As a part of a strategic visioning process in 2023, the Anglican Diocese of Toronto hired Johnson to analyze responses from 45 listening sessions with more than 500 lay Anglicans who were invited to imagine their local church and the diocese five years in the future as having new life and to consider how they might get there. Johnson said that she expects the anonymized responses she examined would be common in Anglican and many Christian congregations in Canada and the U.S.

A predominant theme (discussed in 42 of the 45 listening groups) was that their congregations consist mostly of older people, and they need to attract younger people. Johnson quoted one typical comment: “We are in crisis mode. We have to do things differently to attract more people, especially the youth.” Young people are mentioned 3.5 times more than Jesus, she noted wryly. This problematic pattern reflects what Johnson describes as “an ecclesiology of survival—a vision for the church that is primarily focused on attracting young people in order to sustain local institutional structures in familiar forms for their own sake.”

“This way of thinking about the church is deeply disconnected from the realities of the contemporary Canadian religious landscape.” The Canadian population is aging, and most of the population growth comes from immigration, Johnson pointed out. “Younger Canadians are more likely to be recent immigrants. More than half of recent immigrants are non-Christian or non-religious. Christian immigrants are most likely to be Roman Catholic or evangelical. Recent immigrants are very unlikely to be Anglican. Before 1946, 26% of immigrants to Canada were Anglican. By the year 2000, that number was 1%.” Furthermore, throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, each generation born in Canada has been successively less religious than the preceding generation in measures of affiliation, belief, and practice.

So, while it is important to welcome newcomers who are Anglican into our parishes, it is unlikely to result in a significant demographic shift. Similarly, she added that “it is important to be intentional about passing on our faith within our own families and to younger generations, but this is also unlikely to result in a significant demographic shift.”

The Canadian population looks very different in 2025 than it did in 1960, and Anglican parishes will look different as well. “The ways that participants in these listening groups speak about young people suggest that they do not know this or have not taken it to heart. The overwhelming focus on young people and an ecclesiology of survival is closely linked to what I call a transactional approach to mission,” Johnson said.

“The underlying transactional assumption is that the church must identify the needs of younger people and that meeting these needs will bring them back to the church, which will in turn meet the needs of the church,” she explained.  In addition to being harmful in the context of ministry with young people, a transactional approach to mission and an ecclesiology of survival are theologically problematic, Johnson said, noting that both the Anglican Church of Canada (in its Transformational Commitments) and the Anglican Communion (in its Five Marks of Mission) understand mission as participating in God’s action in the world bringing about God’s reign rather than maintaining church institutions.

People focused on trying to attract younger people to church often focus on the style of worship. Johnson said that participants in listening groups suggested a variety of liturgical changes, yet more than any other topic, they discuss music. “Upbeat music and different instruments help attract young people,” one participant said, summing up the misguided theory. Johnson says that there are several studies that call this assumption about musical change attracting young people into question. There is also some research that suggests that young people appreciate a diversity of liturgical practices, including research with emerging adults who are drawn to traditional liturgical forms, she said. “I am not arguing that traditional liturgical forms will attract young people to the Anglican Church. Instead, I am arguing that a focus on style is problematic, regardless of the style in question.”

She added that “A focus on musical style is a red herring that is misleading and distracts from more relevant questions, including facing demographic realities, challenging the underlying transactional framework, and developing a more robust understanding of what it means to be the church today.”

Frustrated with a lack of research focused on listening to young people themselves, Johnson has teamed up with Emily Snider Andrews and Nelson Cowan from Samford University, a Christian university in Birmingham, Alabama. “Young People in Christian Worship Experiences, Stories, and Values” is a bi-national, multi-site, mixed methods ecumenical study of how teenagers and emerging adults experience Christian worship. “The purpose is to listen deeply to how young people age 13 to 29, experience public Christian worship in a range of liturgical expressions, Roman Catholic, mainline Protestant, evangelical, and charismatic,” Johnson says.

