The FaithX Project

Strategic Missional Consulting

Who Are The People In Your Neighborhood? From Market Analytics to Missional Context Reports

This post is the last of a seven post series on MapDash Analytics

by Ken Howard

One of the many features of MapDash for Faith Communities that makes it unique among other faith-based demographic tools is an analytic report that we call a Missional Context ReportTM. MCRs were developed by FaithX as a way for faith leaders at the congregations and judicatory level to better understand the lifestyles of the people in their neighborhoods in order to better engage them. 

MCRs are one-page reports that translate market segmentation data into ten areas of key information and practical programmatic and ministry opportunities that congregations can use to better target their engagement strategies to the unique lifestyles of the dominant population segment in each of the neighborhoods that form the community they serve. These areas are:

  1. Communications and Technology
  2. Education and Formation
  3. Hospitality and Fellowship
  4. Leadership/Doership Skill Set
  5. Midweek Involvement
  6. Neighborhood Characteristics and Issues
  7. Outreach Opportunities 
  8. Stewardship and Finance
  9. Theological/Political Orientation
  10. Worship

You can find a sample MCR here

[Read more…]

New Study Finds Majority of Christians Do Not Have Meaningful Contact with Atheists, Muslims, or LGBTQ+ Community

An Interview with Dr. Stephen Merino, 
Assistant Professor of Sociology at Colorado Mesa University

By Darren M. Slade, PhD

As Director of Research for the FaithX Project, Darren Slade contributes regular posts the FaithXperimental blog curating recent research relevant to the future of faith and faith-based communities as they are published.

In a recently published sociological article entitled, “Religious Involvement and Bridging Social Ties,” Dr. Stephen Merino sought to investigate whether religious involvement in church ministry, beyond the typical Sunday worship service, was a meaningful predictor for creating “social capital” (i.e. social resources, relationships, shared values and norms, and a sense of trust and reciprocity) between church-going Christians and marginalized groups in society. He also explored whether this involvement resulted in Christians having a connection to different people groups, such as members of the LGBTQ+ community, people on welfare, people of color, Muslims, and atheists. 

What Dr. Merino found was that the majority of white Christians surveyed do not participate in civic engagement or other ministries outside of attending Sunday worship services. Furthermore, Dr. Merino found that the majority of church-going Christians do not have regular or meaningful contact with these marginalized groups, which has significant social and political implications for how Christians cooperate with and tolerate those who are different from themselves. 

This blog post conducts an interview with Dr. Merino about his findings and asks him to explore the implications of his study beyond what was written in his article. The interview concludes with this question: “As a result of your study, is it fair to say that on average, the majority of Christians do not have meaningful contact with atheists, Muslims, or members of the LGBTQ+ community on a regular basis?” Dr. Merino’s response: “I think that’s fairly safe to say. It’s probably also likely that evangelical Christians have the least contact with members of these groups.”

[Read more…]

Datastory Releases Greatly Enhanced MapDash 2.2

By Ken Howard

Earlier this month, Datastory released its much anticipated and greatly enhanced MapDash 2.2. 

It is amazing how far we’ve come so fast.

It was only two years ago that Datastory and FaithX teamed up to begin shaping a faith-based version of Datastory’s powerful MapDash demographic/analytic platform. Then in July of last year, after several rounds of rapid prototyping and testing in judicatories in five states, Datastory launched MapDash for Faith Communities, and FaithX launched consultative strategic missional planning programs that leverage its unique capabilities for faith communities and the judicatories that support them.

Even then the capabilities of MapDash went far beyond any demographic tool available at the time, bringing real time interactive experience and powerful analytics available nowhere else. MapDash 2.2, honed by input and feedback from actual users, goes even further, with an updated layout, more than double the data, and comprehensive improvements to tools and widgets. 

One of those tools is the new Neighborhood Missional Intelligence Report (NMIR), an infographic report designed to give users an interactive snapshot of their neighborhoods. As described in an earlier post, FaithX employs the MapDash NMIR as the core of its Neighborhood Missional Intelligence Assessment, a 3-hour, online consultation designed for congregations seeking to better understand and engage the communities they serve.

Some of the new data features of MapDash 2.2 include:

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FaithXperimental Spotlight: Justice Revival, Washington, DC

“A Justice Ministry Whose Time Has Come”

A few years ago, Megan, a millennial fresh out of college, was clear on her calling—she wanted to join a Christian human rights organization. Megan had grown up in the Church, studied theology, led mission trips. But when she went searching, there wasn’t such a group to be found. She discovered worthwhile ministries tackling crucial justice issues from hunger to human trafficking, but none focused on human rights as such.

Fast forward to 2019: Megan, now a skilled professional, joins a team meeting one morning to meet a new nonprofit client. She is unexpectedly moved because she finally hears someone articulate her deep conviction about the vital need for a Christian ministry specializing in human rights. That person is Allyson McKinney Timm, founder of Justice Revival based out of Washington, DC.

Justice Revival describes itself as “a diverse, inclusive community of Christian faith, dedicated to serving as a voice for human rights in the United States.” Its vision is a vibrant, transformative movement in which Christian faith leaders call on U.S. lawmakers to fulfill their moral and legal duty to respect and protect the human rights of all people, not just a particular class of citizenry.

[Read more…]

Are You Leading a Zombie Congregation?

Take this 10-Question Quiz and Find Out

By Ken Howard

We thought that since Ken is away on vacation, this might be a good time to bring back his much requested blog post, “Are You Leading a Zombie Congregation,” originally published in the Episcopal Church Foundation’s Vital Parishes newsletter.

In case you haven’t noticed, zombies are becoming more popular these days. Gone are the old-time zombie movies with their slack-jawed, shuffling zombies. Nowadays the undead are appearing in zombie action movies, zombie romantic comedies, and zombie Bollywood flicks.

Zombies have even made their way into business literature. Companies and non-profit organizations that are operating but not growing have come to be called Zombies, because they are in a state of limbo – not dead, yet not exactly alive either – and because they maintain their undead existence by draining resources away from healthy organizations.

So what about zombie churches? Could there be congregations in which the individual members were alive, but the congregation as a whole was undead, having lost both the desire and the capacity to grow? It’s not just possible but true. By the standard just articulated, a significant portion of our churches (perhaps even a plurality) could be classified as zombies. In fact, churches may be more at risk of becoming zombies than other kinds of organizations, because they can blind themselves to their condition by convincing themselves that their lack of change and adaptation to new contexts is due to the strength of their traditions, or by saying to themselves, “If we could just bring back [insert favorite “Make Church Great Again” memory here], everything will be fine. Worse, they often maintain their undead existence for decades by consuming their own endowments and/or denominational resources that might otherwise go to healthier congregations.

Are you leading a zombie church? Take this ten-question quiz and find out…

[Read more…]

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