The FaithX Project

Strategic Missional Consulting

Navigating the Info Maze

by Mary Frances

One of my clients called the other day.  The leadership of the congregation was trying to sort out how to reopen safely.  Did people really need to register to come to church?  How would they make sure they were staying 6ft apart?  What would they do about people who didn’t want to wear a mask? How would they distribute communion?  Every time they settled on an answer for one thing, another would pop up.  They navigated their way through Sunday worship and then turned their attention to the upcoming list of long put off funerals.  How many people could attend a funeral?  Would it be live streamed?  What to do about the traditional funeral lunch?

These are just a few examples of the many challenges facing congregations today.  And, of course, congregations are made up of individuals who have a wide range of opinions, information, and experiences.  My mother-in-law called a few days ago.  She has some underlying health conditions and her doctor had advised her to wait on getting the vaccine.  But she, like many of us, is anxious to get out and see friends, and to resume something like the life she used to have.  So, she had just decided to get the J&J vaccine because there have been fewer side effects when the news came out that it was being paused because of a rare but dangerous side effect. She was devastated.  On the other side of the spectrum, a business owner I know posted on Facebook that she doesn’t even own a mask; that we all need to overcome our fears and limitations in order to overcome this situation.  Really?

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Liberating Structures for Ministry

by Mary Frances

A few months ago, I stumbled on a Facebook invitation for something called Liberating Structures for meetings.  It turns out this is a collaborative of folks who think that meetings shouldn’t be boring, they shouldn’t be predictable, and most of all they shouldn’t be required if they aren’t really necessary.  I suppose that the last year of more Zoom meetings than usual helped to pique my interest and so I dove into a couple of weeks of webinars (yes, more Zoom meetings) and started to learn about this interesting group of ideas and tools. 

The more these ideas percolate in me and the more I get to try on these new ideas, the more I think we need something like Liberating Structures for ministry.  We could start with “are all these meetings really necessary?,” but then we could get down to the meaty stuff like “why are we doing this?”  and “is this really important anymore?”  or “are we just doing this because we have always done it?”  And my favorite, “is our leadership organized to hinder or help support ministry?”

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Covid and Congregations: What’s in Store for 2021?

by Mary Frances

Our Webinar series continues on April 27, 2021
Click Here to Register

Covid, Covid, Covid!  

A little over a year ago, you might not have heard about it or given it much thought.  Today it’s in the news all day, every day.  But sometimes it’s hard to know what to think.

In local news today, the governor of my state (Illinois) is about to bring us into Phase 5 which, I think, is pretty much fully open… keeping the mask mandate, though.  I saw Dr. Fauci on TV a few days ago.  He said not to rush to open, that there is still a lot of concern about variants and, at this point, only a small percentage of the population has been fully vaccinated.  And recently, my 90-year-old mother tested positive for Covid while under hospice care and in the dying process and yet they offered to treat her for Covid if we wanted.  For her sake we declined but then I wondered, what would that treatment look like?  As I said, sometimes it’s just hard to know what to think, who to believe, and how to live out our lives in what is not really a post-Covid era… yet.   

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Using the Pandemic to Procrastinate in Ministry

Procrastination Can Be the Death of Ministry

This post about using the pandemic as an excuse to procrastinate is written by Mary Frances, Senior Associate Consultant at the FaithX Project.

At the end of the year, I hear a common refrain from my clients: That’ll have to wait until the new year.  It’s a variation on a theme that we are all too familiar with.  I’ll start my diet right after the holidays.  I’ll start my new exercise routine in January.  I’ll deal with that problem tomorrow.  Kids love to use it as a way to procrastinate.  I’ll do my homework after this show.  I’ll do the dishes after this game.  Later, tomorrow, after…waiting.  Over the course of the last year there is a new variation on this theme:  after the pandemic.  We will deal with outreach after the pandemic.  We will get to know our community more deeply…. after the pandemic.  We will talk about stewardship, formation, new worship formats, you name it, it can all be done after the pandemic. 

After the pandemic really was an appropriate response a year ago, when everything was a mad scramble to get online and make radical changes in the blink of an eye.  Funny thing about this pandemic though, it didn’t just go away; it’s still here….and we don’t know how much longer it will be around, how much longer it will impact our ministries, how much more change it will require of us.  It’s still here.  Sure, there are vaccines, but there are also variants.  Every time we think there is light at the end of the tunnel, someone comes along to tell us the tunnel is longer than we thought. This is no time to procrastinate.

So, how much longer can we say after the pandemic without admitting it’s just a form of procrastination and avoidance?  What if, instead of after the pandemic, we started to ask: What can we do now? What is God asking of us today?  How can we connect with our members, visitors and community more deeply than ever before?  What is ONE thing we can do now that we couldn’t do before?  What is ONE thing that just can’t wait until after the pandemic?

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Creating Deeper Community Connections

Deeper Community

Dear Readers,

After many requests, we have decided to postpone our webinar – Creating Deeper Community Connections – from February 17 to February 24 at 1:00pm ET to allow prospective participants to devote their entire attention to the celebration of Ash Wednesday on the 17th.

To register for the webinar, click here.

If you already registered and are okay with the new date, don’t worry: your registration will be automatically transferred to the new date.

If you are already registered and the date doesn’t work for you, simply go to the Eventbrite webinar registration page, request a refund, and we will happily comply.

Meanwhile, we hope to see you on the 24th.

Have a great Ash Wednesday!

by Mary Frances

Click this link to register
for our webinar on this topic on February 17, 2021 at 1:00pm
sponsored by FaithX, ECF, and the Gathering of Leaders

When I was in my last parish call, I was fortunate to receive a detailed demographic report from one of the big companies offering such things.  I spent hours pouring over the pages and pages of information.  Median age, median income, race, education, and more.  The whole thing was at least 20 pages long and eventually I realized that it just wasn’t going to do me any good.  First, I didn’t really understand what to do with this information.  Second, I didn’t know where some of these population groups were.  I understood there was a growing Latino population in town, but I didn’t know where they were.  I knew that the number of people experiencing homelessness was growing, but aside from the few who came to the door of the church, was there a place these folks gathered?  Sought shelter?  I just didn’t know and, perhaps more importantly, I didn’t know how to find out.
Today we have clarity on two of the issues I raised above.  We now have demographic reports that are clear, concise, and point to community strengths, weaknesses, and risk factors.  The Neighborhood Missional Intelligence Report from FaithX provides over 40 relevant data points – in just two pages! And when we dig deeper into those data points we can determine how and where a community is growing or not, where there is affordable housing or not, and predominant population groups based on age, race, and gender.  We can also determine at a glance if there are concerns about medical coverage, the growing cost of daycare or how many people in your neighborhood are falling into poverty.  These numbers are vital to going beyond anecdotal evidence to understand the joys and concerns of the community in which we are planted.

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