A Season of Listening: A Quantitative & Qualitative Research Study on the Christian Practices of Evangelism, Hospitality, and Belonging

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What do Episcopalians and mainline Protestants really believe about evangelism, hospitality, and belonging—and how does what they believe compare to what their congregations actually practice? Invite Welcome Connect spent a season of listening to find out. The full report is now available for download at invitewelcomeconnect.com.

The gap, it turns out, is significant—and instructive. Across more than 700 survey responses and five facilitated Zoom conversations with lay leaders and clergy from coast to coast, a portrait emerged of communities that deeply believe in these practices as spiritual disciplines, yet struggle to embody them at the congregational level. The research also surfaced something more encouraging: a clear, specific picture of what people most need, and a set of directions for how Invite Welcome Connect can help.

This is the story of what we heard.

The Research at a Glance

743 Survey respondents from across the U.S. and beyond

5 Zoom listening sessions April 26–May 1, 2026

~50 Lay leaders and clergy in facilitated conversation

The Core Finding: Belief and Community Are Out of Step

The most striking finding in the entire dataset is also the simplest to describe: An overwhelming majority of respondents personally believe that evangelism, hospitality, and belonging are spiritual practices—but far fewer believe their congregations understand them that way. The gap is sharpest for evangelism.

Fig. 1—Personal belief vs. community understanding: the gap is sharpest for evangelism, where 83% personally believe it is a spiritual practice but only 12% feel their community clearly understands it as one.

“It’s so easy to turn things to a theology of scarcity rather than a theology of abundance. The challenge is a lack of imagination and a lack of knowing how to take risks.”

— Clergy participant, Thursday listening session

This gap is not a knowledge gap. The people who completed this research are among the most engaged members of their communities—clergy, lay leaders, vestry members, ministry volunteers. They understand these practices theologically. What they describe is a cultural gap: their congregations have not yet developed the shared language, the communal permission, or the theological identity to embody these practices as a community.

Evangelism: The Sharpest Challenge

Of the three practices, evangelism presents the most acute challenge. The survey data is unambiguous: only 7% of respondents rate their community as “very effective” at evangelism, while nearly half say “not very effectively” or “not at all.”

Fig. 2—Community evangelism effectiveness (n=645). Nearly half of respondents rate their community as not effective at this practice.

But the listening sessions added a dimension the survey alone could not capture: The word “evangelism” itself is a barrier in virtually every context. Across all five sessions—lay and clergy alike—participants named the term as a source of discomfort, confusion, or active resistance, conjuring associations with aggressive evangelical subcultures that feel antithetical to Episcopal identity.

As one Montana rector observed:

"The people who say they don’t like the word are often the very people quietly doing the work—inviting neighbors, hosting community events, sharing their faith in natural conversation. The problem is not a lack of practice. It is a lack of language to recognize and name what is already happening."

Hospitality and Belonging: Strength—With a Hidden Gap

Fig. 3—Effectiveness comparison across all three practices. Hospitality is the clear strength; evangelism is the clear gap; belonging sits in between.

Hospitality is the area of greatest strength: 35% of communities rate themselves “very effective” and 52% “somewhat effective.” But the listening sessions revealed a consistent gap between warmth at arrival and genuine integration over time. Congregations excel at the handshake on Sunday morning. They struggle with the second Sunday—and the third.

One of the most-requested tools across both the survey and the listening sessions was practical support for post-welcome follow-up: how to notice newcomers, remember them, reach out, and help them find a role in the community’s life. Belonging—rated 19% “very effective”—is where hospitality must lead but rarely does.

“People are really starving for community right now. That’s why they’re coming to our church. But we have to be ready to receive them.”

— Lay leader, Wednesday listening session

Key Findings

•       The belief-practice gap is the central challenge. Personal conviction about these practices as spiritual disciplines is near-universal (83–97%). Community-level clarity lags dramatically—especially for evangelism, where only 12% of communities are described as clearly understanding it as a spiritual practice.

•       “Invite to church” is too narrow a frame. Multiple listening session participants drew a sharp distinction between inviting people to a congregation and inviting people to faith. A significant population will never be reached by church-centered invitation alone.

•       Small congregations face compounding challenges. 74% of survey respondents serve communities with an Average Sunday Attendance under 150. These communities are most likely to rate their evangelism as ineffective, most likely to describe exhausted leadership, and most in need of targeted support.

•       The hospitality gap is after the door, not at it. “Follow-up and relationship-building” (401 responses) far outpaced “Greeter and welcome ministries” (239) as the hospitality practice where support is most needed.

•       Peer learning is the most consistently desired resource. Across all five listening sessions, participants expressed strong enthusiasm for connecting with peers at similar-sized, context-similar congregations—learning what is working elsewhere and adapting it to their own settings.

•       The most-needed practical resource is training in natural faith conversation. How to talk about faith honestly, naturally, and without being off-putting in everyday life was the clearest single ask from both survey respondents and listening session participants.

Research Methodology

Phase 1—Quantitative Survey

Invite Welcome Connect fielded a national online survey in April 2026. The survey received 743 complete or near-complete responses from individuals associated with Episcopal and mainline Protestant congregations across the United States and Canada. Respondents were reached through Invite Welcome Connect’s email list and social media channels, as well as through diocesan networks.

The survey covered perceptions of congregational effectiveness across the three Invite Welcome Connect practices (evangelism, hospitality, and belonging), personal theological beliefs about those practices, specific areas where support is needed, and demographic information including role, congregation size, age, gender, and racial/ethnic identity.

Phase 2—Qualitative Listening Sessions

Between April 26 and May 1, 2026, Invite Welcome Connect facilitated five small-group Zoom conversations—three with lay leaders and two with clergy—drawing approximately 50 participants from congregations across the country. Each session was 45 minutes, facilitated by a member of the Invite Welcome Connect team, and recorded for internal analysis.

Sessions were structured around three prompting questions exploring personal experience of the belief-practice gap, contextual barriers to deeper practice, and specific resource needs. All participants are anonymized in the published report.

Respondent Profile

Survey respondents are predominantly lay leaders (37%) and clergy (23%), serving congregations of under 150 ASA (74%). The respondent pool is overwhelmingly Episcopal (96%), predominantly White (87%), and older—71% are 60 or older. These demographics reflect both the reach of Invite Welcome Connect’s current network and the broader demographic profile of The Episcopal Church.

Download the Full Report

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The complete “A Season of Listening” report—including detailed findings, charts, participant voices from all five listening sessions, and an integrated narrative analysis—is available as a free download at the link above.