Faith (eXperimental)

By Ken Howard Today’s post is the third of a multipart series on Ecclesiastical Autoimmune Syndrome. Click here for last week’s post. In this series of blog posts, we are reviewing the signs and symptoms of Ecclesiastical Autoimmune Syndrome so that we can learn to spot it before it becomes terminal. After Commissions on Ministry, […]

by Ken Howard Today’s post is the second of a multipart series on Ecclesiastical Autoimmune Syndrome. Click here for last week’s post. Last week we began a discussion of Ecclesiastical Autoimmune Syndrome (or E.A.S.):  an emerging, infectious, but poorly understood pathology afflicting an increasing number of churches. E.A.S. occurs when the body of the Church […]

by Ken Howard Today’s post is part of a new multipart series. Autoimmune Syndrome is one of the least-understood of human pathologies. The human immune system is the body’s active defense against infectious disease. When working properly, it responds to invading microorganisms, such as viruses or bacteria, by producing antibodies or sensitized lymphocytes (types of […]

by Ken Howard A colleague of mine, Hugh Plappert, founder and CEO of FinishLinePlanner.com, is conducting a survey on church growth, and has asked me to make my readers aware of it, in case they would like to participate. Appropriately titled the National Church Growth Report Survey, it may be found here: bit.ly/ChurchGrowthSurvey (case sensitive). […]

by Ken Howard This the 7th and last post in a multi-part series. Click here to read the previous post. Step 4 – Where Are Our Future Opportunities and Threats? (Investing in The New). Think of this in term of ice hockey legend Wayne Gretzky’s immortal wisdom: “I don’t skate to where the puck is, I […]

A sermon delivered at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Brighton, MD.

  by Ken Howard This the 6th post in a multi-part series. Click here to read the previous post. Step 1 – What is God calling us to be? (Vision). What we are looking for here is succinct statement of what you have collectively discerned that God is calling you collectively to be and to do. […]

by Ken Howard This the 5th post in a multi-part series. Click here to read the previous post. In our last several posts, we discussed the what it means to be missional and how to go about developing a missional plan for a congregation. In this next series of posts, we move up a level in […]

by Ken Howard This is the fourth of several posts in the multi-part series on Missional Planning Click here to read the previous post Step 6: What Does This Say About Us? (Sustainability). The data about your communities not only teaches you about your neighborhoods and the people, they also can teach you something about the […]

by Ken Howard The third post in a multi-part series on Missional Planning. Click here to read the previous post. Step 2: Who Are Our Neighbors? The next step is find out as much as we can about the characteristics of the people who live in your neighborhoods. We say neighborhoods (plural) because the community in […]

by Ken Howard The second post in a multi-part series on Missional Planning. Click here to read the previous post. Now that we’ve clarified what “being missional” means in theory, we can move on to what it means to be missional in practice: specifically, how to develop a missional plan. We will walk through the […]

The first post in a multi-part series on Missional Planning. By Ken Howard Our last several posts have focused on the principles and practices the comprise Vision-Guided Experimentation (VGE). For our next several posts, we will focus on putting VGE to use in congregations and adjudicatories (e.g., dioceses, districts, synods, etc.) by walking through the […]

By Ken Howard We are excited to announce that, with the completion and distribution of our Beta User Guide, and the distribution of logins to the Beta release to our five test dioceses, Datastory for Faith Communities (DFC) is now in full beta! Five Episcopal Dioceses are participating in beta testing the DFC app: Diocese […]

By Ken Howard We now take a break from our series on Vision-Guided Experimentation to explore some cutting edge research on the boundary between politics, values, mental health, and technology with a review of the results of the latest survey by the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion (ISR), American Values, Mental Health, and Use […]

This is the fifth in a series of blog posts on Vision-Guided Experimentation. By Ken Howard In our last post, we spoke about the need to “get outside the building” by engaging in a Missional Context Analysis. After all, we cannot fulfill the command to “Love your neighbor,” unless we first get to know our […]

by Ken Howard This is the fourth post in an ongoing series on Vision-Guided Experimentation click here for previous post Faith Communities are living organisms made up of human beings. They “live and move and have their being,” sharing many of the characteristics of the people who populate them. Like them, one of things faith […]

The third in a series of blog posts on Vision-Guided Experimentation for faith communities Click here to read the previous post By Ken Howard Vision Guided Experimentation (or VGE) is an emergent learning process which faith-based communities and organizations can use to help them quickly and effective adapt to rapid change while remaining sharply focused […]

By Ken Howard Write the vision; make it plain… so that a runner may read it. Habakkuk 2:2 This is the second of two blog posts on Minimum Viable Belief (click here for previous post), the term I have used to describe the driving vision of a faith-based community or organization. Minimum Viable Belief – […]

