Canada is said to be an urban country and the census data bear out that description. Three of every five Canadians live in cities with populations over 100,000. Not surprisingly, then, urban issues and urban values dominate Canadian public discourse.
That leaves 40 per cent of Canadians living in communities with populations under 100,000. What is striking is only 13 per cent of Canadians live in communities with populations between 10,000 and 100,000; 27 per cent of Canadians live in communities with populations under 10,000.
To borrow a phrase, there are two solitudes in Canada — a majority urban reality and a significant minority small town/rural reality — with a slim buffer between the two.
Given this stark demographic contrast, it is worth asking: “How are the congregations and membership of The Presbyterian Church in Canada situated?”
Just over 300 congregations are located in cities with populations over 100,000 (32 per cent of Presbyterian congregations). Their combined membership represents 46 per cent of Presbyterian members in Canada. (These figures include congregations in the Han-Ca presbyteries.)
Nearly 520 Presbyterian congregations (54 per cent of congregations) are found in communities with populations under 10,000. The combined membership of these congregations makes up 34 per cent of professing Presbyterians in Canada.
This highlights a fascinating fact. One in every five Presbyterians lives in a community with a population of between 10,000 and 100,000. Further investigation reveals a number of congregations in communities of this size have large (in Presbyterian terms) worshipping congregations. This is a coast-to-coast phenomenon. For example: Zion, Charlottetown; Bethel, Sydney; St. James', Truro; St. Andrew's, Fredericton; St. John's, Cornwall; First, Collingwood; St. Paul's, Ingersoll; St. Andrew's, Fergus; First, Brandon; and St. Andrew's, Duncan, are all in communities between 10,000 and 100,000, and all have 200 or more in worship each Sunday. This is but a selected list of the large Presbyterian congregations in communities of this size.
While Canadian Presbyterianism faces challenges making inroads into large urban contexts, Presbyterian congregations in small cities/large towns are finding ways to speak and be present that touch their communities. While rural and small-town congregations face the challenges of low worship attendance, Presbyterian congregations in small cities/large towns are holding their own and in some cases are growing.
Three characteristics mark congregations in communities between 10,000 and 100,000.
First, they are located in communities in the borderland between city and country — between urban and rural. These congregations are made up of people who have learned how to bridge the two Canadian solitudes (rural and urban) and create community. These congregations have learned how to be all things to all people. This is not niche marketing, this is not specialization; rather this is building a community across the barriers that divide people.
Second, in communities of this size these congregations are often the only Presbyterian game in town. Congregational members have learned to hang together even when things are not exactly the way they would want them to be. There is no other Presbyterian church to go to, so people are prepared to compromise, to be flexible. They have learned that sometimes what happens in worship will not be their cup of tea, but for the good of the body they will live with it because it is someone else's cup of tea today.
Third, these communities live in the shadow of the big, the important. As small cities or large towns they are off the radar. A humility, a self-effacement is built into the DNA of the congregations that serve these communities. Humility helps leaders, both ordained and lay, discover the church is not about them, but rather is about God. This humility speaks powerfully to a society bombarded by the voices of the self-important.
These three characteristics are counter-intuitive. They do not appear on the lists of practices church growth experts say are needed to grow congregations. But is it possible that these congregations have learned the grace needed to recognize that in Jesus Christ there is not Jew or Gentile, urban or rural, traditional or contemporary?
