The FaithX Project

Strategic Missional Consulting

Measuring Missional Opportunity

 

By The Rev. Ken Howard

Click here for last week’s post on Measuring Vitality and Sustainability

Last week we discussed how we approach assessing the vitality of congregations based on key parochial report trends and their sustainability based on key demographic projections. We described how we transform those trends and projections into a Congregational Vitality Index and Congregational Sustainability Index and how dioceses other judicatories can use these indexes to perform a system-wide triage of their congregations in their current form and location.

This week we turn from how to assess our current congregational resources to how to predict and discover emerging missional opportunities in the communities around us.

Quantum physicist Niels Bohr famously said, “Prediction is difficult, especially about the future.”

But discovering emerging missional opportunities wasn’t as difficult as it might sound. Or more accurately, once we did the hard work of correlational research necessary to assess congregational sustainability, it wasn’t so hard to take the next step into the predictive analytics of missional opportunity.

Basically, it required taking our existing diagnostic algorithms for sustainability (population growth, diversity growth, generational predominance, and “qualified population”), and transforming them into positive markers in a new algorithm for missional opportunity.

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Measuring Congregational Vitality and Sustainability

The Necessity and The Challenge

By The Rev. Ken Howard

In this time when faith communities are becoming increasingly uncertain about their prospects for the future, evaluating congregational vitality and sustainability has become a critical necessity for congregations and the denominational organizations (dioceses, districts, associations) that support them.

Vitality vs. Sustainability

Unfortunately, with currently-available denominational annual reporting tools, measuring congregational vitality and sustainability is not an easy or straightforward task.

They simply do not ask the right questions.

Let’s face it: It is well known that annual congregational reports – with their static, point-in-time, rear-view mirror measures of membership and attendance – do not measure vitality, at least not directly. And there’s the additional problem of what some call the “B.S. Factor”: the strong incentive to estimate to the high side on attendance and to be lax in culling membership rosters. One or two denominations (ELCA for example) are beginning to formulate and test questions to assess the former. But these are not yet in final form or in widespread use

And annual congregational reports don’t really measure sustainability at all, even indirectly. No denominations are currently measuring sustainability.

So when we were challenged by the Episcopal Church’s staff officer for church starts and redevelopment to find a way to gauge congregational vitality and sustainability using only currently available data, we were aware of the magnitude of the task. But we were also excited about how useful such a tool would be if we could meet the challenge.

And after months of researching correlations and developing algorithms, and another month or so of designing, rapid prototyping, refining, and beta testing, we have developed two new map layers for MapDash for Faith Communities: a Congregational Vitality Index and a Congregational Sustainability Index.

Here’s how we did it…

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Back from EpiscoCon – Pleased with Results

By Ken Howard

Just back from EpiscoCon 2018. In recuperation and digging out mode, as you might imagine, feeling good about our roll out of MapDash for Faith Communities at the Expo. Briefly, here are the “stats”…

Number of Visits

  • More than 200 visitors came by the booth, as calculated by the number of our chocolate “earths” consumed (being by the lunch line helped).
  • 47 people asked for more information or otherwise showed significant interest.
  • 39 of these people were from Episcopal Dioceses (deputies/visitors/staff/etc.).

Organizations Represented

  • 26 of 99 (25%+) dioceses of the Episcopal Church.
  • 9 church-serving organizations (4 Episcopal).
And in the race for the most visitors, Diocese of Texas comes in first with 7, Diocese of Upper South Carolina second with 3, and Dioceses of Massachusetts, Milwaukee, Newark, Virgin Islands third with 2. Go Texas!
If you missed us, don’t worry. Here is some information on our MapDash for Faith Communities tool and our Mentored Missional Journey consulting program.
For more information or a customized demo, contact Ken Howard at ken@faithx.net.

A Great Big “Thank You!” to Our Beta Testers

The purpose of this blog post is to offer a Great Big “Thank You!” to the Dioceses, Diocesan Beta Coordinators, and Congregational Beta Users, whose assistance was invaluable in shaping MapDash for Faith Communities into the great missional tool it has become.

We gratefully acknowledge the five Episcopal Dioceses that agreed to be beta test sites for the Congregational Version of MapDash for Faith Communities, and the diocesan staffers who help coordinate the beta sites in their dioceses: Diocese of Maryland (Canon Scott Slater), Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast (Canon Kammy Young), Diocese of Georgia (“Loose” Canon Frank Logue), Diocese of Oklahoma (Susan Brown Snook), and Diocese of Pennsylvania (Canon Kirk Berlenbach and his team). Scroll down for a list of participating congregations by dioceses.

We offer special thanks to Diocese of Maryland, which with Bishop Eugene Sutton’s support took part not only in prototyping, alpha-testing, and beta-testing the Congregational Version, but also worked closely with us in developing the Executive (Diocesan Level) diagnostic map layers for Congregational Vitality, Congregational Sustainability, and Missional Opportunity. Canon Slater’s assistance in gaining us wide access to the congregations and leaders of Patapsco Valley Region was invaluable

Special thanks also go to Canon Young of Central Gulf Coast, who put many hours into reviewing and providing constructive feedback the Beta User Guide, worked with Bishop Russell Kendrick to bring me in to pilot test our training at their annual Discipleship Day, and worked with Canon Frank Logue of Georgia to develop a regional grant to train diocesan staff in Central Gulf Coast and Georgia to use MapDash for evangelism planning. And a special shout-out to Canon Kirk Berlenbach and his team for going the extra mile (literally) to help us identify and stamp out bugs.

Finally, our giving of thanks would not be complete without recognizing the role played by the Episcopal Church, specifically that of the Rev. Tom Brackett, member Presiding Bishop’s Staff and Manager for Church Planting and Mission Development, who support and encouragement helped us stay faithful, focused, and forward moving through the year and a half developmental journey. Tom, you are a saint!

 

Blessings and thanks to everyone!
Ken+
The Rev. Ken Howard
Executive director of FaithX
Co-creator of MapDash for Faith Communities

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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.

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