The FaithX Project

Strategic Missional Consulting

A Lesson from Gardening: Why Church Planting Isn’t Always a Good Idea

By their fruits you shall know them.
Y’shua bar Yoseph
(Matthew 7:16-20).

By Ken Howard

Church planting isn’t always a good idea.

I know that may be a shock to some of my church planting friends and colleagues, especially those who believe that church planting is a “silver bullet” for growing the church.

But it’s true. Sometimes planting a new church is a bad idea.

And I say this as a person who loves starting congregations, who has started two congregations and consulted with dozens of others.

I’ve come to this realization over time. In part, it evolved over 25 years of studying church growth and church meta-demographic trends. But it crystallized during a discussion with a congregant at my last church who was a certified Master Gardener, while he was planting a flower garden at the church.

He told me that perhaps the most common and most detrimental mistake made by new gardeners is over planting: too many plants, too close together. The thinking is “how can there be such a thing as too many flowers?” But according to this former congregant, apparently there is such a thing. [Read more…]

A Modest Proposal


Reversing Decline in the Episcopal Church and Other Denominations

By Ken Howard

 

The Problem

Most dioceses of the Episcopal Church are declining in membership, struggle to meet operations, and do not have sufficient funds to make significant investments in growth.

The Question

How can dioceses make an immediate headway toward reversing their rate of decline while making available additional funds to invest in growth?

A Possible Solution

Strategic Reallocation

Let’s assume that a typical healthy diocese looks like this.

Because even in a healthy diocese, at any point in time,
16–17% of the congregations will be in rapid-to-moderate decline.

Why?

Because all congregations have a natural life cycle:
from birth, to growth, to stability, to decline, to death.

Churches are living things, and ultimately, all living things die.

Which means
that even relatively healthy dioceses have to grapple with the issue
of how to deal with declining congregations

But the reality in most dioceses is worse.

The tail on the declining end
is significantly shorter
than the tail on the growth end.

Which means that the percentage of congregations experiencing decline
is significantly higher than the percentage experiencing growth.

So what steps can we take to address this problem?

Step 1 – Transfer Dollars

CLOSE
parishes that are in moderate to rapid decline
and have reached unsustainable membership levels, then…

CONSOLIDATE
Pastorally help the people come to terms
with the death of their congregation,
and find new worshiping communities, and…

SELL & REINVEST
Sell property and invest the proceeds and endowments into:
–Researching why some parishes are growing
(especially, how they engage their neighborhoods)
–Redeveloping at-risk congregations
–Starting new congregations and ministries

Step 2 – Transfer Knowledge

RESEARCH
What makes your vital and growing parishes
vital and growing

DEVELOPMENT
Invest that knowledge into:
–Redeveloping at-risk congregations and revitalizing stagnant ministries

 

Objections

I anticipate there will be some objections to this modest proposal.


Objection #1

It’s
UN-PASTORAL
to close parishes in which people still worship

 

Response #1

UN-PASTORAL
is allowing congregations
to sink deeper and deeper into ineffective unsustainability

PASTORAL
is helping members come to terms
with the fact that their congregation is dying
and that it’s not their fault
(and perhaps helping them find a new place to worship with a more vital congregation)

 

Objection #2

It’s
BAD OUTREACH
to close parishes which serve the community

 

Response #2

BUILDING ≠ MINISTRY

EFFECTIVE OUTREACH
 does not require a building
(a building may even hinder it)

 

Objection #3

It’s
BAD STEWARDSHIP
to sell a kingdom resource

Response #3

BAD STEWARDSHIP
is putting money into building maintenance
at the expense of ministry

GOOD STEWARDSHIP
is putting money where it will do the most good
in support of God’s ministry

 

How this modest proposal be received?

Hard to say.
It’s quite possible that my “modest proposal”
 may receive no better a reception
than Jonathan Swift’s original satirical tracts of the same name,
because many bishop’s view the churches of their dioceses as their babies,
so many may view closing church buildings
with the same distaste as Swift’s proposal
to fight hunger by eating the babies of poor people.

For those who do, this post describes
THE END

But for those who choose the harder yet more faithful road, this post describes
THE BEGINNING

MapDash™ for Faith Communities to Go “Live” at TEC Convention Expo

Work continues apace to ready MapDash™ for Faith Communities for its public debut at the Weekend Expo at the Episcopal Church’s triennial General Convention.

