The FaithX Project

Strategic Missional Consulting

Not Retired: Losing my “religion” to join God in the world

by Ken Howard

It’s been over two years since I left my last church to startup FaithX and, I swear, hardly a week goes by that some clergy colleague doesn’t ask me about how I’m enjoying retirement. The exchange usually goes something like this:

Colleague: So how are you enjoying retirement?

Ken: I’m not.

Colleague: Not enjoying retirement?

Ken: Not retired.

[at this point I explain how what I’m doing is a different different kind of ministry]

It’s not just the fact that people (often the same ones) keep getting wrong that irks me. What truly troubles me is the unexamined assumptions behind the sometimes spoken but usually unspoken exchange that follows:

Colleague: What? Wait! You left your congregation, right?

Ken: Yep.

Colleague: And you didn’t accept a call to a new congregation, right?

Ken: Yep.

Colleague: Then how can say you’re not retired?

[Read more…]

An Introduction to MapDash Analytics

To fully understand location-based data we need to organize and examine the data in four different ways. We have to:

  1. Visualize – Get your faith community’s data on an map, so you can explore it visually.
  2. Contextualize – Find your faith community’s place in the data, so you can examine its missional context.
  3. Analyze – Interrogate the data, to reveal what it means for your faith community.
  4. Socialize – Share your data, with leaders, members, the community, funders, and other stakeholders

Today’s post is about step 3, and the analytic tools MapDash for Faith Communities provides that help you reveal what demographic, lifestyle, and other data mean for your faith community or judicatory.

[Read more…]

Missio:Engage – Transforming our faith communities for the sake of our neighborhoods

Adapted from the writings of Tom Brackett

“Love your neighbor as yourself.”
– Jesus

“Who is my neighbor?”
– A rich young ruler

The simplest way describing missio:Engage! is to think of it as yet another way to ask the age-old questions, “Who are our neighbors?” and “How is God calling us to love them?”

Or to unpack those questions further…

What would it be like if our faith communities and their dioceses loved their neighborhoods so much that they were willing to transform themselves for their sake and the sake of the Gospel?

What would it be like if we had eyes to see the God’s hand at work in the world around us and the courage to become God’s partners with God’s Spirit in that work.

What would it be like if we were part of larger community of practice that would help us anticipate, identify, and engage the missional opportunities emerging from the blossoming cultural diversity of our communities.

The groundwork for missio:Engage! was laid in July of 2018, when the Episcopal Church passed two enabling resolutions calling for the creation of  a “Community of Practice that works with congregations and their bishops to help them…better engage the cultural realities of their communities for the sake of launching new ministries and multi-cultural missional initiatives.”*

[Read more…]

FaithX and Datastory begin work on TEC missio:Engage! Pilot project

We are proud to announce that FaithX and Datastory were recently chosen as primary contractors for the Episcopal Church’s new missio:Engage! Initiative. Which means that Strategic Missional Consulting by FaithX and MapDash for Faith Communities by Datastory are now recommended resources for those joining the new missio:Engage! Community of Practice. Our work has has already begun on a missio:Engage! pilot project with the combined dioceses of New York and Central New York.

FaithX consultants worked with diocesan designees to collect key parochial report data, to be analysed for indicators of individual congregation vitality and sustainability, as well as for diocese-level indicators of missional opportunity. And Datastory is now in the process of analyzing this data and provisioning a diocese-specific missio map dashboard for each diocese.

[Read more…]

Volume 1, Issue 1 Is Now Published Online!

Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry

The FaithX Project, in partnership with Wipf and Stock Publishers, is proud to announce the release of our very first issue of the peer-reviewed academic journal, Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry (SHERM).

You can view and download the articles by clicking here.

Table of Contents:

ISBN: 978-1-5326-8495-1

SOCIAL-SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

1) “Grenz and Franke’s Post-Foundationalism and the Religion Singularity“

By Jeshua B. Branch

2) “First Century Christian Diversity: Historical Evidence of a Social Phenomenon“

By John F. Lingelbach

INVITED POSITION PAPERS

3) “A Cultural Cognition Perspective on Religion Singularity: How Political Identity Influences Religious Affiliation“

By Kevin S. Seybold

4) “Is the Disintegration of Christianity a Problem—or Even a Surprise?“

By Jack David Eller

MINISTRY RESEARCH

5) “Conditions for the Great Religion Singularity“

By Brian D. McLaren

6) “Responses to the Religion Singularity: A Rejoinder”

By Darren M. Slade and Kenneth W. Howard

BOOK REVIEWS

7) “Crossing Boundaries, Redefining Faith”

By Robert D. Francis

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