The FaithX Project

Strategic Missional Consulting

FaithX Goes To Birmingham, Alabama

Next week, FaithX folk will be going to the Genesis conference on New Episcopal Communities. Aspiring church planters from dioceses around the country will be gathering, along with many of their bishops, for three days of information sharing, training, and coaching.

Ken Howard, our executive director and principal consultant, and Steve Matthews, one of FaithX’s two senior associate consultants, will be delivering plenary presentations and offering micro-coaching sessions with interested participants. Steve’s presentation is entitled, “Falling in Love with your Neighborhood” and Ken’s is entitled, “Grounding Discernment in Data: Missional Planning with MapDash for Faith Communities.”

Other topics at the conference will include: Convening and Nurturing Your Core Team, Hosting Transformative Conversations/Networking, What To Do When Things Don’t Go As Planned, Defining and Achieving Sustainability, and more.

FaithX will be offering a new consultative program, Strategic Missional Planning for Genesis Congregations, which has been customized to the needs of those church planters who will be applying for New Episcopal Communities Grants.

For more information on the New Episcopal Communities initiative, click here.

A Priest and A Data Geek Walk Into A Bar: Sneak Preview of Ken’s Esri User Conference Presentation

On Tuesday, July 9 at 11:15am, Ken Howard, our executive director and principal consultant, will deliver a presentation on data-grounded strategic missional planning at the Esri International User Conference in San Diego, CA.*

The presentation, “Grounding Discernment in Data: Strategic Missional Planning Using MapDash for Faith Communities” will describe how FaithX collaborated with Datastory to adapt interactive GIS technology to provide a platform and a process to help congregations and their judicatories learn the stories of their neighborhoods, identify missional opportunities and challenges emerging from those stories, and develop effective strategies for engaging them. Ken has been asked to deliver this 20-minute presentation as part of Esri’s Expo Spotlight Theater, which will also be spotlighting how other nonprofit organizations put GIS data to work in their respective areas of focus.

Since few of you will be attending the Esri User Conference and many of you have asked about the presentation, we thought it would be a good idea to give our faithful readers a sneak preview.  

Click here to view Grounding Discernment in Data

This presentation is in the form of a datastory:
an interactive presentation tool.
To view the presentation, simply scroll up through the “slides.”

*Esri is an international supplier of geographic information system software, web GIS, and geodatabase management applications.
The company is headquartered in Redlands, California.
The company was founded as Environmental Systems Research Institute
in 1969 as a land-use consulting firm.

Support FaithX

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

Want to learn more about missional opportunities
in your congregation’s neighborhood?
Click here for a free Neighborhood Missional Intelligence Report

Want to learn how your judicatory can identify
emerging missional opportunities within its boundaries?
Click hereto schedule a free demo of MapDash for Faith Communities by Datastory
and Strategic Missional Planning by FaithX

July in San Diego – FaithX features at Esri International User Conference

We welcome your presence and your support

FaithX executive director Ken Howard has been invited to present on July 9 at the Esri International User Conference in San Diego, California. His 20-minute presentation is entitled “Grounding Discernment in Data: Strategic Missional Planning Using MapDash for Faith Communities.”

The presentation will describe how faith leaders from congregations and judictories from a variety of denominations and faith traditions across the U.S. are using location intelligence tools to ground strategic missional planning in data, including:

  • Identifying emerging missional opportunities and developing strategies to engage them.
  • Diagnosing the vitality and sustainability of congregations.
  • Identifying opportunities for starting new congregations, redeveloping existing congregations, and developing strategies for dealing with imperiled congregations.
  • And more…

The presentation also will describe how FaithX and Datastory engaged potential users in collaborative development of the location intelligence platform that would provide the missional toolbox for their assessment and planning efforts.

If you are attending the Esri User Conference the week of July 8, we invite you to drop in on Ken’s presentation. If you aren’t attending the conference but are in San Diego and want to grab a time to talk to Ken in person, you may contact him at ken@faithx.net.

A separate note to FaithX supporters

FaithX is picking up the cost of travel and lodging expenses necessary for Ken to attend the conference. If you feel drawn to help defray these costs with a tax-deductible contribution to FaithX, please use to “Donate Now” button below.

Support FaithX

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

Want to learn more about missional opportunities
in your congregation’s neighborhood?
Click here for a free
Neighborhood Missional Intelligence Report

Want to learn how your judicatory can identify
emerging missional opportunities within its boundaries?
Click here to schedule a free demo of
MapDash for Faith Communities by Datastory
and Strategic Missional Planning by FaithX