The FaithX Project

Strategic Missional Consulting

Looking Back on 2019

by Ken Howard

2019 was a good year for FaithX. It had its ups and downs – a rollercoaster ride, for sure, at times – but all-in-all, both despite and because of it all, we came through 2019 much stronger, with a clearer vision of who we are and where we are going, and with many successes to energize us. 

We’ve come a long way since we launched in December of 2016. Back then it was just me as FaithX’s executive director/principal (and only) consultant, a 4-person volunteer board of directors, and one client, the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland and its two newest congregations. 

Over the next two years, we would establish our affiliation with Datastory, collaborate with them to prototype, develop, beta test, and launch the next-generation demographic analysis and missional planning platform, which would become known as MapDash for Faith Communities, added about a dozen clients, two associate consultants, a blog coordinator, a volunteer research director, and publish a ground-breaking research paper entitled “The Religion Singularity.” 

In 2019 we broadened our reach even further. We expanded our work not only into more Episcopal dioceses, congregations, and organizations, but more importantly, branching out into more than five additional “denominations” (i.e., including the non-denominational movement), and have begun discussions with interfaith and non-Christian faith traditions. We launched a new peer-reviewed journal about religion and ministry. We worked with Datastory to develop and launch the new Neighborhood Missional Intelligence Report, and we designed the consultative Neighborhood Missional Assessment program to help congregations identify emerging missional opportunities and challenges in the neighborhoods they serve. 

And so I’d like to offer my appreciation to all of those who have joined FaithX on our experimental missional journey through the end of religion as we know it into the future of faith in whatever form God is calling it into being…

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Something Old? Something New? What Kind of Congregation Benefits Most from Neighborhood Missional Assessment

by Ken Howard

Earlier this year at a conference, I gave a presentation on Neighborhood Missional Intelligence Assessment. When the time came for Q&A, one of the participants posed this question:

“I can see how neighborhood missional assessment would be good for new start congregations and congregations looking to relocate, but how is it helpful for existing congregations that have been around long enough to form a deeper understanding of their neighborhood?”

I get this question (or variations thereof) more often than one might think. 

My smarty-pants Anglican answer goes something like this:

“If you’re asking me if neighborhood missional assessment is most useful for new congregations or existing congregations, the answer is ‘Yes!’”

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Datastory Releases Greatly Enhanced MapDash 2.2

By Ken Howard

Earlier this month, Datastory released its much anticipated and greatly enhanced MapDash 2.2. 

It is amazing how far we’ve come so fast.

It was only two years ago that Datastory and FaithX teamed up to begin shaping a faith-based version of Datastory’s powerful MapDash demographic/analytic platform. Then in July of last year, after several rounds of rapid prototyping and testing in judicatories in five states, Datastory launched MapDash for Faith Communities, and FaithX launched consultative strategic missional planning programs that leverage its unique capabilities for faith communities and the judicatories that support them.

Even then the capabilities of MapDash went far beyond any demographic tool available at the time, bringing real time interactive experience and powerful analytics available nowhere else. MapDash 2.2, honed by input and feedback from actual users, goes even further, with an updated layout, more than double the data, and comprehensive improvements to tools and widgets. 

One of those tools is the new Neighborhood Missional Intelligence Report (NMIR), an infographic report designed to give users an interactive snapshot of their neighborhoods. As described in an earlier post, FaithX employs the MapDash NMIR as the core of its Neighborhood Missional Intelligence Assessment, a 3-hour, online consultation designed for congregations seeking to better understand and engage the communities they serve.

Some of the new data features of MapDash 2.2 include:

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Neighborhood Missional Intelligence – Report or Assessment?

The 2nd of 8 posts on MapDash Analytics

by Ken Howard

FaithX Strategic Missional Services now offers two resources to explore missional opportunities at the local community level. The first is a Neighborhood Missional Intelligence Report. The second is a Neighborhood Missional Intelligence Assessment.

Think of the difference between the Report and the Assessment as the difference between taking a “selfie” and sitting for a portrait, except the subject is not you but your community and both are much more detailed than you might expect.

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