Planning ahead for 2018? Looking for one last tax exempt donation to maximize your charitable deductions? Support FaithX Designate Your Tax Deductible Gift One of the Following Ways Where Most Needed Helps us develop programs and resources more quickly and at a lower cost. Coaching Scholarship Fund Helps underwrite the cost of coaching clergy persons from smaller congregations or whose adjudicatories do not […]

By Ken Howard Okay. Let’s review. Early this summer I published a research paper entitled, “The Religion Singularity: A Demographic Crisis Destabilizing and Transforming Institutional Christianity,” in which I described an emerging phenomenon in which the total numbers of denominations and worship centers (local faith communities) worldwide is growing and splintering considerably faster than the […]

Christmas blessings to all our clients, colleagues, partners, and friends!   The Rev. Ken Howard Executive Director & Primary Consultant The FaithX Project

By Ken Howard It has been said that the Chinese word for “crisis” is formed from two ideograms: one which signifies danger, the other opportunity. Last summer, we published a research paper entitled, “The Religion SIngularity: The Demographic Crisis Destabilizing and Transforming Institutional Christianity” in the Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society. The article describes an emerging […]

Another late afternoon and here I am at my remote office – St. Arbuck’s (AKA Starbucks) – drinking an Egg Nog Latte and watching people come and go while I finish up a last few items of work before packing it in for the day. And I find myself thinking: “You know, faith communities could learn a thing […]

  “He who has himself as a doctor has a fool as a patient.” Or so the old saying goes. And like most proverbs, it contains a lot of wisdom. It never turns out well when people self-diagnose and self-treat, because they have neither the necessary knowledge nor essential objectivity, and at the same time […]

  Development and Beta Testing of Datastory for Faith Communities continues apace, with public release still anticipated for early 2018. Our beta test sites are gearing up. Two of the new sites – the Episcopal Dioceses of Georgia and Oklahoma – have already provided us with the names and locations of their congregations. We will […]

by Ken Howard I’m planning a real-world experiment in the social impact of giving and taking, and I’d like to invite your participation. 30 years ago, I designed a structured group experience to test a two-part hypothesis: Part A: There are three kinds of people in world (I’m not the first to make this observation): […]

by Ken Howard As many of my readers may know, I am administering a volunteer-moderated Facebook group I started early this year, Dialogue across Differences: Speaking from the Heart, which is dedicated to promoting respectful post-election dialogue across the many fissures that have developed over the years and were terribly exacerbated during the last election. […]

America’s Changing Religious Identity 2016: A Research Review By Ken Howard The Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) has just published their findings from the 2016 American Values Atlas in a study entitled America’s Changing Religious Identity.  Their findings add further confirmation those of our research, The Religion Singularity, published in the International Journal of Religion and Spirituality […]

By the Rev. Ken Howard I recently reconnected with a classmate from my high school days. Our first several exchanges focused on updating each other on what had happened in the decades since our graduation. Once we discovered that both of us had become Christ-followers, the discussion turned to sharing our respective points of view on a variety of […]

by Ken Howard I know… It’s been a while. My bad. These last few weeks I’ve been simply swamped with the task of writing proposals on deadlines, and generating money came first. I guess that’s just “the way of the world,” right? Our friends at St. Philip’s, Scotts Valley, in the Episcopal Diocese of El […]

By Ken Howard Part 2: Jots and Tittles – Applying Midrash to the Words of Jesus In my previous blog post on Midrash, I reflected on the dilemma in which the Church finds itself today: attempting to apply univocal, linear approaches to the study and interpretation of Scripture in a world in which both science […]

by Ken Howard Part 1: The Need for a Deeper Method of Bible Study A number of you have asked me to expand on comments I made in Paradoxy commending the ancient Jewish method of Bible study and interpretation known as Midrash as well-suited to the post-modern world in which the Church finds itself today: a world […]

Dear Colleagues in Ministry, Most of you know in your heart of hearts that institutional Christianity his facing serious headwinds: unprecedented levels of change, from within and without, that challenge our ability to adapt, as well as rising uncertainty that threatens to paralyze us with fears for our survival. Well, I’m here to tell you […]

By Ken Howard That the recent presidential election turned the existing political and social divide in the United States into a gaping chasm is news to no one. And it should also come as no surprise that this chasm of division has extended to conservative and liberal Christian denominations. Yet what is not as widely […]

By Ken Howard I am pleased and excited to announce the publication of my peer-reviewed article, “The Religion Singularity,” in the International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society. The full title of the article is “The Religion Singularity: A Demographic Crisis Destabilizing and Transforming Institutional Christianity.” In this article, I trace the emergence and […]

  As you may have heard, a number of congregations around the country are employing Paradoxy: Creating Christian Community Beyond Us and Them as the basis for conflict transformation dialogue groups in the wake of the last election. One of those congregations, an Episcopal Church in the Diocese of El Camino Real, has agreed to […]

Date: March 26, 2017 (The 4th Sunday in Lent) Preacher: The Rev. Ken Howard Location: Church of the Holy Apostles, Arbutus, Maryland. Text: John 9:1-41 Jesus said, ‘I came into this world for judgement so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.’

