Our work explores flourishing in the Church from an academic and creative perspective, by collaborating with academic, theological, congregational and artistic partners.
Our Research
2025-2026, we started a journey in partnership with 12-pilot congregations in California and Texas, USA, to better understand how Christians, congregations, and communities flourish.
Our study builds on the insights from the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University which defines flourishing as ‘the relative attainment of a state in which all aspects of a person’s life are good, including the contexts in which that person lives’ (VanderWeele, Lomas, 2022).
To gain a full picture of what flourishing looks like, we explore this in six core domains in the context of the Church (VanderWeele, 2017):
- Happiness & Life Satisfaction
- Meaning & Purpose
- Character & Virtue
- Mental & Physical Health
- Close Social Relationships
- Financial & Material Stability
© Flourishing & the Church
For people of faith, spiritual well-being is a vital part of what it means to flourish.
Thus, our study also explores the relationship between faith and flourishing through questions such as:
- How do Christian virtues of faith, hope, and love relate to flourishing?
- How do practices such as forgiveness, loving one’s enemies, or serving those in need contribute to flourishing?
Our hope and vision are that the findings from this research can contribute to and be deeply embedded in the Church to help paint a richer picture of God’s work in the world today.
Additional Resources
To learn more about flourishing, please view our research publications.