Date/Time
Date(s) - April 16, 2027
10:00 am - 10:30 am
Categories No Categories
Webinar Description: Join the Flourishing Congregations Institute’s Director and Associate Directors – Drs. Joel Thiessen, Arch Wong, and Katie Steeves – for an interactive half hour webinar including a 15-minute research presentation and 15-minute Q & A followed by an optional 15 minutes for networking. Drawing on survey, interview, and content analysis data, this webinar examines how young Catholics conceptualize vocation, calling, and career, including narratives and practices used at home, school, and congregations to identify and pursue one’s vocation, calling, and career. Participants will gain insight across Christian contexts on how faith, lived experience, and discernment shape meaningful life choices, while also examining the challenges of fostering distinctly Christian understandings of vocation in contemporary Canadian society.
Presenter: Joel Thiessen is a sociologist of religion, Professor of Sociology, and Director of the Flourishing Congregations Institute at Ambrose University. His research focuses on religion in Canada, congregational life, vocation, faith transmission, and contemporary social issues, and he is a widely published author and speaker.
Presenter: Arch Wong’s research is in the areas of discipleship/spiritual and character formation, pastoral care, congregational studies, flourishing congregations, pastoral and teacher well-being, qualitative and quantitative research methodologies for practical theology and education, and western/Indigenous/Asian epistemologies.
Presenter: Katie Steeves is an Assistant Professor of Sociology specializing in gender, religion, micro-sociology and qualitative research methods. Katie’s passions include teaching theory and introductory sociology courses and working with undergraduate research assistants. Her current research attempts to explore the experiences of women in religious leadership positions, investigating and encouraging the budding relationship between sociology of religion and feminist theories in sociology while also connecting with and contributing back to religious practitioners.