The FaithX Project

Strategic Missional Consulting

FaithX to host morning prayer on Zoom for Gaithersburg, MD Church this Sunday (3/15) in online worship eXperiment

By Ken Howard

The coronavirus can close houses of worship but it can’t stop the people from worshiping together online.

This Sunday (March 15) and next (March 22), FaithX will be hosting the people Church of the Ascension, in Gaithersburg, Maryland for two worship services on Zoom video:

  • 9:00am – Morning Prayer (in English)
  • 10:00am – La Oración de la Mañana (en Español)

Each service will be 40-45 min long.

The worship team will include:

  • Rev. Javier Ocampo, rector, will service as worship leader.
  • Rev. Eugene Wright, deacon, will preach a homily.
  • Rev. Ken Howard, FaithX executive Director, will host on Zoom and assist Padre Javier.
  • Jesse Velasquez will also assist.
  • We are still working on lining up lay readers and determining whether we can provide music.

Joining us for online morning prayer on Zoom will be fairly easy. All you need is a desktop, laptop, or tablet computer equipped with a built in camera and microphone, or a smartphone with the Zoom app installed.

Instructions for Computer Users:

  1. Make sure your computer’s video camera is working and microphone is turned on and muted.
  2. About 5 minutes before the service is scheduled to start, click on this URL: https://zoom.us/j/6234372948
  3. Zoom will then automatically load itself, give you the opportunity to test your video camera and mike, then place you in a waiting room (a virtual narthex) until just before the service begins.
  4. Padre Javier will then welcome you to virtual Church of the Ascension and begin the service (and may have further instructions).

Instructions for Smartphone Users:

  1. Make sure you downloaded and installed the Zoom app (available from the Apple App Store or GooglePlay).
  2. About 5 minutes before the service is scheduled, open the Zoom app and enter this meeting number: 6234372948.
  3. The Zoom app will then place you in a waiting room (a virtual narthex) until just before the service begins.
  4. Padre Javier will then welcome you to virtual Church of the Ascension and begin the service (and may have further instructions).

Because of the limitations of Zoom, participation in the interactive service will be limited to the first 100 attendees. However, we will post a recording of both services on the Ascension website.

Subscribe here to receive updates about this experiment

And remember, the “X” in “FaithX” stands for “eXperimentation.”

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

Why should I pay for MapDash when I can get the same data free? (Hint: You can’t.)

By Ken Howard

We’ve been getting this question a lot these days from our Episcopal clients: 

“Why should I pay for MapDash or Neighborhood Missional Intelligence Reports (NMIRs) when I can get the same data free off the Episcopal Church (TEC) website?”

The short answer is, “You can’t.” While all three are valuable tools for missional decision-making and there is certainly overlap between them, there are differences in the purpose and scope of each. The Know Your Neighborhood (KYN) report, the Neighborhood Missional Intelligence Reports (NMIR), and a subscription to a fully-equipped MapDash for Faith Communities platform each allow the user to ask and answer progressively broader and deeper questions. 

Here is a brief description of each of the above (click here for more detailed descriptions and comparisons):

[Read more…]

FaithXperimental Spotlight: The Way Station, Spencer, Iowa

In our travels around the U.S., both digitally and physically, we at FaithX like to keep our eyes open for examples of people, programs, communities, or ministries doing creative, innovative, and experimental things in the area of faith. And when we do find one, we like to shine a light on them in a FaithXperimental spotlight blog post.        

Today’s Spotlight article is about The Way Station, based out of Spencer, Iowa. We first learned of The Way Station at the 2019 Genesis Conference in Birmingham, Alabama (part of the Episcopal Church’s New Episcopal Communities initiative), where several dozen new or planned Episcopal Church faith communities and ministries discussed their approaches to engaging their communities. The following description comes from an interview with Rev. Beth Preston, Priest in Charge of The Way Station.

