The FaithX Project

Strategic Missional Consulting

Two Missional Intelligence Tools set for release in January

Two exciting missional intelligence tools are scheduled for release this month:

Know Your Neighborhood (KYN), an online research tool deployed by Datastory for the General Convention Office of the Episcopal Church, will provide Episcopal congregations across the U.S an interactive snapshot of key congregational and neighborhood data. It will be available at no cost through the Research and Statistics page of Episcopal Church website (read official TEC press release).

Neighborhood Missional Intelligence Report (NMIR) version 1.1), developed by Datastory in collaboration with FaithX, is the next generation of an in depth, interactive, infographic report describing neighborhood demographic/lifestyle data and trends. It will be available to users who subscribe to MapDash for Faith Communities, and as part of Neighborhood Missional Assessments and other consultative services provided by FaithX (TEC’s Convention Office has negotiated discounts for NMIRs and other FaithX services accessed through the Know Your Neighborhood portal).

What’s the Difference?

Both the Know Your Neighborhood Report (accessed through the Research and Statistic portal)and the Neighborhood Missional Intelligence Report (part of MapDash for Faith Communities) are valuable tools to support strategic decisions.

Know Your Neighborhood provides users with a broad understanding of their community.

The Neighborhood Missional Intelligence Report, when used as part of MapDash (optionally coupled with analytic and consultative services), empowers faith leaders with the ability to ask an answer questions at both a broader and deeper level.

[Read more…]

Back from EpiscoCon – Pleased with Results

By Ken Howard

Just back from EpiscoCon 2018. In recuperation and digging out mode, as you might imagine, feeling good about our roll out of MapDash for Faith Communities at the Expo. Briefly, here are the “stats”…

Number of Visits

  • More than 200 visitors came by the booth, as calculated by the number of our chocolate “earths” consumed (being by the lunch line helped).
  • 47 people asked for more information or otherwise showed significant interest.
  • 39 of these people were from Episcopal Dioceses (deputies/visitors/staff/etc.).

Organizations Represented

  • 26 of 99 (25%+) dioceses of the Episcopal Church.
  • 9 church-serving organizations (4 Episcopal).
And in the race for the most visitors, Diocese of Texas comes in first with 7, Diocese of Upper South Carolina second with 3, and Dioceses of Massachusetts, Milwaukee, Newark, Virgin Islands third with 2. Go Texas!
If you missed us, don’t worry. Here is some information on our MapDash for Faith Communities tool and our Mentored Missional Journey consulting program.
For more information or a customized demo, contact Ken Howard at ken@faithx.net.

Ecclesiastical Autoimmune Syndrome – Part 2

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 turns against its own, perceiving healthy agents of corrective change as threat to “the way things are” and activates the organizational immune system, which then expels those threats from the organizational body. Like its human namesake, Ecclesiastical Autoimmune Syndrome drives churches to screen out of their leadership and its followership the very people who could bring life-giving, health-renewing change, while screening in those less likely to bring the discomfort that change – especially healthy change – inevitably brings with it. E.A.S. is slow-moving and almost unnoticeable, but is very frequently a systemic slide into death. The result of untreated E.A.S. is a church that would rather die than change

But what are the signs and symptoms of Ecclesiastical Autoimmune Syndrome and how do we learn to spot it before it becomes terminal?

Perhaps it would help to share some real life examples of how E.A.S. functions in various church organizations and processes.

[Read more…]

Missional Context Analysis (Part 2): How to Get to Know Your Neighbor(s)

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 neighbor. We called the process of getting to know our  neighbors (and our neighborhoods) “Missional Context Analysis.”

In this post we will be discussing the steps in the process of Missional Context Analysis. In it we will be using terms that have emerged in the development of our Missional Context Analysis tool, Datastory for Faith Communities. You don’t have to use our tool, of course. Nevertheless, the steps are the same.

[Read more…]

MVB: Seven Steps to an Enduring Vision

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 – or MVB – is the seminal belief or value that is so deep, so shared, so core to the community that it is the source of all other beliefs, values, and actions of the organization. It is the core source of meaning and purpose to the community and its members. Simply put, it is the “Why of Whys.” MVB is a vision that is so clear and plain that it creates and sustains an enduring organizational culture that can guide a faith community throughout its life, even when the community encounters turbulent times.

So far so good! But how does a faith-based community or organization discover, articulate, and communicate its MVB?

There are seven steps involved in discerning your community’s MVB:

  1. Naming
  2. Calling
  3. Clarifying
  4. Seeing
  5. Dreaming
  6. Visioning
  7. Proclaiming

Allow me walk you through each of the seven steps, while providing real-life examples from my own former congregation, a mature startup in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. [Read more…]

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