The FaithX Project

Strategic Missional Consulting

FaithX on the Road

Over the next several months, FaithX will be traveling to onsite strategic missional planning consultations and exhibiting (and speaking) at several large gatherings across the country, many of them with our collaborators Datastory.

Here is a taste of our schedule, both so far and into the months ahead:

January

Roman Catholic Diocese of Lansing Michigan. Ken is working with key leaders in the diocese to assist them in employing the missional intelligence capabilities of MapDash for Faith Communities as part of a several-month project that will culminate in a “State of the Diocese” report. The report will provide an assessment of the vitality of the diocese and its congregations, identify demographic trends and emerging missional opportunities, and describe strategies to address what they find.

February

2/20-2/23 – CEEP annual conference, Boston, Massachusetts. FaithX and Datastory will be exhibiting at the annual conference of the Consortium of Endowed Episcopal Parishes (CEEP). Ken Howard and Steve Matthews of FaithX and Matt Felton of Datastory will be there demonstrating the power and the possibilities of MapDash for Faith Communities and strategic missional consulting.

March

3/29-3/31 – The New Story Festival, Austin, Texas. Ken and Matt will be delivering a presentation entitled “Datastories – How Missional Intelligence Can Help Us to Love Our Communities,” and will be exhibiting Datastory’s MapDash and FaithX’s strategic missional consulting. FaithX and Datastory are Festival Sponsors.

TBA – Episcopal Dioceses of Georgia and Central Gulf Coast at Valdosta, Georgia. This will be the third of four sessions of the dioceses’ Datastory Evangelism Project, in which both dioceses are using MapDash to identify emerging missional opportunities and challenges, and develop data-grounded strategies to engage with them.

Later in 2019

8/5-8/10 – ELCA Churchwide Assembly, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Planning is underway for FaithX and Datastory to exhibit at the biennial Church Wide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. Matt Felton will again be representing Datastory, while Ken Howard and Mary Frances will be representing FaithX.

Join our mailing list and keep abreast of where we are going next.


For more information about MapDash for Faith Communities and strategic missional consulting, or to invite Ken Howard to speak at a conference, contact Ken Howard at ken@faithx.net.

Our Newest Ad for MapDash and Strategic Missional Consulting

We are happy to highlight for you our latest combined ad for Datastory’s MapDash for Faith Communities and FaithX’s Strategic Missional Consulting.

We hope to see it featured soon in Net Results Magazine, North America’s most enduring and most trusted evangelism and church growth magazine. It is a wonderful resource, not only for church planters and church redevelopers, but for anyone seeking to be more effective in missional work. One of senior associate consultants, Mary Frances, was recently asked to be a senior writer for the magazine. If you haven’t already subscribed, we encourage you to check it out.

Click Here for a PDF Copy of the Ad

Dioceses of Central Gulf Coast & Georgia First Subscribers to MapDash for Faith Communities

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…]

Old Ways Won’t Open New Doors

New Episcopal Initiative Seeks to Explore Paths to the Future of the Church



By The Rev. Ken Howard

As my readers know, I just returned from the Episcopal Church’s General Convention – its triennial legislative gathering – held this year in Austin, Texas.

Blessedly, this year I attended as a exhibitor, as previous experiences as an elected deputy filled me with all the excitement of watching proverbial paint dry. But while the processes of church legislation are boring to folks like me, it’s good there are people who love making the sausage, because a good deal of what they do is necessary, and occasionally, they produce something beautiful (the Nicene Creed, for example, was the product of a church convention – definite proof that miracles happen).

Nestled among this years avalanche of legislation produced by EpiscoCon (my pet name), was one such jewel: an ambitious (some might say audacious) three-year missional congregational redevelopment initiative that some have called missio:Engage. While the precise scope, shape, and reach of the project has yet to fully emerge (the church often needs time to contemplate the implications of what it has done before it can move legislative theory into programmatic reality), and the funding for the program will not come online until January 2019, from our discussions with those guiding the legislation, a few things are clear.

[Read more…]

MapDash™ for Faith Communities to Go “Live” at TEC Convention Expo

Work continues apace to ready MapDash™ for Faith Communities for its public debut at the Weekend Expo at the Episcopal Church’s triennial General Convention.

MapDash™ for Faith Communities is an interactive, data-grounded, map-based tool for missional analysis and planning. It was developed by Datastory Consulting, in collaboration with The FaithX Project, and beta tested by diocesan and congregational leaders in five Episcopal Dioceses.

MapDash™ for Faith Communities enables dioceses to assess congregational health, identify missional opportunities, and promote collaboration among congregations. It gives congregations the capacity to better understand and engage the neighborhoods they are called to serve. And it empowers faith leaders at all levels to make better and faster decisions with objective data that augments natural intuition and wisdom.

MapDash™ for Faith Communities will be available on a subscription basis, primarily through dioceses and other judicatories. The standard bundle will include five dashboards: one Executive Dashboard and four Congregational Dashboards:

  • The Congregational Dashboards will allow congregational leaders to define their neighborhood in different ways, then select data maps that will help them understand their neighborhoods’ population characteristics, community issues, and community resources.
  • The Executive Dashboard is built on top of the Congregational platform and includes all of its features, plus important additional diagnostic features: a Congregational Health Assessment map layer and a Missional Opportunities map layer.

Our work on the Congregational Dashboard is nearly complete, with about a week left in our final beta test.

We have a little more work on the Executive Dashboard. The Congregational Health Assessment is a little over a week away from completing beta testing, while a couple of weeks remain to complete the Missional Opportunities map layer.

So if you are planning to attend the 2018 General Convention, come by, visit us, and get a demo at booth #837.

[Read more…]

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