The FaithX Project

Strategic Missional Consulting

When the paradigm shifts, everyone goes to Zero

church-sign-no-experts

by the Rev. Ken Howard

In my discussions with congregational and diocesan leaders around the Church of late, I have noticed a shift in the conversation.

Faith leaders were already beginning to face the facts about their congregations before Covid: acknowledging that, at best, they are on a plateau and that, at worst, they are on a slow but slippery downward slope, not just in membership numbers, but also congregational vitality and engagement. This trend has been made even clearer and its pace accelerated by the Coronavirus pandemic.

Another shift is that fewer leaders are clinging to the old canard that there are “other ways to grow than in actual number,” recognizing that readiness to grow is a powerful indicator that talk of willingness to change is more than lip service.

These are healthy signs. Getting over our resistance to facing the reality of our condition is half the battle for the future of the Church.  As Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (though it may really piss you off first).

[Read more…]

Non-Proselytizing Evangelism: The Heart of the Church

by The Rev. Ken Howard

This is a busy week for FaithX (a major webinar and two videocast presentations at a major conference). So we are publishing one of Ken Howard’s earlier blog posts on the difference between evangelism and proselytizing.

When I broach the subject of evangelism to members of my own Anglican-Episcopal tradition, I get two distinct kinds of responses, depending on whether the hearers are conservative or liberal in their theology. Conservatives Anglicans, while a distinct minority in the denomination, are pretty gung-ho on the evangelism thing. The notion of non-proselytizing is almost completely foreign to them. They make jokes like, “to most Episcopalians evangelism is a ‘four-letter word,'” and try to encourage the rest of us to get out there and start making converts for Christ. Liberal (and even moderate) Anglicans, on the other hand, tend to be rather uncomfortable with the whole idea of evangelism. Oddly enough, they tell the same evangelism jokes as conservatives but they sound a bit more nervous when they do, because to them it really does feel like a four-letter word.

Several years ago, when I began to suggest the possibility of a non-proselytizing evangelism, my clergy colleagues looked at me I had just started to speak in tongues. My liberal friends were like, “Is it even possible to engage in evangelism without proselytizing? And do we even want to do it if it isn’t?” Meanwhile, my conservative friends were like, “Why would anyone even want to do that? Isn’t proselytizing the point?” And both of them were like, “Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?”

Indeed, the two terms do sound a little discordant when we first try to say them together. I’m guessing that’s because evangelism equals proselytizing is pretty much the only kind of evangelism paradigm that the Church and most of its members has in its institutional memory. Most of us have no other concept of evangelism other than as a way to convert people: to get them to change their religious affiliation from another faith tradition to Christianity or even (sadly) from one Christian denomination to another. But I prefer to think of it as more of a paradox than an oxymoron. Because it wasn’t always this way…

Click here to continue reading →

Keeping Congregations Connected: Creating Neighborhood Community in the Context of COVID-19

by Mary Frances, FaithX Senior Consultant
Creating Neighborhood Community

The post is part of our “Keeping Congregations Connected in the Face of COVID-19” blog series.

Click here for the previous post.

What opportunities for connection, joy, support, love, collaboration, and ministry in your neighborhood are just waiting to be noticed, named, and nurtured?  

This strange time we are living in seems to be a time of dichotomy.  Social distance but stay connected. Protect yourself for the sake of others.  Find unity in the diaspora. Celebrate life while we sadly count the deaths.  Yet the church was created for a time such as this.  Today the most pressing question in the church is how do we stay connected while we are all at least 6 feet apart?  How do we go about creating neighborhood community from behind our computer screens?

I think we find the answer in shifting from our well-worn model of large group gatherings to something smaller and closer to home: house churches, neighborhood groups, small groups, or fractals.  Call them what you will, but small groups of people gathering around the gospel are the very foundation of the church.  We find examples of them in the New Testament and more recently in the growing Christian church in China as well as the house church movement all around the world.  In 1950 the Christian church in China was close to 4 million people.  Today the church in China boasts over 67 million people.  And yet the church is still often underground, persecuted and unable to meet in groups of more than 10 people.  Ten people.  That number sounds so familiar.  It’s the number many states are using when they talk about lifting restrictions and allowing small groups to gather again with social distancing.  More dichotomies…gather at a distance!   

[Read more…]

New Paradigms: Figuring Out What Comes Next

by Mary Frances, FaithX Senior Consultant
What Comes Next

Here and there in the world
and now and then in ourselves is a New Creation,
usually hidden, but sometimes manifest,
and certainly manifest in Jesus who is called the Christ.”

Paul Tillich

Paradigm: a typical example of something or model

The Oxford Dictionary

These are certainly some strange times we are living in. I admit that on some days I wake up and think to myself, “I can’t believe we are living through this.”  And it gets worse by the day. Six weeks ago the clergy who I coach were busy trying to figure out how to do online worship.  Today those same people are trying to figure out how to lead an online funeral or how to console the weary and grieving in their community from afar. These are awful times, indeed. Yet in the dark there is light, in the storm there is quiet and in crisis, opportunity. So, what comes next?

For decades the Church has been in decline and while there have been many who claimed to know how to reverse that trend, change has come hard for the Church.  Since the Church is at its core a gathering of human beings and human beings are inherently resistant to change, righting the ship has been more than difficult. We haven’t known how to connect with our communities, we haven’t known how to innovate and bring people along with us, and we have often been more interested in the days gone by than the days yet to come. 

Cue the Covid-19 pandemic.

[Read more…]

Keeping Congregations Connected: Navigating Giving During the COVID-19 Crisis

By Mary Frances

We tend to expect charitable giving to go up during a national crisis, but then the COVID-19 crisis isn’t your typical crisis.  It’s hitting us in multiple places at once. Health, home, employment and financial security, both short- and long-term, all feel very much at risk right now.  So we might expect that congregational giving could go down at this time. Amazingly, people have the ability to rise to the current challenges. The Center for Disaster Philanthropy and its partners have been tracking donations since the start of the COVID-19 crisis.  As of March 26, 2020, people and corporations have donated over $2.9 billion dollars to disaster- and health-related organizations. People are still giving.  

Of course, those giving numbers are national and perhaps even reflect some international donations.  What can you expect at the local level? Can you expect your congregation to continue giving at the level it has in the past?  Can you expect giving to increase? The Neighborhood Missional Intelligence Report (NMIR) from FaithX can provide you with some answers.  This two-page report contains over 40 data points and several of them can guide your expectations and planning in a time like this.

[Read more…]