  Dear FaithX Friends, We are happy to announce that late last year we achieved several of our early organizational goals: We incorporated The FaithX Project as a Maryland corporation. We achieved 501(c)3 Nonprofit status as an organization with a religious, educational, and philanthropic purpose. Ken’s coaching, consulting, and training work under FaithX was approved as […]

by Ken Howard The response to our Paradoxy Congregational Conflict Transformation 10-Pack Giveaway has been great. In the last 10 days 20 congregations from San Francisco to Washington DC have claimed free group discussion 10-packs along with facilitator guidelines and other downloadable resources. And they are putting them to use right now to move beyond the tension […]

The recent presidential election left faith leaders and their congregations between rock and a hard place, struggling with questions like: How do we counteract our current epidemic of out-of-control “othering”?   How do we engage issues of justice and truth without alienating without deepening the divisions between people who disagree? How do we maintain our […]

By Ken Howard A common quandary I hear expressed by leaders of faith-based communities and organizations is… How can I help my community adapt to a rapidly changing world without forsaking our traditions? And my answer to this quandary is: It depends… Specifically, it depends on what you think traditions are good for. If we think of our traditions as holy […]

Conflict resolution experts ask President-elect Trump and other government officials to take a stand to reduce post-election violence Hundreds of post-election reports of vandalism, beatings and threats since the US election have prompted dozens of leading experts in conflict resolution to urge Donald Trump and government officials at all levels to take an urgent, public […]

By Ken Howard I’ve been told that in the writing of every book there comes a time (or times) when the author begins to wonder whether all the effort he or she is putting into the project is worth it. For me it usually comes when I am about a third of the way into the […]

A slide presentation… By Ken Howard                   Click here for the full power point show.

By River Damien Sims The first twenty five years of our life were filled with certainty. We knew who God was and that “He” made us in a certain way, no matter what. But in that certainty we were filled with fear, depression, and a horrible sense of being the “bad boy” because we were  […]

Part 2: A Proactive Solution? By Ken Howard In our last blog post on this topic, we discussed the increasingly complex relationship between faith communities and local governments: allies in seeking the common welfare of the community, adversaries on property tax policy, and on land use policy, a little of both. Across the country, local […]

By Ken Howard Part 1 – The Problem: An Increasingly Complicated and Adversarial Relationship Part of the increasing uncertain environment faith-based communities and organizations are facing is their relationship with local government. Faith communities and local governments once saw each other as natural allies. But as local governments face increasing pressure to find new sources of […]

By Darren M. Slade FaithX Research Coordinator According to a Pew Research Center survey in 2016, nearly half (49%) of American churchgoers have actively sought a new church home at least once in their lifetime.[1] Roughly three-in-ten Christians (29%) sought a new congregation within the last five years.[2] While the main reason for this pursuit […]

In a lighter vein, today we offer our readers a article sent to us by the Rev. Robert Cornner, a retired Episcopal priest with an encouraging presence and a dry sense of humor, speaks to any “Nones” that happen to read this article about 10 ways they might just be Episcopalians, based on their beliefs. Dear Nones, According to […]

by Ken Howard For the last month or so we’ve been providing you with information about what lies ahead for faith-based communities and organizations, and how you can prepare them for a turbulent present and an uncertain future. Today we pause briefly — a la NPR — for a brief “pledge drive.” Our next email will resume our regular educational programming. WHY […]

Our last three articles have focused the nature and impact of the Religion Singularity… namely an increasingly turbulent and unpredictable environment. This we we shift toward what it takes to survive and thrive in that environment. Agility To survive and thrive in an unpredictable environment, our organization must develop agility. Agility means the power to move quickly […]

By Ken Howard                   If the Religion Singularity is true… If denominations and churches are growing/fracturing at a considerably higher rate than the worldwide population of Christians, driving a massive downturn in the size of those institutions… What is the future of religion? What is the future of […]

By Ken Howard This article is the third in a series on the Religion Singularity. Click here for Part 1. Click here for Part 2. Organizing and sharing the data about the Religion Singularity continues to be an eye-opening experience for me. It has been enlightening to observe the responses of different groups of people. […]

The FaithX Project is happy to welcome aboard our new Research Coordinator, Darren Slade. Darren’s role on the FaithX founding team will be as a Researcher, Editor, and Consultant, conducting and curating research related to the Religion Singularity and Vision-Guided Experimentation. Darren is a published theologian and systematician who specializes in historical and speculative theology, as […]

