The FaithX Project

Strategic Missional Consulting

Όμικρο

By Steve Matthews 

25 years ago I spent two semesters learning Greek in seminary.   I never expected that my refresher course would come by way of a pandemic — first Delta and now Omicron. As Omicron begins to spread from state to state, we wait again in uncertainty.  Will the current vaccines work?  Is it more contagious?  Are its effects more severe?  We wait as we have before. “Omicron at Advent”… there’s a sermon there.

But it’s not exactly like it was before.  We have learned things.  We are creative, resourceful, and resilient.  We can lean into that.  We know we can go “hybrid” in our worship.  We know about wearing masks, and getting the “jab,” and practicing social distancing.  We also know that there are those people who need more support than others.  At FaithX one of the ways we identify people more impacted by Covid is by utilizing a data tool called the Social Vulnerability Index (SVI).  The SVI uses U.S. Census data to determine the social vulnerability of every county and tract. The CDC ranks each county and tract on 15 social factors, including poverty, lack of vehicle access, and crowded housing, and groups them into four related themes:

  • Socioeconomic
  • Housing Composition and Disability
  • Minority Status and Language
  • Housing and Transportation 

The closer a neighborhood is to the number “1” the more vulnerable that population is to environmental pollution and weather extremes, to poor health access, and to other social problems.  Think about it:  If you make little money, if you have a disability, if you are reliant on public transportation, if you do not speak English well, if you live in a densely populated apartment complex, you are more likely to fall through the cracks. 

[Read more…]

“I can’t breathe” – Mapping Structural Racism

By the Rev. Ken Howard
Structural Racism

Click here to register
Mapping Systemic Racism webinar
Nov 18, 2020 | 12:30-1:30pm ET

When we started The FaithX Project a little over three years ago, we chose as our mission “helping faith communities survive and thrive in turbulent times.” Little did we know how prophetic those words would be or how turbulent the times we would be working in. In the last three months we have experienced: 

  • A once-in-a-lifetime pandemic that has closed down society, even houses of worship,
  • An economic collapse to rival the Great Depression, and…
  • Societal upheaval not seen since the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King, which erupted in response to the murder of a unarmed black man by a policeman and to the systemic structural racism it represented.

Systemic Structural Racism is the idea that our social system is structured in such a way that disadvantages a particular race – in this case, African-Americans. Some people would make the case that it does not exist, that it is a made-up concept. I don’t buy that. In the work we do at FaithX helping congregations to understand and better serve their neighborhoods, we frequently notice that multiple social vulnerabilities tend to coexist in a vast number African-American neighborhoods: unemployment, poverty, low access to medical care, inadequate housing, and a number of other issues. So many that it couldn’t be a coincidence. And when we dig into the history, we often find that it follows the boundaries of earlier racial red-lining and racially-restrictive covenants. 

Let me give you some examples and let you make up your own mind. I prepared side-by-side maps* showing the relationship of predominantly African-American neighborhoods to ten different vulnerability factors. You can find all 10  maps by clicking here, but I’m going to show you just three: pandemic vulnerability, unemployment, and poverty. 

[Read more…]

Using MapDash to Identify and Prioritize Vulnerable Neighborhoods and Populations

by The Rev. Ken Howard
Vulnerable Neighborhoods

This post is part of a blog series on
“Keeping Congregations Connected in the Face of COVID-19”
Click here for the previous post

Okay. You’re a pastor of a congregation in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, economic meltdown, and now a societal upheaval in the aftermath of the murder of yet another unarmed black man by police, all the while trying keep your congregation connected virtually, and planning for the reopening of your building and the recovery of your neighborhood.

Not much on your plate, right? WRONG!!! 

Seriously, it’s nearly impossible for you to give equal time and attention to every person in your congregation, let alone attend to the needs of the vulnerable neighborhoods you service.

So how do you prioritize your time and attention? One way is to identify and prioritize the most vulnerable people in your congregation and the most vulnerable neighborhoods around your congregation. And you can do that relatively quickly through data-grounded discernment using MapDash for COVID-19 or MapDash for Faith Communities.

Here’s how we did it with the Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

[Read more…]

Getting Out Ahead of COVID-19: Mapping Neighborhood Vulnerability and At-Risk Populations

by The Rev. Ken Howard
at-risk populations

This blog post is part of a series on strategies and tools for helping congregations survive and thrive in the face of the COVID crisis.

Click here for the previous post

From what I am hearing from most of my sisters and brothers of the cloth, it would not be overstating the case to say that the Coronavirus pandemic has turned their lives as faith leaders upside down, along with just about every idea they have about how faith communities are “supposed” to operate. It has begun to seem like every task has become incredibly urgent and they are running as fast as they can just to keep up with the havoc the COVID crisis is wreaking with their congregations and the (sometimes) at-risk populations they serve.

So how do we move past this “tyranny of the urgent” and get out ahead of COVID-19 with a little short-term organization and a little longer-term planning?

One way to do this is through data mapping and analytics. Data-mapping is a way to visualize all the data bombarding us – and our congregations and neighborhoods – in context. Analytics are a specialized form of data-mapping that help us analyze, evaluate, and make decisions based on the data before us.

[Read more…]