“The goal of this research is to amplify the often-marginalized voices of young people and to integrate their insights into liturgical theology and congregational practice in order to support their full conscious and active practice in worship and to enrich the liturgical experience of all participants,” she said. “Our focus in this qualitative research is listening to highly religious young people. We are complementing the qualitative research with a nationwide survey in the United States conducted in collaboration with Springtide Research Institute.”

The research is still in progress, but Johnson shared a few of the responses they have received when asking 18 to 29-year-olds the question “What do you wish older people knew about how younger people experience Christian worship?” Young people name and reject the transactional framework, she said, quoting some responses: “We don’t need to be catered to. Things don’t need to be dumbed down for us. You don’t need to make things cool or edgy or punk or hip.” And, “Young people don’t like to be pandered to. Don’t do something because, ‘Oh, this will get the young people to come to church.’” These same kinds of comments are made by young people who attend megachurches and Latin mass and small mainline Protestant congregations in Canada and the U.S., Johnson said.

Participants in interviews often say they can only speak for themselves.

They underline that young people have diverse experiences and values when it comes to worship.

So it is important to avoid preconceived notions of what people want and instead be very open.

Even within one generation, people have very different styles and tastes. Participants express a desire to be heard and valued as equal members of the community. Emerging adults in interviews want to be treated as ordinary participants, not token representatives of their generation. One made the clear-sighted point that “It doesn’t feel like it should be my job to tell you how to get all the other young people in church, because I’m already here.”

“One of our goals in listening deeply to diverse young people in this research is to encourage others to listen deeply to the teenagers and emerging adults in their own contexts, in our diocese here, in our parishes, and in our families,” said Johnson. “The goal of listening is not to ask what young people want to facilitate a transactional approach to mission anchored in an ecclesiology of survival, but instead to listen for stories and values that can teach us all about worship, so that together we can explore the mystery of encountering the divine in scripture, song, and prayer, in water, bread, and wine, in relationship and action, so that together we can give glory to God from generation to generation.”

More information about the Young People and Christian Worship study: https://www.samford.edu/worship-arts/young-people-and-christian-worship.

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Although he knew of some existing Christian groups on campus, “I didn’t see the kind of connection between faith and activism and social justice work that personally was something that actually drew me to becoming more of an active Christian when I was a teenager.” he told Perspective. Now 21 and preparing for his final year of a double-major political science and public administration degree, Adair participated in the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa’s Youth Internship Program (YIP) for two years as a teen.

The Student Christian Movement is an ecumenical, social justice-oriented, youth-led international movement. Adair said he knew of SCM, but his interest in it was re-invigorated when he read a biography of the late Canadian politician Tommy Douglas, who had been involved with the SCM in his youth. Realizing that SCM was still an active organization and wanting to create something on campus to leave for others after he graduates next year, Adair decided to create a chapter of SCM. During the summer he wrote out a plan about what he would need to do to get it all started when he was back in Canada, but in the fall, the Student Christian Movement posted a notice that they were hiring someone to start a club at the University of Ottawa. “This seems like it’s perfectly aligned,” Adair thought. He applied, got the job and began working a couple of hours a week to get it up and running.

He describes the group’s first year as fairly active. “We held a prayer service for Palestine and Lebanon in November that had about 20 to 30 people show up, including members of the Ottawa Palestinian Christian community. And that was hosted at St. Albans, so we were very grateful that St. Albans was able to give us that space,” Adair said.

The group also co-organized an event in February on migrant workers with the Filipino group Migrante. “I thought that it made sense considering we have so many international students and so many people on campus from around the world to do an event about migrant workers and international students.”

In March, they hosted an online discussion with two theologians, Dr. Michel Andraos and Dr. Jane Barter, discussing the roots of Christian Zionism in Canada. And prior to the federal election, the SCM group worked with the campus chaplaincy and Citizens for Public Justice to host an event called Engaging Faithfully for the Common Good about connecting Christian faith with political engagement.

