It has risen: Is this the key to growing Protestant churches?

From Canada-

It is a little strange the first time around, allows an amused Rev. Canon Barry Parker, head pastor of St. Paul’s Anglican Church in downtown Toronto, “to see people holding up their smartphones and singing along with the hymns from the service bulletin we uploaded.” But Parker says it’s only to be expected in a church that also keeps a close eye “on our social media, and how well our summer barbecue is connecting to the community.”

In tiny Leaskdale (pop. 400), 80 km north of Toronto, where Lucy Maud Montgomery’s husband once occupied the pulpit in St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church, current pastor Andrew Allison nods along: “We aim to speak in the language of the listeners, not to make them learn the language of the messenger.” At St. Paul’s, the hymn lyrics appear on a big screen at the front of the church. Changing times naturally require changing means of spreading the good news of the Gospel, agrees Joel Sherbina, pastor of Paris Presbyterian Church in southwestern Ontario and an enthusiastic participant (along with the odd atheist) in the pub-based Beer, Books and Banter church group.

More here-

http://www.macleans.ca/society/it-has-risen-is-this-the-key-to-growing-protestant-churches/