Defining Terms
Small Congregation:
A congregation with an Average Sunday Attendance between approx. 30-70.
Congregational Vitality:
The health of the congregation’s internal processes in 10 areas of congregational life. These include:
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- Vision, Mission, and Discernment
- Lay Engagement and Empowerment
- Context Awareness and Inclusion
- Change Readiness
- Dealing with Differences
- Spiritual Life and Worship
- Formation, Education, and Training
- Outreach
- Leadership and Organization.
- Stewardship
Congregational Sustainability:
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- Internal Sustainability: The congregation’s necessary internal resources (financial capacity, humans resources, the ability to enact the mission of the church, etc.) to survive and thrive and to collaborate with like-minded partners.
- External Sustainability: The capacity and willingness of the neighborhoods to partner with the congregation. Factors that influence this include: sufficient population, generational mix, diversity, etc.).
Diocesan Sustainability:
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- Internal Vitality: The health of the diocese’s internal processes, such as: stewardship, communication and transparency, clear vision and mission, leadership and commitment to mission, etc.
- External Vitality: The vitality of the diocese’s congregations as well as financial contribution to the diocese, lay participation in leadership, growing trust between congregations and the diocese, etc.
Diocesan Vitality:
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- Internal Vitality: The health of the diocese’s internal processes, such as: stewardship, communication and transparency, clear vision and mission, leadership and commitment to mission, etc.
- External Vitality: The vitality of the diocese’s congregations as well as financial contribution to the diocese, lay participation in leadership, growing trust between congregations and the diocese, etc.
Diocesan Sustainability:
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- Internal Sustainability: The diocese necessary internal resources (financial capacity, humans resources, the ability to enact the mission of the church, etc.) to survive and thrive
- External Sustainability: The congregations the diocese serves have the capacity to support the judicatory. Other factors include: Number of congregations, giving capacity and willingness,, full-communion partners, other nonprofits and organizations.
Missional Opportunity:
A neighborhood opportunity or challenge as it intersects with the church’s mission and vision.
Data Grounded Assessment/Discernment:
Using data as a tool to inform discernment and strategy:
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- Data from the Congregational Vitality Assessment (CVA), the CVA Judicatory Platform, MapDash for Faith Communities, the Neighborhood Demographic Report, the Missional Opportunity Index, and other tools and resources.
- Data-grounded consulting (external and internal) to interpret data and discern areas of opportunity and concern and potential strategies.