Kenya		Nairobi	http://parklandsbaptist.org
2000	Nairobi Baptist Church	Africa	Kenya		Nairobi	http://www.nairobibaptist.co.ke

Wednesday Link List

We read blogs so you don’t have to!  Or something.

• Brent Mosley is president of Bluefish TV, the company that makes — among other things — those little two-minute video clips that start your weekly worship service.  He blogs, too.  Check out Is The Church Telling The Complete Story?
  
• Speaking of video, it’s been three years since it was filmed and two years since it was released on DVD, but now you can watch Joe Manafo’s detailed 42-minute documentary study of alternative churches in Canada in its entirety at the website for One Size Fits All.
  
• A list with ten things is actually easier to produce than when you decide to narrow it down to five.  And these five are well-chosen.  Trevin Wax posts Five Trends to Watch for in Evangelical Christianity.
  
• And speaking of Trevin, here’s a video of a church promotion that he (and Zach at Vitamin Z) think is one of the best church advertisements ever.  “Before we tell you who we are, we want to tell you who we were.”
  
• Contemporary Christian book author Skye Jethani tells why he doesn’t read many books by contemporary Christian book authors, in a piece at Out of Ur provocatively titled, I Read Dead People.
• Dan Horwedel whisks you on a link-list journey of his own in a fascinating examination of the Christian worship song, God of This City.  Both the major-key version and the minor-key version.
  
• I don’t read — let alone link — to Ann Welch’s blog very often because it’s more of a women’s blog and a parenting blog, but she’s been in the link-list here since day one because she is a blogger who has my utmost respect. Here’s a shorter piece even the guys can take a minute to read at her blog Resolved 2 Worship, titled Dart Throwing.  (Turn your speakers up, too; she’s got a great blog playlist.)
  
• Chuck Colson believes that while most Christian children’s books contain a Bible narrative followed by “the moral of the story,” we need to teach kids to recognize the worldview being promoted in everything they read.  And he’s introducing a product that will help them do just that.
  
• Pete Wilson raises the oft-discussed issue of swearing, or things that some people consider swearing.   200 comments so far about words like darn, dang, heck, geez, and shoot.  (And then, Daniel Jepson raises the same topic, too.)
  
• A woman in a senior’s home invites John Shore into her room, and then dies holding on to John’s hand.  Yikes!  Obviously, readers are wondering why the story is just surfacing now.
  
• Albert Mohler thinks that Piers Morgan’s interview with Joel Osteen identifies one topic where we either stand for Biblical truth or we try to dance around its politically incorrect implications.  Mohler says that sooner or later we’ll have to deal with our own Osteen Moment.
  
• A Tennessee pastor refused to baptize a couple’s baby because the couple wasn’t married. He wants to make a statement about teen pregnancy.
  
• Time for a quick hymn sing.  Here’s a couple of versions of a classic hymn that is well-known in England but not at all in North America.  One version is more modern, the other is most formal, but both of them work.  Check out Tell Out My Soul.
  
• This week we should pay Trevin a commission.  If you’ve read the bestselling book Radical by David Platt (Waterbrook), you know all about “Secret Church.”  Well, this year, the event is available as a simulcast for any church that wants in. (Posted even though the event is a Lifeway thing. Look guys; no hard feelings!)
  
• Here’s a return of a Link List favorite; Mike Morgan’s weekly comic, For Heaven’s Sake.

Wednesday Link List

• Our opening cartoon this week celebrates the release of David Hayward’s first cartoon book, Naked Pastor 101, which is available as a download, e-book, or paperback.  Simply click anywhere on the image to learn more.
• The lastest news from Donald Miller and Steve Taylor is that the movie based on the book Blue Like Jazz is back on again.
• After 30 years, Charisma magazine finally gets around to interviewing the man considered “the first Pentecostal scholar,” Regent College New Testament professor Gordon Fee.
• Steve McQuilkin has a problem.   He’s “burst out out of the Christian bubble,” but all his old friends are alienating his new friends by speaking in Christianese on social media, which IMHO, is never a good idea even when it’s only our ‘in group’ in the audience.
• And speaking of alienation, here’s an excellent article for worship leaders (and staff musicians, tech people, etc.)  on prioritizing your loved ones; under the title How Not To Be A Jerk to Your Family.  [HT: Worship Community]
  
• Really enjoyed our weekend visit to Carruther’s Creek Community Church at the east end of greater Toronto.   John Thompson is the young pastor in what must be one of the largest churches in the AGC denomination, and they now offer recent sermons on video.
  
• So what’s your guess on how many men in your church have a ‘problem’ with pornography?   An article at XXXChurch.com — people who should know — suggests you could be looking at something around 50%.
  
• Next Tuesday (10/19) listen to a live interview with author Philip Yancey on the occasion of the release of his new book, What Good Is God? at 1:30 PM at Blog Talk Radio.
• The staff at Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas produced a five-minute, single-camera, single-take video celebrating their 20th anniversary.   Enjoy watching, and if you’ve got another five minutes, watch them making the video at BeDeviant.
• Not sure you’re hearing from God?   This week’s Christianity 201 link is a quote from Bill Hybels’ The Power of a Whisper (Zondervan) about getting God’s voice to be heard over the noise in our lives.
  
• I’ve also been hearing about another Zondervan book — one that Hybels himself could have written — Coffee Shop Conversations by Dale & Jonalyn Fincher.   I was reminded of it again reading Audra Krell’s blog.
  