A busy day at The Way Station might find Rev. Preston chatting with a couple of women who have come in for coffee and conversation, dishing up homemade chili to hungry youth after school, supervising candle-making in the Restoration Artworks studio, and checking on the youth who are playing Statues in the Garden in Friar Tuck’s Book Nook. The Way Station is an outreach of the Episcopal Diocese of Iowa and is, in the words of Bishop Alan Scarfe, “The church of the 21st Century.” Rev. Beth believes God planted this vision through the inspiration of a class at Nashotah House Theological Seminary, Church and Contemporary Society. “We studied our current culture and what people like to gather around. We all talked about how we wanted to start a coffee shop,” Rev. Preston said. Another inspiration was Spirit Wind Center for Creativity and Healing in Stonington, CT, which Rev. Beth found out about through Sharing Magazine (OSL) and visited with her husband, Glenn. 

The Way Station opened in September of 2018. It operates out of a storefront in downtown Spencer, Iowa. There is a café, where guests are served coffee, tea, hot chocolate or cold beverages and snacks. A chapel is in the heart of the building and hosts a 3:00 pm Holy Eucharist on Sundays. Then there is Rev. Beth’s office, the art room, and the book room. The ministry operates on donations, grants, and offerings, and asks only free will donations of their guests. 

[Read more…]

FaithXperimental Spotlight: Car Care Clinic, Tulsa, OK

by Darren Slade

In our digital and physical travels around the U.S., we at FaithX like to keep our eyes open for examples of people, programs, communities, or ministries doing creative, innovative, and experimental things in the area of faith. When we find one, we like to shine a spotlight on them in a FaithXperimental blog post.

One of the biggest factors that contributes to perpetual inequality, poverty, and a risk of homelessness in the United States is a lack of self-sufficient transportation. In fact, immigrants, impoverished families, and people of color – especially African-Americans – are significantly more likely to suffer from car-lessness than non-poor families. Being without their own means of transportation tends to have a negative snowball effect on their overall economic circumstances (Klein & Smart, 2017). Having to rely exclusively on buses, subways, commuter trains, and other forms of public transportation means greater commute times and less scheduling flexibility. This, in turn, can have a severe impact on the ability to meet basic needs, like buying groceries, filling prescriptions, and going to the doctor, and may ultimately even result in loss of income or unemployment (cf. Hensley et al., 2018). 

It was an understanding of the potentially severe consequences that led members of the Tulsa Oklahoma community to gather together in 2002 to launch the  Car Care Clinic (CCC) of Tulsa, Oklahoma, a unique ministry dedicated to helping poorer families remain self-sufficient by providing free car repairs. 

We’ve all been carless at one time or another, due to some unexpected breakdown, accident, or random act of destruction (or sometimes just running out of gas). We’ve all experienced the frustration of being stranded without a car for hours or days while waiting for the mechanic or body shop to complete the repairs. And we’ve all gritted our teeth while waiting for the dreaded repair bill. 

Even for middle-class families, car repairs can pose a real financial pinch. A simple oil change can cost a proverbial “arm and leg.” And a major repair with most modern vehicles can end up costing hundreds of dollars, maybe even thousands. Most of us don’t have that kind of money lying around for out-of-pocket expenses. 

[Read more…]

Acting Outside the Box: Stewardship – Part 2

We are trying out a new occasional blog series in which people doing ministry can talk about outside the box wild ideas for ministry that they have tried and what they learned from them (whether or not the ideas work). We are calling this new series Acting Outside The Box, because just thinking about what’s outside the box is waaaay too passive. Ken Howard kicks off this series with some counter-intuitively productive stewardship strategies he’s run into (stumbled into, really) over the years.

The Power of Paradox
(part 2 in a series)

In last week’s post I talked about the awkwardness of stewardship season and how the use of religiously-loaded language sometimes backfires. I told the story of a formerly unchurched member family taking out a second mortgage to fulfill their pledge after the husband lost his job in the recession because they took the language of “pledge” so seriously.

Speaking of recessions, two of the largest increases in pledging (or should I say “Estimated Giving”) in two different churches I served took place during two rather large recessions.

What accounts for the difference? 

On both occasions, realizing that if we were in their shoes, we would have a lot of hesitation in making financial commitments in uncertain times, we decided that we would talk about the reasons for their potential hesitancy.  

We figured, “in for a penny, in for a pound,” as it were. And so we put all of our cards on the table. 

[Read more…]

The FaithX Project, Inc. is 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with a religious and charitable purpose operated as a ministry by the Rev. Ken Howard under an extension of ministry from the Episcopal Bishop of Washington.