MapDash™ for Faith Communities is an interactive, data-grounded, map-based tool for missional analysis and planning. It was developed by Datastory Consulting, in collaboration with The FaithX Project, and beta tested by diocesan and congregational leaders in five Episcopal Dioceses.

MapDash™ for Faith Communities enables dioceses to assess congregational health, identify missional opportunities, and promote collaboration among congregations. It gives congregations the capacity to better understand and engage the neighborhoods they are called to serve. And it empowers faith leaders at all levels to make better and faster decisions with objective data that augments natural intuition and wisdom.

MapDash™ for Faith Communities will be available on a subscription basis, primarily through dioceses and other judicatories. The standard bundle will include five dashboards: one Executive Dashboard and four Congregational Dashboards:

  • The Congregational Dashboards will allow congregational leaders to define their neighborhood in different ways, then select data maps that will help them understand their neighborhoods’ population characteristics, community issues, and community resources.
  • The Executive Dashboard is built on top of the Congregational platform and includes all of its features, plus important additional diagnostic features: a Congregational Health Assessment map layer and a Missional Opportunities map layer.

Our work on the Congregational Dashboard is nearly complete, with about a week left in our final beta test.

We have a little more work on the Executive Dashboard. The Congregational Health Assessment is a little over a week away from completing beta testing, while a couple of weeks remain to complete the Missional Opportunities map layer.

So if you are planning to attend the 2018 General Convention, come by, visit us, and get a demo at booth #837.

[Read more…]

FaithX Launches Peer-Reviewed Journal: Call for Board Members and Papers

After more than a year of planning, FaithX is launching a new peer-reviewed journal entitled Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry (SHERM) under the leadership of its research director, Darren M. Slade, who will serve as SHERM’s General Editor. The first order of business is a call for Board Members and Papers (more information on this below). But first a little bit of background on SHERM and its purpose.

 

What is SHERM?
SHERM is a biannual, not-for-profit, peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes the latest social scientific, historiographic, and ecclesiastic research on religious institutions and their practices. SHERM is dedicated to the critical and scholarly inquiry of historical and contemporary religious phenomena, both from within particular religious traditions and across cultural boundaries, so as to inform the broader socio-historical analysis of religion and its related fields of study.

 

What is SHERM’s Purpose?
Inspired by Ken’s recently published research paper, The Religion Singularity, the purpose of SHERM is to provide a scholarly medium for specialists to publish advanced studies on religious trends, theologies, rituals, philosophies, and cultural influences in the hopes of generating enthusiasm for the academic and vocational study of religion while fostering collegiality among religious specialists. Its mission is to provide academics, professionals, and nonspecialists with critical reflections and evidence-based insights into religion and ministry.

[Read more…]

Ecclesiastical Autoimmune Syndrome – Part 7

This is the final post of a multipart series on Ecclesiastical Autoimmune Syndrome.
Click here for last week’s post.

Recovering from Ecclesiastical Autoimmunity Syndrome
By Ken Howard

For the last several weeks we have reviewed the causes and symptoms of Ecclesiastical Autoimmune Syndrome. Now we turn toward how to treat it. What follows are a collection of ideas about attitudes and practices that might help stop the downward spiral of E.A.S. and start the upward journey toward congregational and organizational health and vitality.

  1. Admit That We Have the Disease. Think of it as joining Autoimmunes Anonymous and beginning something like a 12-Step process of recovery (step one: admitting A.E.S. has taken control of your corporate life). Ecclesiastical Autoimmune Syndrome is not only an allergy to change, but also an addiction “to the way things are.” But it is worse than most other addictions, because we are born with it. Our addiction to homeostasis is part of our (sinful) human nature. Like any other addiction, the first step is admitting we have the disease. It’s also perhaps the hardest step, because since we have never not been infected, we don’t really know what “healthy” is, often mistaking the behavioral symptoms of E.A.S. as an heroic defense of “tradition.” Faith-based communities and organizations often have to get very close to death before the reality of the disease breaks through our denial, and sometimes not even then. So start by recognizing that your congregation or organization has E.A.S. and realize that you will always be in recovery. 

    [Read more…]

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