• So what would the people in your church do if Donald Trump turned up for Sunday worship?   Probably not seat him at the back.
  
• Here’s another one of those “top blog” web pages, this one purporting to be the “top youth ministry blogs;” though as I pointed out a few weeks ago, the motivation for these sites is somewhat dubious.
  
• Here’s a new version of sermon bingo just for fundamentalists from the blog Stuff Fundies Like (click on image to link).

EFC Claims Victory in Christian Horizons Case

I recognize that today’s post won’t be as significant to my largely U.S. readership, but it has major repercussions here in Canada, so I hope you’ll permit me this domestic story.    For context, the EFC (Evangelical Fellowship of Canada) is our version of the NAE (National Association of Evangelicals) which sometimes also fulfills the role taken on in the U.S. by the ACLJ (American Center for Law and Justice) lobbying in Canada’s capital on behalf of Christian ideals.

Over two years ago on this blog, I reported on a complaint filed by Connie Heintz, a former employee of Christian Horizons, a Christian organization which operates group homes for developmentally challenged adults.   The big picture issue was the requirement by CH that employees live up to a lifestyle clause with certain moral or behavioral guidelines.   The complaint was filed with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal (OHRT), a group with a reputation for never losing; so this was a David vs. Goliath type of battle.

But it was also a battle with large scale implications for Christian (and by extension various other religious groups’) organizations of all stripes, not to mention churches.   The OHRT argued that on the basis of the variety of people being served and on the basis of the government funding received by Christian Horizons. (Read the editorial that is part of the above link, which comprises the second two-thirds of the blog post.)

Wednesday, we received this announcement in an e-mail from EFC, which you can also read online:

OTTAWA – In December 2009, The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) appeared before the Superior Court of Ontario, Divisional Court, in the landmark religious freedom case, Heintz v. Christian Horizons. The court, which heard an appeal of the decision of the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal (OHRT), released its decision late Friday afternoon.

Christian Horizons, a faith-based ministry, employs over 2,500 people to provide housing, care and support to over 1,400 developmentally disabled individuals, and has done so for more than 40 years. This Christian ministry, which requires its employees to sign a Statement of Faith and a Lifestyle and Morality Policy, was the subject of a human rights complaint when a staff member resigned after she felt she could no longer live according to the commitment she made when she signed the policy.

In the decision being appealed, the OHRT had ruled that Christian Horizon’s efforts were not the ministry of a religious community but rather social work and that it, as well as other faith-based bodies serving public needs on a non-discriminatory basis, could no longer require that employees share their religious beliefs and resulting service commitment. The Divisional Court ruled differently and reversed much of the OHRT’s decision.

“This is significant victory for faith-based charities across Canada. While they must clarify certain governing documents and review certain employment policies, they may largely continue to require employee compliance with both statements of faith and lifestyle and morality policies,” said Don Hutchinson, the EFC’s Vice-President and General Legal Counsel.

“We’re relieved to see the court found that the exemption provision in the Ontario Human Rights Code which permits certain charities, including religious charities, to selectively hire employees who share the same beliefs makes no private/public distinction. This means that Christian charities may continue to serve non co-religionists in society all while maintaining their internal religious ethos and integrity,” continued Hutchinson. “I’m relieved that the court recognized that the exemption exists to guarantee the right to free association in this way. This was of serious concern as the OHRT had found otherwise.”

“Of course, we are also disappointed that the Court found it reasonable for the OHRT to have concluded that Christian Horizons did not meet an objective test for a bona fide occupational requirement for Ms. Heintz’s job, but the Court was instructive as to how that situation may be corrected.”

“What does this mean for Christian charities across Canada? Well, it means that it’s time again for them to clarify their statements of faith, lifestyle policies and job descriptions for all employees in order to clearly demonstrate how compliance with both statement of faith and codes of conduct are necessary for and related to job duties.”

This case is huge here, and while Christian Horizons didn’t have the resources to fight this on their own, there was simply too much at stake here for Canadian Christian charities, hence the involvement of EFC.

UPDATE:  Here’s a different perspective on the recent decision from an editorial in Canada’s national newspaper, The National Post.

ALSO: “…But the gay rights group EGALE, which was an intervenor in the court case, also said this week’s ruling was a victory. Lawyer Cynthia Petersen said the ruling would make it hard for religious charities to prove that a person’s sexual orientation or beliefs would get in the way of their duties.”  That quotation is from an article in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record.

FURTHER UPDATE (5.21.10) Here’s a summary of the decision posted on a blog operated by CFPL, the Centre for Faith and Public Life, a division of EFC.

Faith: Destination or Connecting Point?

Bruxy Cavey: “We treat faith in our culture much like a painting that you hang on the wall.  It’s something you go and look at.  Look at my faith.  Faith is a beautiful thing.  But biblically faith is a connecting concept to connect you with something else.  It’s not an end point destination that you stare at but it’s something you stare through.  In other words, faith is more like a window that you install in a wall, not a painting you hang on a wall.  It is something designed to help you see through the wall or whatever barrier is there to see … the outside of your particular world.” ~Bruxy Cavey, author of The End of Religion and Teaching Pastor of The Meeting House, an eight-site church in Ontario, Canada from the series Get Over Yourself, part six, December 13, 2009