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:

    • 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:

    • 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:

    • 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:

    • 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:

    • 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:

    • 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.