The FaithX Project

Strategic Missional Consulting

Congregation–Based Neighborhood Resource Hubs

Faith communities as catalysts,
leveraging their underused buildings and property
for the sake of their neighborhoods and their mission

It will come as no surprise to anyone that the future of congregations and their houses is uncertain. 

According to Pew Research, the number of religiously unaffiliated (those who identify as “none of the above” or “nothing in particular”) has increased dramatically. The “Nones” nearly doubled between 2007 and 2019, and are projected to be a majority of the U.S. population by 2040 (just 18 years from now). Meanwhile, every U.S. Christian denomination is shrinking in membership and attendance with the number who attend regularly (at least once per month) having already dropped below 50% of the population, and is continuing to fall, leaving a majority of worship spaces operating at less than half capacity. The inevitable impact on finances has left most congregations facing some degree of financial difficulty, leading to an estimated 3,850–7,700 worship centers closing every year, according to  The Journal of Pastoral Psychology. Where once were church buildings now stand bookstores, brew pubs and wineries, skate parks and laser tag arenas, luxury condos, and even frat houses.

At the same time, many urban and rural communities are struggling with dozens of issues like the lack of access to living wage employment, affordable housing, medical insurance, health care, and social services, according to the  Regional Indicators Dashboard Project, all of which leads to many living in substandard conditions or even becoming homeless because they can’t afford to live and work in their communities. Ironically, many of the government and nonprofit organizations that could help these people with the challenges they face also cannot afford to locate in their communities.

And, of course, Covid.

All these factors combine to create a vicious cycle with little hope for things improving for congregations and the communities they serve, right?

Not necessarily…

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Recent Episcopal Pulse Microsurvey Tracks Observations of Congregational Vitality Assessment Data

By The Rev. Ken Howard

As many of our readers will recall, The TryTank Experimental Library partnered The FaithX Project to manage an experiment called the Episcopal Pulse. 

Launched in January, the Episcopal Pulse experiment is designed to test the value and efficacy of real-time micro-polling of a representative sample of Episcopalians in keeping a finger on the pulse of the Episcopal denomination. And we’ve been getting interesting results on a variety of questions.

One recent microsurvey (#10) included six questions that sought respondents opinions of their congregations on six indicators of congregational vitality:

  1. The congregation has a clear vision that its members understand.
  2. The congregation empowers its lay people.
  3. The congregation is fully inclusive of the community it serves.
  4. The congregation welcomes change.
  5. The congregation deals with differences in a healthy way.
  6. The congregation nurtures the faith of its members.

How did the respondents answer?

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Is your pastor at risk of dying from Coronavirus? See our research findings! National Survey on Clergy Covid Deaths

As the second wave of Covid-19 was rising in late 2020, we were hearing persistent rumors that more U.S. clergy were dying from Covid-19 than the general population. We at FaithX wanted to know if these rumors were true and if so, why? Online searches revealed no research on the subject. Nor could we find any readily available data on clergy Covid deaths from denominational offices.

So we partnered with researchers at the Global Center from Religious Research (GCRR) to do some research of our own: a slice-in-time survey of Covid-related clergy deaths in the U.S. from January 1 through June 30, 2021. Obviously, this would not be an exhaustive study, but we did hope it would kickstart discussion and “prime the pump” for future research on the subject. We surveyed 16 major Christian denominations in the United States and published the results in the peer-review academic journal, Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry (SHERM Journal).

Our research revealed some interesting findings, including a strong reluctance by many denominational leaders to even participate in the study at all. Indeed, there were strong political polarizations that surfaced and resulted in some religious leaders (abusively) shaming and condemning us for even asking the question. The research also revealed that the Northeast had the highest recorded death rate compared to other geographical regions in the US, which is not surprising since that’s where the pandemic first started. If you would like to learn more, simply click the button below for the full SHERM article or continue reading this blog post for a short synopsis of the major findings.

Read the Full Article
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The Data We Too Often Miss

by Mary Frances

I see you.
I see your patience in the face of abject ignorance.
I see your poise in the presence of shameless hypocrisy.
I see your brilliance in the space of those who wish to diminish you.
I see you…and that smile. I see it, all of it and the complete frustration hiding behind it, knowing full well you are more intelligent, more moral, and more faithful than any of those questioning you will ever be.
I see you, and in you I pray more young women of color see themselves too.
You are an inspiration. We see you and know history will too.

– From a Facebook post by Sapna Singh

Last week I celebrated, along with much of the country, the confirmation of soon-to-be Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.  I celebrated another woman on the highest court in the land and I celebrated that the woman who had broken that particular glass ceiling is black.  All these hundreds of years of the court and now, finally, in 2022, we will have a Black woman on the Supreme Court.  

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Newly-Released Book by FaithX Executive Director

Excommunicating the Faithful:

Jewish Christianity in the Early Church

By Kenneth W. Howard

FaithX executive director Ken Howard recently published the third edition of his book, Excommunicating the Faithful: Jewish Christianity in the Early Church, edited and revised to include the most current research on the subject.

Excommunicating the Faithful is a research-based, academic book, yet very accessible to the average reader and highly relevant to our present theo-political divisions. It traces the development of Jewish Christianity from its beginnings in the earliest Christian communities through its apparent disappearance in the fourth or fifth century after they were declared heretical by the Church Fathers and excommunicated from the Church, despite the fact that they were as “orthorodox” as any Christian groups at the time and considered themselves a part of the greater church.

It is a cautionary tale that is reminiscent of a murder mystery. 

It is cautionary because it shows how cultural misunderstandings and power struggles between competing Christian communities can result in increasingly narrow and conflicting views of orthodoxy, and orthopraxis can create not only theological divisions but racial and ethnic prejudice as well. And also because it shows what a loss it was and is for the Church to forget its spiritual heritage. 

It is reminiscent of a murder mystery because the only evidence of the crime consists of fragments in the writings of the ones who were responsible for its death as a part of the Church. 

We hope our readers will find it helpful.

Read on to explore pre-publication reviews.

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