A Missed Possibility: A Study of the Influence of Church Participation on Health Indicators Related to Shalom in Canadian Children
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This thesis arises from my participation in an interdisciplinary study involving theology and health. This mixed methods study aims to improve understanding of the relationship between church involvement and an integrative, holistic understanding of health in children. Its purpose was to determine how participation of young Canadians (age 10 - 15) in the Christian church correlated with various indicators of child/adolescent health. Children involved in religious groups reported lower participation in risk behaviours, higher prosocial behaviours, but poorer levels of more holistic measures of health. These findings raise both theological and practical issues regarding how the church understands itself and lives out its mission. They suggest an emphasis on teaching about behaviours and morality rather than an understanding of the deeply integrative nature of the Christian life. This analysis is grounded in the theological assumption that good behaviour is not an end in itself but a response to a life-giving relationship with a dynamic, living God. In this thesis, I suggest that by thoughtfully challenging the current paradigms prominent in children’s ministry, the church has the potential to have a more meaningful and holistic impact on the lives of the children in our communities. The possible implications of these findings to breathe new life into the often-tired structures of the church are enormous. Grounded in Trinitarian theology, this thesis presents practical ways forward for children’s ministry in the church.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.007 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.012 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".