A Mentored Missional Journey Archives

FaithX and Datastory are happy to announce that the Dioceses of Central Gulf Coast and Georgia became the first official Episcopal dioceses to purchase subscriptions to MapDash for Faith Communities and enroll in the Mentored Missional Journey.

Datastory is now in the process of provisioning dashboards for both dioceses: uploading location and parochial report information for all of their congregations, from which they will generate diocesan-level analytic data maps, including Congregational Vitality, Congregational Sustainability, and Missional Opportunity. Their dashboards will also include congregational neighborhood data, including MissionWebs and DriveTime Analysis, as well as a map layers for a host of local neighborhood demographic, lifestyle, issue, and resources data. They will be receiving their fully-provisioned dashboards on or about August 30. [Read more…]

As we launch MapDash for Faith Communities at the Episcopal General Convention Expo, we will also be launching an exciting new companion consultative program: A Mentored Missional Journey to the Future of Your Diocese and Its Congregations.

Developed in collaboration with the Episcopal Church and shaped by input from diocesan and congregational leadership from around the U.S., this 12-month program of mentored missional assessment and planning is designed to prepare dioceses to engage the emerging “New Americas” through strategic ministry development, congregational redevelopment, and new church starts.

The Church has entered a time of accelerating change and escalating uncertainty. Neighbor-hood transformation, which once took place over generations, now happens almost overnight, increasingly causing us to fall out of touch – and thus out of love – with the people and neighborhoods God is calling us to engage.

This program is designed to provide dioceses – and through them, their congregations – the tools they need to learn about their communities at the speed of change and to guide diocesan leadership through the challenging journey of deeply and systemically discerning and engaging the missional opportunity inherent at the intersection of faith communities, neighbor-hoods, and the Spirit of God.

In short, we help you learn to fall in love with your communities again.

Participating dioceses will 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 what God is already up to 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 – 12 months

Download an Illustrated PDF Handout about this Program