Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry Journal recently asked Ken if he would submit for review and publication a paper on FaithX’s collaborative work with Datastory to help congregations and judicatories to better understand and more effectively engage emerging missional opportunities, through the use of Datastory’s MapDashTM for Faith Communities GIS Technology and FaithX’s Strategic Missional Planning process. That paper was just published in the journal’s Fall 2019 issue as “Grounding Discernment in Data: Strategic Missional Planning Using GIS Technology and Market Segmentation Data.” Included below is the abstract of the article:
Abstract
Grounding discernment in data is essential for both young and old ministries. Taking Jesus’ call to love our neighbors seriously requires engaging them in the neighborhoods where they live. However, neighborhoods are transforming demographically faster than ever before. If we can help congregations more quickly understand their neighborhoods, there is a much greater likelihood that they will grow to love them as they love themselves. The question before us is, how do we help faith communities and their leaders engage missional opportunities that are emerging from rapid population change? The goal of the FaithX Project is to make it possible for faith communities, their leaders, and the judicatories that support them to employ location intelligence and predictive analytics in order for them to discern emerging missional opportunities. FaithX then helps them to create effective missional strategies for engaging those opportunities by asking four essential questions: What is our neighborhood? Who are our neighbors? What are our neighborhood’s issues and opportunities? What are our neighborhood’s resources?
Click here to read the full article
The “Grounding Discernment” article was published in Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry (SHERM Journal) is a not-for-profit and free peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes the latest social-scientific, historiographic, and ecclesiastic research on religious institutions and their ministerial practices. SHERM is dedicated to the critical and scholarly inquiry of historical and contemporary religious phenomena, both from within particular religious traditions and across cultural boundaries, so as to inform the broader socio-historical analysis of religion and its related fields of study.
SHERM Journal is sponsored by but fully editorially independent of 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 and Strategic Missional Planning
