The FaithX Project

Strategic Missional Consulting

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…]

Divided by a Common Language: A Philosophical Reflection

Darren Slade, research director for FaithX and general editor of our sponsored journal, Socio-Historical Exploration of Religion and Ministry, regularly writes articles for the FaithXperimental blog, primarily curating relevant research as it is published and contributing articles for our FaithXperimental Spotlight series. 

However, in this blog Darren offers a different kind of article: philosophical reflection on how language itself can contribute to incivility in communication. His thesis: un-nuanced and lazy thinking — that words that so clearly carry one meaning for us must therefore carry the same meaning for others — makes it easy for us to condemn those who disagree with us without truly understanding the meaning they attach to what they are saying. He also offers some possible ways to avoid allowing our assumptions about our common language to divide us.

There is a deep divide in our country, and in many parts of the world, that continues unabated. As a civilization, we have become so polarized and so entrenched in our tribal ways of thinking that finding common ground (or even civility in dialogue) appears near impossible. But what if part of the problem has to do with our use of the English language? Is it possible that our method of speaking is, in fact, causing much of the divide in our culture? Here’s what I mean:  

I’d like you to take a moment and try a quick and easy “armchair” experiment. First, find a chair and sit down. Then, ask yourself a question: What is a “chair?” Yes, I’m serious, and no dictionaries allowed. Now, sit down and define a “chair.”

If you think about it long enough, you will begin to realize this simple task is actually very difficult to accomplish. For every definition you can think of, you  can find hundreds of examples that contradict it. For example, defining a chair as “something to sit on” would seem to suggest that a floor also qualifies as a chair. But that’s not right. A floor is not a chair, even if you can sit on it.

So you get more specific and define a chair as “something you sit on that has four legs.” But that’s not accurate, either. There are some chairs with only three legs. Bean bags can be chairs, and they have no legs at all. A dog has four legs, and you could sit on your dog (if your dog was big enough, that is), but that doesn’t make your dog a chair.

So why is it so difficult to define a chair!?! We all know what one is, right?

[Read more…]

“Grounding Discernment in Data” Article Published in Peer-Reviewed Journal

Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry (SHERM Journal) recently asked Ken if he would submit for review and publication a paper on FaithX’s collaborative work with Datastory to help congregations and judicatories to better understand and more effectively engage emerging missional opportunities, through the use of Datastory’s MapDashTM for Faith Communities GIS Technology and FaithX’s Strategic Missional Planning process. That paper was just published in the journal’s Fall 2019 issue as “Grounding Discernment in Data: Strategic Missional Planning Using GIS Technology and Market Segmentation Data.” Included below is the abstract of the article:

Abstract

Taking Jesus’ call to love our neighbors seriously requires engaging them in the neighborhoods where they live. However, neighborhoods are transforming demographically faster than ever before. If we can help congregations more quickly understand their neighborhoods, there is a much greater likelihood that they will grow to love them as they love themselves. The question before us is, how do we help faith communities and their leaders engage missional opportunities that are emerging from rapid population change? The goal of the FaithX Project is to make it possible for faith communities, their leaders, and the judicatories that support them to employ location intelligence and predictive analytics in order for them to discern emerging missional opportunities. FaithX then helps them to create effective missional strategies for engaging those opportunities by asking four essential questions: What is our neighborhood? Who are our neighbors? What are our neighborhood’s issues and opportunities? What are our neighborhood’s resources?

Click here to read the full article on the SHERM website

Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry (SHERM Journal)  is a biannual, not-for-profit, free peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes the latest social-scientific, historiographic, and ecclesiastic research on religious institutions and their ministerial 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.

SHERM Journal is sponsored by but fully editorially independent of FaithX.

Support FaithX

FaithX is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and Ken’s faith-based consulting practice at FaithX is done under an extension of ministry from the Episcopal Diocese of Washington.

Want to learn more about missional opportunities
in your congregation’s neighborhood?
Click here for a free Neighborhood Missional Intelligence Report

Want to learn how your judicatory can identify
emerging missional opportunities within its boundaries?
Click here to schedule a free demo of MapDash for Faith Communities and Strategic Missional Planning

CVI Analytic Indicators as Check Engine Light

Part 5  in a series on MapDash analytics

By Ken Howard

After the last blog post in our series on MapDash Analytics, some of you asked, “What is the most appropriate way for me to consider what the indicators of the Congregational Vitality Index (CVI) are trying to tell me?”

I find that the best analogy to the Green-Yellow-Red ratings of the indicators that make Congregational Vitality Index (as well as the factors that make up those indicators) is that they are “warning lights,” like the “check engine” light on your car’s dashboard:

  • If it’s green, keep on driving – but keep up your scheduled maintenance
  • If it’s yellow, attention required – make an appointment to have it checked
  • If it’s red, urgent attention required – stop the car right now and have it towed to the dealer.
[Read more…]

Tribal Politics Be Damned: A Pastor’s Plea for Civility Among the Brethren

 A Guest Post

By Ron Davis
Ron is the Executive Pastor of Cramerton Church, Charlotte, NC

The hope of the world has never been a political party, politicians, or our ability to leverage political power. It has, and always will be, the beautiful gospel of Jesus Christ. As a pastor, I long to see brothers and sisters who are so driven by their love for one another that the gospel becomes more important than winning an unholy tribal war between Left and Right. Below is my call to civility — and maybe, just maybe, it will find its impact far beyond a late-evening Facebook post:

Dear Friend, 

I think our Lord is much more grieved by the attitudes and actions of believers toward one another in Western society, where each side believes they have the “answer” to America’s problems. Both liberal and conservative Christians seem to forget they exist in a secular culture and both of their politics necessarily reflect these same secular points of view. Jesus made it clear: the world will know we are his disciples by our love one for another.

This kind of interaction we find on Facebook is, sadly, fodder for the skeptical mind, as they see the Christian world being so divided over things like politics. The hope of the world is the gospel of Jesus Christ not our ability to prove each other wrong. From my observation, there seems to be very little civility or objectivity from either side. Just a desire to “be right” and to look at almost every single issue with a particular set of glasses (and not gospel-centered ones at that). To me this is shameful and heart-breaking. The early Christian church was not concerned with achieving political dominance over others. It was concerned with making disciples, loving one another, their neighbors, their enemies, everyone – under peril of persecution, torture, and even death.

[Read more…]

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