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Strategic Missional Consulting

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Oct 28 2021

Redevelopment for the Rest of Us!

It wasn’t that long ago when the word “redevelopment” was associated with churches in need… maybe even in peril.  Some of these faith communities sought grants to repurpose buildings left vacuous by membership migration and/or declining interest in church overall.  Some just needed some revitalization and renewal regarding welcoming practices (guest parking, good signage, revamp the nursery for children, train friendly greeters, etc.).  Often there were mass mailings to local zip codes to inform the public about your church and your programming.  Occasionally, there might be some activity in which to invite the community. All of this is/was well-intentioned, but it was based on a false assumption: people are going to be drawn to us and come into our doors, if we do all the right things.

As you know, the culture has been shifting for a long time. In a 2020 Pew research study 65% of adults identified as Christian compared to 85% in 1990. This statistic points to the reality that, like it or not, all churches need to see themselves as perennially redeveloping churches.  Our buildings may be in great shape and our worship and programming sharp, but our spiritual infrastructure, our sense of values, mission, and vision may need a serious overhaul.  Very, very few people are going to come to us because we think they should (and certainly not enough to make up for the attrition of membership due to death and migration away from Christianity).

So what now?  What does redevelopment-for-the-rest-of-us look like in 2021? The answer is so simple… and so hard.  Take a deep breath. Here it comes. To be faithful to our mission, we must re-learn what it means to be a kind and attentive neighbor again.  We must relearn our neighborhoods.  We must know our neighbors and allow them to know us.  How can we know what it means to redevelop our churches for the sake of our neighbors if we don’t know who they are? What if the work of the Spirit and the opportunity we have been praying for, is happening outside the walls of the church, hidden in plain sight, and waiting for our “yes?”

[Read more…]

Written by Ken Howard · Categorized: FaithX Blog · Tagged: church demographics, church revitalization, community revitalization, datastory, faith communities, faithx, MapDash for Faith Communities, neighborhood demographics, Neighborhood Missional Intelligence Report, neighborhood outreach, Revitalization

May 04 2020

It’s time to give: GIVING TUESDAY NOW!

Help us provide discounted
data-grounded discernment services
to the congregations who need it the most
but can afford it the least

In the turbulent and uncertain times brought upon all of us by the COVID-19 crisis, faith leaders everywhere need data and strategies to help them rapidly and effectively adapt their ministries and programs to the realities of the novel Coronavirus pandemic. FaithX and our affiliates at Datastory have been working hard together to adapt our respective tools and services to the needs of these times.

When we launched FaithX in late 2016, we realized that there was often a gap between what congregations need and what they can afford. And when it comes to data-ground discernment tools and services, the congregations that need them the most are the ones that can afford them the least. And so we started our congregational scholarship fund to bridge that gap by underwriting a significant portion of their costs.

All donations received during Giving Tuesday Now
will go to the FaithX Congregational Scholarship Fund.

Help us bridge the gap!

Click here for our GIVING TUESDAY NOW page
Subscribe to Receive More Blog Posts Like This

Want to help your congregation more effectively engage the neighborhoods it serves?

Click here to schedule a
no cost preliminary missional intelligence discussion
and receive a sample Neighborhood Missional Intelligence Report
for your location

Those who engage a full Neighborhood Missional Assessment or other consultative program from FaithX will receive a complete NMIR in interactive (dynamic HTML) format.

Important Note: A Neighborhood Missional Intelligence Report can also be a useful tool for identifying the prevalence of at risk groups within your membership and ministry areas, and a Neighborhood Missional Assessment can help you identify the neighborhoods where they are most prevalent.

We have reduced the cost of NMIRs and NMAs by 10% for the duration of the COVID19 pandemic.


Want to help your judicatory identify emerging missional opportunities and challenges within its boundaries?

Click here to schedule a demo/discussion
of MapDash for Faith Communities
for Strategic Missional Planning


Important Note: In the days ahead Datastory will be adding COVID-related data to MapDash to all current and future subscribers (including incidence of COVID-19, hospital locations and capacity, Twitter feeds, location of doctors).


Support FaithX

FaithX is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and Ken’s faith-based consulting practice at FaithX is carried out under an extension of ministry from the Episcopal Diocese of Washington.

Written by Ken Howard · Categorized: COVID-19, FaithX Blog, FaithXperimental Spotlight, Posts by Ken Howard · Tagged: #GivingTuesdayNow, church revitalization, Coronavirus, COVID, COVID-19, COVID19, faith communities, Giving Tuesday, GivingTuesday Now, lock-down

Apr 29 2020

Password-Protected Worship: A Missed Opportunity?

by the Rev. Ken Howard
Password-Protected


This blog post is part of a series on strategies and tools for helping congregations survive and thrive in the face of the COVID crisis.
Click here for the previous post


Zoombombing

“Zoombombing” is when an uninvited person joins a Zoom meeting, usually for the purpose of gaining a few cheap laughs at the expense of the participants. 

Because Zoombombers sometimes use racial slurs, profanity, pornography, and other offensive imagery, faith communities have begun to password protect their online worship services in order to prevent univited Zoombomers from entering. 

I would like to suggest that password-protected online worship services are a huge missed opportunity for evangelism.

Here’s why…

[Read more…]

Written by Ken Howard · Categorized: COVID-19, FaithX Blog, FaithXperimental Spotlight, Posts by Ken Howard · Tagged: burden of care, church growth, church revitalization, Coronavirus, COVID, COVID-19, COVID19, evangelism, faith communities, lock-down, online worship, paradigms, Zoom, Zoombombing

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