The FaithX Project

Strategic Missional Consulting

A Mentored Missional Journey

 

 

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

 

 

Missional Planning for Dioceses: Where Do We Go from Here?

by Ken Howard

This the 7th and last post in a multi-part series. Click here to read the previous post.

Step 4 – Where Are Our Future Opportunities and Threats? (Investing in The New). Think of this in term of ice hockey legend Wayne Gretzky’s immortal wisdom: “I don’t skate to where the puck is, I skate to where the puck is going.” In other words, it is insufficient to just know where there are people in need of ministry, to whom your churches could uniquely minister. You must also understand where you have no presence, and what you would have to do to be present there.

To do this, you would want to start by identifying all areas of your diocese which are not within 15 minutes of another congregation of your denominatiuon. These are areas where your diocese does not have a functional presence (since 70% of people will not drive more than 15 minutes to attend a congregation) and which merit more research as possible sites for new congregations, using the same three community population trends identified above to refine your search:

  • Population Growth. Growing or shrinking? (Growing is better)
  • Diversity. Increasing or decreasing? (Increasing is better)
  • Generational Balance. More balanced or less balanced? (More is better)

Example – Assessing Sites for New Church Starts Based on External Sustainability:

 

 

[Read more…]

Missional Planning for Dioceses: Vision, Context, and Stewardship of Resources

 

by Ken Howard

This the 6th post in a multi-part series. Click here to read the previous post.

Step 1 – What is God calling us to be? (Vision). What we are looking for here is succinct statement of what you have collectively discerned that God is calling you collectively to be and to do. It is a description of what the diocese wants to be when it grows up, the belief that drives all other beliefs, the passion that drives all ministries and programs, a vision the people find worthy of their faithfulness, even in the face of failure. You should be able to reduce it to a one or two sentence “sticky meme” that anyone can recall and repeat. And you should revisit in any time you engage in strategic planning.

[Read more…]

Missional Planning for Dioceses: An Introduction


by Ken Howard

This the 5th post in a multi-part series. Click here to read the previous post.

In our last several posts, we discussed the what it means to be missional and how to go about developing a missional plan for a congregation.

In this next series of posts, we move up a level in the ecclesiastical food chain for a discussion of how to go about developing a missional plan for a diocese, district, synod, or other adjudicatory.

It’s harder to develop a missional plan at the diocesan level than at the congregational level: not because of the process but because of the politics. The process is easier because there are fewer demographic “moving parts” to track. But the politics are harder because an honest diocesan mission plan cannot avoid venturing into the political minefield of resource prioritization and reallocation questions. Because nothing opens up fissures in the fabric of a diocese like talking about opening, redeveloping, and closing congregations, especially closing. Because every congregation that needs to be closed has a “great,” emotion-driven story about why they shouldn’t be, while diocesan leadership haven’t had ready access to the information necessary to create a convincing data-driven story about why they should. Which is why many dioceses avoid this kind of planning altogether or abandon the effort after running into political roadblocks.

[Read more…]

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