The church set up a website where Anglicans could submit their responses to two questions they had been asked by the organisation: “Where is your church now and where do you want the Anglican Church of Canada to be in 2019?” More than 1,000 responses were received via video, audio recordings, emails, faxes and phone messages.

Communication agency Marleen Morris & Associates (MMA) was then contracted to collate and analyse the responses and identify key issues, using QSR International’s NVivo software.

MMA president Marleen Morris said: “We received things such as collages that kids in Sunday school had submitted, which we needed to analyse. We also used voice recordings and that was a breakthrough because people who were not comfortable with technology could just pick up the phone. We’d then upload their message straight into the NVivo software, along with video, blog posts, scanned pictures and text – everything qualitative that we received.”

The results of the research will be used by the church to develop strategies to determine its future.