The FaithX Project

Strategic Missional Consulting

Reborn?

by Steve Matthews

Sometimes when I need a time of reflection, I que up “Pray as You Go.”  PAYG is a daily online resource produced by Scottish Jesuits. It offers daily readings on scripture, some prayerful music, and often something thoughtful to ponder.  Earlier this week, the lectio divina was based on the conversation with Jesus and Nicodemus (John 3:1-8). The line that jumped out at me was, “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born anew.”  

I grew up in a very judgmental evangelical environment so the term “born anew” or “born again” does not invoke life-giving images. In the reflection that followed the PAYG readings, I tried to ponder these words and concepts and my reaction to them.  About an hour later I found a post on Facebook from White Eagle, Hopi indigenous dated March 16, 2020 (just at the start of the pandemic).  White Eagle is talking about seeing the approaching pandemic as fodder for a vision quest.  Regarding vision quests she writes, 

Allow yourself to take advantage of this time to perform your vision seeking rituals. What world do you want to build for you? For now, this is what you can do: serenity in the storm. Calm down, pray every day. Establish a routine to meet the sacred every day.

Good things emanate; what you emanate now is the most important thing. And sing, dance, resist through art, joy, faith and love.
Resist – Be reborn

There’s that word again, “reborn.”  What images/memories/meanings do these words have for you?  I am realizing that they don’t have to be static for me.  As I have reread John 3:1-8 this week and the message from White Eagle, I find myself reflecting on the communal and personal trauma I have experienced in the past year.  I am ready to be re-born and ready to nurture new life in those around me and in the communities where I am embedded.  I want to join a community that sings, dances, resists through art, joy, faith and love. I also need to emanate this energy to others.On April 21 from 1:00-2:00 EST, FaithX is hosting a webinar entitled “Mapping Systemic Racism in our Rural Communities.”  Growing up in a rural Appalachian community that was 95% white, I naively didn’t think we had racism in our town.  My perspective on this is being reborn.  I now see that the communities of color in my hometown were/are located on the least desirable land.  I see the lack of representation in leadership.  I hear the language of the dominant culture differently, and since the 1980’s the demographics of this community have changed dramatically with a large influx of people from Mexico and Central America.  We are not who we thought we were, but have our systems and structures been reborn to reflect this change?  How are your rural communities changing?  We at the FaithX Project believe that compelling data combined with communal discernment can enable us to see our small towns and rural communities with new eyes and help us begin to address racism in creative ways that nurture new life, new possibilities. Please join us by registering here!

A Year of Lent

Year of Lent

This post on a Year of Lent is written by Steve Matthews, Senior Consultant for the FaithX Project.

This time last year, churches and judicatories were beginning to come to the realization that their Lenten practices and Easter celebrations were most likely going to be impacted by the pandemic.  Many imagined the worst would be over by Pentecost.  We hunkered down, got creative, moved online, and looked forward to a more normal way of being in the summer.  

Not only did the pandemic intensify and continue, we have also experienced trauma, anger, and injustice in the wake of George Floyd’s murder (among many others murdered as an effect of systemic racism).  We lived through a volatile election season that culminated in the raid on the Capitol on January 6th and an impeachment hearing.  It has been a horrendous year for us as a country… and this doesn’t even take into account the local challenges or those we have borne in our personal lives.

And now we enter Lent.  A time when we traditionally take on a practice to help us cultivate a penitent heart and a deeper relationship with Christ – most often this is an act of abstinence from some vice or pleasure.  I don’t know about you, but it feels like most of 2020 and 2021 have been a penitent walk in the desert, relying increasingly on God’s love and faithfulness through troubled times. It feels like the entire last year has been a forced celebration of lent.

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Transforming our Understanding of Strategic Missional Planning

By Steve Matthews, FaithX Senior Consultant

Editor’s Note: This is the beginning of a 4-part series on Strategic Missional Planning in different contexts. Next week’s post will be on strategic missional planning for leadership transition.

Remember the good ol’ days when we felt we could project the trajectory of our congregations and judicatories with some degree of confidence?  Remember what it was like to be able to cast a vision based on thoughtful discernment and a sense of stability – believing that in five years we might just reach our goals?  

The world has certainly changed in a year, and we are reminded again that we are not in control.  A couple of nights ago I had a very dramatic and involved dream.  All night long, I was battling evil “Transformers.”  You know, the Paramount Pictures, 200-feet-tall monsters that have the ability to change themselves from a walking robot to a fire-shooting four-wheel vehicle of destruction.  They are very adaptable based on the threat and the weaknesses they see in their opponent.  In reaction to their threats, I was also called to be very adaptable (mostly in the strategic way I hid from them).  It was an exhausting night.

2020 was an exhausting year, and we as faith communities continue to be called toward adaptability.  In 2021 it is possible to plan and to be adaptable… and even strategic, but we won’t do it in the same way we did prior to 2020.  We need to recommit to those spiritual practices that ground us in God’s love, to the practices that enable us to listen to one another and our neighbors at a deep level, to practices that encourage us to accompany our hurting neighbors in a more courageous and prophetic way – and we need to understand our world better in order to move forward together based on our current reality.

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Vitality Check

By Linda Buskirk for ECF Vital Practices

Occasionally, we like to publish posts from guest bloggers, especially when they say nice things about us. This week’s post is an article written by Linda Buskirk of Buskirk Solutions for Episcopal Church Foundation’s “Vital Practices for Congregations” blog. The free, online Congregational Vitality Assessment to which Linda refers was created by FaithX and brought online in a collaborative partnership by FaithX and ECF.

2020 has been a year of difficult “reality checks.”  Yes, it’s dangerous out there.  Yes, you should wear a mask. Yes, you need to figure out Zoom.

Now a new opportunity for a vitality check is available, designed to help focus congregational leadership and planning. 

The Congregational Vitality Assessment (CVA), is now offered at no cost thanks to a partnership between the Episcopal Church Foundation (ECF) and The FaithX Project.  The CVA provides congregations with an assessment of Vitality (healthiness) and Sustainability (level of people, financial, and contextual resources necessary to survive, or even thrive). The vitality section of the CVA measures ten areas of congregational functioning, such as Vision and Mission, Leadership, Lay Empowerment, Worship, Formation, and Stewardship.

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10 Counterintuitive practices that will improve your stewardship (even during a pandemic)

By Ken Howard

In my more than 25 years in starting new congregations and redeveloping existing ones, I have gained a number of hard-won insights into what makes stewardship successful. These insights are the results of much congregational experimentation and reviewing giving research, and most of them go against the grain of our stewardship traditions. I offer this list ten DOs and DON’Ts below:

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