In June, Adair travelled to Calgary to participate in the G7 Jubilee People’s Forum, organized by KAIROS Canada, which took place from June 15 to 17. KAIROS gathered pilgrims and activists from across Canada and the world to discuss their visions for global economic, environmental and social justice, with a focus on Jubilee 2025, a global initiative to cancel debt for low-income countries. Adair received a travel grant from the World Student Christian Federation’s Lois Freeman Wilson Fund. Wilson, who was active in SCM in her youth, went on to become the first woman to serve as Moderator of the United Church of Canada, the first Canadian president of the World Council of Churches, and a Canadian senator.

“It’s been interesting seeing like how large SCM used to be and the goodwill from that,” Adair says, noting that he’s met many supportive alumni.

Starting the campus SCM chapter has been really fulfilling, Adair said. It was challenge was to build from the ground up because contemporary students had no knowledge of the organization. “It’s been interesting trying to explain it to people and get them involved,” he said. “I think they see Student Christian Movement, and they’re skeptical because it sounds like something that might be scary for a lot of people.”

The new chapter drew interest from a diverse mix of students, he said. ‘It’s some very devout Christians who have never really done political work or activist work in their lives, and then some political activists who maybe went to church when they were kids but who wouldn’t think of themselves as Christian, but they’re interested in the work that SCM is doing.” Both groups have seen value in connecting their faith with action, such as feeding the hungry, caring for others, he says. “We even have one or two Muslim members and one or two like atheist members who say, ‘I just like going to your events. You do interesting stuff.’”

Adair says he invited a friend who he knew used to go to church to a prayer service. “They went and they hadn’t been to church since they went to university, and I think probably before that. But now they’re back home for the summer, and they’re leading a church group back home. I don’t want to say it’s because of SCM, but I think they were having a crisis of faith [questioning},’What is the value of this in this world currently?’”

He suggests that might be true more broadly. “For the prayer service for Palestine and Lebanon, we were able to get about 30 people in a church on the Friday evening during exam season. People didn’t have to be there, and a lot of people personally inconvenienced themselves to go to that, so I think that’s something maybe church leaders should listen to. People want that connection and the community. … I don’t think people want to see a church that retreats away from the world or away from the world’s questions. They want to see a church that is saying, ‘You’re right. This is scary. This is hard, but also we can do something about it right now.”

More information on the work of the UOttawa SCM can be found at @uottawascm on Instagram.

Related reading;

G7 People’s Forum inspires faith and action

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The Saturday morning gathering introduced youth to the Cathedral and offered some activities to help them get to know one another.

Before beginning an informal worship time, Dean Beth reflected on the ways that people pray and commune with God individually and when they come together in churches:

“Every place has its own way of living out their worship life, and every one of us has a way of living that out as well. We heard a number of people talk about what they do to pray, what is worship for them besides the church.

“Mine is kayaking. Sometimes when I go kayaking I am not happy, and it’s the Book of Lamentations, and I am paddling with some anger or some angst or some sorrow. And sometimes it is the beauty of thanksgiving and just so grateful for the opportunity to be in nature.

“But all of us need a home for that, and that’s what our churches are and our Cathedral. It’s a home where we can gather as a community and bring all of those experiences that we have elsewhere together, be refueled, re-energized and bring some of that peace to ourselves, and then go out and share that with everyone else. So we all have that as a part of our Anglican heritage, which is a beautiful thing.”

Cathedral music director and organist James Calkin led the group singing some hymns, and the Rev. Matthew Brown of Parish of the Valley shared some reflections on the history of the Cathedral and the Anglican Church.

The youth had an opportunity to explore the Cathedral, learning about its magnificent stained glass windows, symbols, seats for the bishop and Cathedral canons, as well as whimsical touches like the carvings of four church mice tucked into hiding spots around the sanctuary. And they tried their hands at ringing the bells.

The youth received a special invitation to come back to the Cathedral to start 2025 “on a high note” at the New Year’s Day Eucharist service and following reception.

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