[excerpt from press release to be released on July 20] Author, faith leader, and church futurist, the Rev. Ken Howard will feature as a presenter and panelist at the 9th Biennial International Meaning Conference, to be held in Toronto, July 28-31, 2016. Dedicated to the themes of “Spirituality, Self-Transcendence and Second-Wave Positive Psychology,” the conference is […]

This is the second post in five-part series. Click here for Part 1. The impact on denominations: Death by black hole – oblivion – fragmenting and shrinking at such a rate that they are unlikely to be sustainable by any means. The impact on worship center – a choice:  Black hole or wormhole – fragmenting and shrinking at […]

This post is the first in a five-part series on the Religion Singularity. Religion Singularity is a term I first coined in a paper entitled “Singularity: The Death of Religion and the Resurrection of Faith,” presented earlier this year at the 2016 Conference on Religion and Society in Washington, DC. If the term “Singularity” sounds […]

Welcome back to FaithX News! It’s been about a month since our last issue! Which means we have a lot of new things to share… And one old thing. The New Things:  We completed our after-action learning review of our Kickstarter campaign, which didn’t reach funding but from which we learned a lot and gained several dozen very […]

A Letter to the Church How baffling you are, oh Church, and yet how I love you! How you have made me suffer, and yet how much I owe you! I would like to see you destroyed, and yet I need your presence. You have given me so much scandal and yet you have made […]

By Ken Howard and Jon Howard Lean before Lean Was Cool Several of you have been asking more about the genesis of The FaithX Project: What led to this idea of Minimum Viable Belief and pushed me in the direction launching this new endeavor? In late 2013, my son Jonathan, then CEO of a medical […]

By the Rev. Ken Howard With a little under two weeks left in our Kickstarter crowd funding campaign, it is important to be clear about what’s at stake in the FaithX Project. After more than five years of analyzing worldwide demographic trends affecting Christianity, I believe I can say with a high degree of confidence […]

By Ken Howard At a recent conference I was asked to speculate about what our parishes would look like a decade from now. My answer was brief: “One thing I can say with certainty is this: The only way our churches will look like they do now is if they have been stuffed and mounted […]

Dear Friends, We are pleased to announce the inaugural issue of FaithX News, which you may read by clicking here or on the image above. In this issue of FaithX News you will find articles on the following: •  FaithX The Book •  The FaithX Community •  FaithX Consulting Services •  Coming soon…The FaithX Project Kickstarter Campaign […]

by the Rev. Ken Howard In my discussions with congregational and diocesan leaders around the Church of late, I have noticed a shift in the conversation. More and more leaders are beginning to face the facts about their congregations. More are beginning to acknowledge that, at best, they are on a plateau and that, at worst, […]

By Ken Howard In yesterday’s post, I identified seven common myths about church plants and church planting and did a little myth busting. Today I’m going to go the other direction. I want to share with you 14 Facts about church planting. While I made an editorial decision not to clutter up the narrative with […]

By Ken Howard There are a lot of myths floating around about church start-up…or what some call church plants. What I want to do here is list them, bust them, replace them with facts, and then let you make up your own mind. While I made an editorial decision not to clutter up the narrative with […]

by Ken Howard Step 1: Take this ten-item quiz to discover whether your faith community is undead 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, Zombie Bollywood flicks, even Zombie […]

by Ken Howard and Wendy Dackson Alrighty then! Our recent blog post “10 Ways the Church is Like Downton Abbey” got quite a lot of views. So, like our friends in Public Television, we decided to renew Downton Church for a second “season.” And the theme for season two is “Eight Lessons the Church Could Learn from Downton Abbey.” Indeed, there much agreement in the […]

By Ken Howard & Wendy Dackson [Simulblogged on FaithX and Past Christian] It all started a few days ago, when Ken came across an Episcopal Church Meme on Facebook and reposted on his own Facebook page with a comment about how it reminded him of Downton Abbey (and not exactly in a good way). The meme in question, displayed below, showed the Presiding Bishop, along with several other resplendently attired […]

by Ken Howard Lord Sandwich:   “I have heard frequent use of the words Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: but I confess myself at a loss know precisely what they mean.” Lord Warburton:   “It’s very simple old chap. Orthodoxy is my doxy. Heterodoxy is anyone else’s doxy.” An exchange between John Montagu, Earl of Sandwich, and William Warburton, Bishop of […]

By the Rev. Ken Howard Earlier this month the Pew Forum published its anxiously awaited research report, America’s Changing Religious Landscape, a survey of how religious affiliation and demographics have changed between 2007 and 2014. The biggest news in the report: the dramatic drop in the percentage of the U.S. population who claim Christianity as their religion of choice, and […]