The FaithX Project

Strategic Missional Consulting

A Tale of Two Faith Communities (Vitality-Based Discernment in Action)

by Ken Howard

In our early days of consulting with congregations and dioceses around issues of congregational vitality and sustainability, I had the opportunity to consult with two imperiled congregations: an inner city congregation and a suburban congregation (represented in the above maps on the left and right, respectively). In both cases, our work was pro-bono. In both cases, we were brought in at the request of the bishops and for obvious reasons, will not be identifying the congregations, their dioceses, or their bishops. 

With the exception of their locations – different cities in different dioceses, one in the inner city, one in the near suburbs – both congregations were in very nearly the same condition:

  • Depleted membership: under 50 and falling. 
  • Bare bones attendance: under 25 and falling.
  • Aging out: Few if any children (mostly aging Boomers),
  • Unable to afford a full-time pastor.
  • Majority of revenue from rental income.
  • Majority of operating expenses from a rapidly-decreasing endowment (both said that if they really stretched it they could eke out another 10 years before they went under).
  • Spiking increase in Giving per Household (both congregations were proud of this, but it’s usually a last ditch attempt to stave off the seeming inevitability of closure).

Discussions with imperiled congregations are always fraught with emotion: denial, fear, anger, sorrow, guilt, resentment, and more. This is probably a big reason why, in most cases, congregations and their judicatory leaders avoid talking with each other about it (though both have seen the proverbial “writing on the wall”) until it’s too late to turn things around. And even then, there is a lot of “crap” to cut through, because most imperiled congregations have had a long time (sometimes decades) to come up with great (often blame-ridden) reasons about why the judicator should invest lots of resources to keep them afloat, most of which begin, “If only judicatory would [insert “Hail Mary” solution here].”

One of the great advantages of doing data-grounded Neighborhood Missional Assessment with an interactive, demographic analytical tool like MapDash for Faith Communities is that it cuts through the crap and rapidly facilitates transparent discussions about the vitality and sustainability of the congregation, and mutual discernment and planning around what, if any, strategies might revitalize the congregation.

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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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The FaithX Project, Inc. is 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with a religious and charitable purpose operated as a ministry by the Rev. Ken Howard under an extension of ministry from the Episcopal Bishop of Washington.