2011
Joseph Andrew Lane
Canaries in the Coalmine: The Impact of Creative People on Congregational Development in the Episcopal Church
The Episcopal Church is suspended between a very real desire to welcome new members and an equally real sense of anxiety over its decline in membership. Meanwhile, growing numbers of potential worshipers from what Richard Florida has named the Creative Class are standing just outside the door—scientists, engineers, architects, designers, writers, artists and musicians who use their creativity as a key factor in their work in business, education, health care, law and other professions. In terms of congregations, I would include as members of the Creative Class volunteers who employ creativity in their church work, that is, people whose work-a-day vocation is not necessarily creative but whose avocation or, one might say, vocation-in-faith is. This thesis takes a close look at people already in Episcopal churches who exercise their creative gifts in unusual ways—“canaries in the coalmine” who might signal to other members of the Creative Class the hospitality of the Episcopal Church—and it shares the advice they offer to church leaders devoted to congregational development.