Dioceses of Georgia and Central Gulf Coast begin the Mentored Missional Journey

This week’s blog post will be a little shorter than average, because Ken is away in Tallahassee much of this week guiding two dioceses – the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia and the Episcopal Diocese of Central Gulf Coast – through the first of four sessions of the Mentored Missional Journey consultative program.

 

What is the Mentored Missional Journey?

A 6-month program of guided strategic missional assessment and planning designed to prepare dioceses to identify and engage emerging missional opportunities through strategic ministry development, congregational redevelopment, and new church starts using MapDash for Faith Communities. It was developed in collaboration with the Episcopal Church and shaped by input from diocesan and congregational leadership from around the U.S.

Participating dioceses complete the program with:

• A broader understanding of the health of their congregations, the demographic trends in their neighborhoods, and the opportunities for missional engagement between congregations and neighborhoods.
• A deeper level of discernment about how and where God is already at work in their communities and neighborhoods.
• A clearer vision for what God is calling them to be and to do in response to what they have learned about their communities and how God is already at work in them.
• A pilot-tested, living strategy for engaging identified missional opportunities that have been identified in their dioceses.

 

Stages of the Journey:

1 – Data Gathering/Provisioning the Dashboard

Gather, consolidate, and organize diocese-specific congregational and community demographics, analytics, and diagnostic data into one place, where it can be easily displayed, manipulated, and explored.

2 – Missional Opportunity Assessment

Enable diocesan leadership team to acquire a God’s-eye view of the totality of congregations and communities that make up their diocese and assess the health of its congregations and the characteristics of its communities in order to identify, explore, and engage emergent missional opportunities.

3 – Strategic Missional Planning

Facilitate the creation of a living strategy for the diocesan leadership team that addresses the opportunities identified in missional assessment.

Estimated Timeline: 5 days over 6 months

Download an Illustrated PDF Handout about this Program