The FaithX Project

Strategic Missional Consulting

Congregation–Based Neighborhood Resource Hubs

Faith communities as catalysts,
leveraging their underused buildings and property
for the sake of their neighborhoods and their mission

It will come as no surprise to anyone that the future of congregations and their houses is uncertain. 

According to Pew Research, the number of religiously unaffiliated (those who identify as “none of the above” or “nothing in particular”) has increased dramatically. The “Nones” nearly doubled between 2007 and 2019, and are projected to be a majority of the U.S. population by 2040 (just 18 years from now). Meanwhile, every U.S. Christian denomination is shrinking in membership and attendance with the number who attend regularly (at least once per month) having already dropped below 50% of the population, and is continuing to fall, leaving a majority of worship spaces operating at less than half capacity. The inevitable impact on finances has left most congregations facing some degree of financial difficulty, leading to an estimated 3,850–7,700 worship centers closing every year, according to  The Journal of Pastoral Psychology. Where once were church buildings now stand bookstores, brew pubs and wineries, skate parks and laser tag arenas, luxury condos, and even frat houses.

At the same time, many urban and rural communities are struggling with dozens of issues like the lack of access to living wage employment, affordable housing, medical insurance, health care, and social services, according to the  Regional Indicators Dashboard Project, all of which leads to many living in substandard conditions or even becoming homeless because they can’t afford to live and work in their communities. Ironically, many of the government and nonprofit organizations that could help these people with the challenges they face also cannot afford to locate in their communities.

And, of course, Covid.

All these factors combine to create a vicious cycle with little hope for things improving for congregations and the communities they serve, right?

Not necessarily…

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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?”

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Connecting to Climate Change to Impact your Community for the Good

By Steve Matthews

“The earth is our origin and destination. The ancient rhythms of the earth have insinuated themselves into the rhythms of the human heart. The earth is not outside us; it is within: the clay from where the tree of the body grows. When we emerge from our offices, rooms and houses, we enter our natural element. We are children of the earth: people to whom the outdoors is home. Nothing can separate us from the vigour and vibrancy of this inheritance. In contrast to our frenetic, saturated lives, the earth offers a calming stillness. Movement and growth in nature takes time. The patience of nature enjoys the ease of trust and hope. There is something in our clay nature that needs to continually experience this ancient, outer ease of the world. It helps us remember who we are and why we are here.”                                             ― John O’Donohue, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

Today I am sitting in my hometown in the mountains of NC working on a friend’s porch.  It’s a beautiful day.  Dappled sunshine on the Blue Ridge.  The rhododendrons have finished blooming and the mountain laurel blooms are fading.   It seems as if this landscape might have looked like this since the Cherokee lived here, but that’s not true.  The natural world is changing here due to human activity. There are fewer songbirds and butterflies migrating through.  The hemlocks have been decimated by a non-native insect.  The dogwoods are diseased because in these parts, climate change means more rain and warmer temperatures resulting in disease and fungus that the trees can’t fight off.

As I drive around the county, I notice that there is more flooding in low-lying areas.  Most of the subsidized housing is in this area, as are the new, electrical towers that light, heat, and cool the town’s homes and businesses.  In short, minority groups, the poor, and compromised plant and animal species in my town bear the brunt of poor short-term and long-term human decision making.  

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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
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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.

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…

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