Q. What is the purpose of the Congregational Vitality Assessment
(or CVA)?
A. The Congregational Vitality Assessment is designed to provide a congregation with an assessment of its Vitality (how healthy it is) and its Sustainability (whether it has the people, financial, and contextual resources necessary to survive).
Q. What does the areas of congregational life does the CVA address?
A. The vitality section carries the bulk of the assessment, measuring ten areas of congregational functioning, such as Vision and Mission, Leadership, Lay Empowerment, Worship, Formation, Stewardship, and more.
Q. How is the CVA administered?
A. The CVA is self-administered. It can be taken either by an individual leader, a representative group, or the entire congregation. Group administration provides the most useful results..
Q. What makes the CVA unique?
A. Prescriptive professional analysis tools for congregational life have been around in many forms for a while, and offer congregations concrete ways to view their mission, ministry, and corporate life together. However, no other vitality assessment tool to date is as thoroughly grounded in research and data, and most come with high price tags that are cost prohibitive for many communities of faith to use.
Q. Why are FaithX and ECF making the CVA available free?
Are there any strings attached?
A. FaithX and ECF view congregational vitality to be the paramount issue for faith communities today. Unfortunately, those congregations who need the most help addressing their vitality issues are the ones who can least afford it. Free access to the CVA is one way we are trying to address that need. There are no strings attached. Of course, since both FaithX and ECF offer consultative services, we hope you will keep us in mind if you them. Faithx will offer a 10% discount on services to any congregation that has taken the CVA.
Q. What kind of questions does the CVA ask?
A. The CVA asks the user to answer 5-10 question in each of 10 areas of Congregational life (example below or click on image for full question set).
Q. What do CVA results look like?
A. When the individual or team has completed the CVA, the answers are scored, and the individual or team leader then receives summary scores of each of the ten vitality areas and two sustainability areas, along with suggestions of ways to improve in each of the areas (example below or click on image for complete sample report).
Q. What are research sources on which the CVA is grounded?
A. Click here to review the research sources.
Q. How often is the CVA updated based on new research?
A. The CVA is updated at the end of any year in which vitality-related research is newly released (we invite our users to notify us of such research they might learn about at info@faith.net).
Q. What should our congregation do after taking the CVA?
A. There are several things a congregation can do after taking the CVA.
These include:
- Review CVA results and recommendations with congregational leadership and with the congregation.
- Find consensus around congregational vitality strength and weakness.
- Identify the areas of vitality weaknesses you most need to address and which strengths you can leverage to address them.
- Develop strategies to address identified areas of vitality.
- Determine which strategies you feel capable pursuing yourselves and which you might need help with.
- Peruse services, resources, and research available on our website.
- Contact us at info@faithx.net for a free 30-min discussion to weigh your alternatives.
For more information, contact ken@faithx.net