By Mary C. Frances, Executive Director
The FaithX team is at the Episcopal Parish Network meeting in Kansas City this week. We will be leading a workshop on using Data for Leadership Transition, and we planned to share the news of MissionMaps for Faith Communities as we mill around and connect with other participants. This morning, I received a text stating that we hadn’t checked in at our booth. Hmm, we didn’t plan to have a booth – but as seems to be more common than not these days, we pivoted quickly and got our booth set up and started greeting folks there instead of more informally.
Ministry is like that sometimes…. well, most of the time. We plan on one thing, and when we get pulled in several other directions, plans go out the window. In general, these days we know there is too much going on, we have too much on our plates, we feel like we are a bit on the edge. And in the face of too many crises, too many challenges, too much to do, we are unsure where to start on the bigger picture pieces of strategic discernment and planning. We have to figure out how to find our way to the button. The yoga teacher in me wants to invite us all into a big meditation practice, have us take some deep breaths and get refocused on our priorities. But that probably isn’t what you expect from us here at FaithX so let me talk about finding a place to start in a different way.
Let’s talk about data. Let’s talk about MissionMaps for Faith Communities. If you’ve been following along these last few weeks (and I hope you have), then you know that FaithX took the leap to develop our own demographic data dashboard aptly named MissionMaps for Faith Communities. We wanted to provide one place where judicatories can find all the necessary data for strategic planning, capital campaigns, staffing and much more. Data can feel like one more step in an already long process or something that is out of reach unless it shows up in a google search. So, we put all of what you need together accessible through one dashboard, MissionMaps.
Today I want to lift up MissionMaps Premier. MissionMaps Premier has all the map layers, tools and reports found in MissionMaps Basic but also can map out the congregations in your judicatory and analyze five years of parochial report data and community information to identify vitality and sustainability trends. No longer do you have to rely on anecdotal evidence when you visit a congregation. You can look at their vitality scores, see the raw data they provided and identify key issues in the congregation and the community. For instance, what if you have a very vital congregation, but it turns out the community is in decline? And, what about the congregation that is in decline amid a thriving community? MissionMaps can help you identify all of that and so much more. Identifying the issues, naming the problems, focusing on key areas is the place to start. Let us help you find the start button. Contact us at info@faithx.net
