The FaithX Project

Strategic Missional Consulting

Who Are The People In Your Neighborhood? From Market Analytics to Missional Context Reports

This post is the last of a seven post series on MapDash Analytics

by Ken Howard

One of the many features of MapDash for Faith Communities that makes it unique among other faith-based demographic tools is an analytic report that we call a Missional Context ReportTM. MCRs were developed by FaithX as a way for faith leaders at the congregations and judicatory level to better understand the lifestyles of the people in their neighborhoods in order to better engage them. 

MCRs are one-page reports that translate market segmentation data into ten areas of key information and practical programmatic and ministry opportunities that congregations can use to better target their engagement strategies to the unique lifestyles of the dominant population segment in each of the neighborhoods that form the community they serve. These areas are:

  1. Communications and Technology
  2. Education and Formation
  3. Hospitality and Fellowship
  4. Leadership/Doership Skill Set
  5. Midweek Involvement
  6. Neighborhood Characteristics and Issues
  7. Outreach Opportunities 
  8. Stewardship and Finance
  9. Theological/Political Orientation
  10. Worship

You can find a sample MCR here

[Read more…]

“Grounding Discernment in Data” Article Published in Peer-Reviewed Journal

Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry (SHERM 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

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 on the SHERM website

Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry (SHERM Journal)  is a biannual, not-for-profit, 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.

Support 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

Broadening Our Reach – Increasing our Offerings

It’s been 12 months since Ken Howard and Matt Felton, respective founders of FaithX and Datastory, appeared at the exposition hall at the Austin Convention Center in Texas to launch Datastory’s new MapDash for Faith CommunitiesTM strategic missional planning platform along with FaithX’s Strategic Missional Consulting initiative. 

Much has happened in the last year with both FaithX’s missional consulting services and Datastory’s platform. And we’d like to bring you up to date on all the progress we have made in such a relatively short time.

[Read more…]

A Priest and A Data Geek Walk Into A Bar: Sneak Preview of Ken’s Esri User Conference Presentation

On Tuesday, July 9 at 11:15am, Ken Howard, our executive director and principal consultant, will deliver a presentation on data-grounded strategic missional planning at the Esri International User Conference in San Diego, CA.*

The presentation, “Grounding Discernment in Data: Strategic Missional Planning Using MapDash for Faith Communities” will describe how FaithX collaborated with Datastory to adapt interactive GIS technology to provide a platform and a process to help congregations and their judicatories learn the stories of their neighborhoods, identify missional opportunities and challenges emerging from those stories, and develop effective strategies for engaging them. Ken has been asked to deliver this 20-minute presentation as part of Esri’s Expo Spotlight Theater, which will also be spotlighting how other nonprofit organizations put GIS data to work in their respective areas of focus.

Since few of you will be attending the Esri User Conference and many of you have asked about the presentation, we thought it would be a good idea to give our faithful readers a sneak preview.  

Click here to view Grounding Discernment in Data

This presentation is in the form of a datastory:
an interactive presentation tool.
To view the presentation, simply scroll up through the “slides.”

*Esri is an international supplier of geographic information system software, web GIS, and geodatabase management applications.
The company is headquartered in Redlands, California.
The company was founded as Environmental Systems Research Institute
in 1969 as a land-use consulting firm.

Support 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 hereto schedule a free demo of MapDash for Faith Communities by Datastory
and Strategic Missional Planning by FaithX

July in San Diego – FaithX features at Esri International User Conference

We welcome your presence and your support

FaithX executive director Ken Howard has been invited to present on July 9 at the Esri International User Conference in San Diego, California. His 20-minute presentation is entitled “Grounding Discernment in Data: Strategic Missional Planning Using MapDash for Faith Communities.”

The presentation will describe how faith leaders from congregations and judictories from a variety of denominations and faith traditions across the U.S. are using location intelligence tools to ground strategic missional planning in data, including:

  • Identifying emerging missional opportunities and developing strategies to engage them.
  • Diagnosing the vitality and sustainability of congregations.
  • Identifying opportunities for starting new congregations, redeveloping existing congregations, and developing strategies for dealing with imperiled congregations.
  • And more…

The presentation also will describe how FaithX and Datastory engaged potential users in collaborative development of the location intelligence platform that would provide the missional toolbox for their assessment and planning efforts.

If you are attending the Esri User Conference the week of July 8, we invite you to drop in on Ken’s presentation. If you aren’t attending the conference but are in San Diego and want to grab a time to talk to Ken in person, you may contact him at ken@faithx.net.

A separate note to FaithX supporters

FaithX is picking up the cost of travel and lodging expenses necessary for Ken to attend the conference. If you feel drawn to help defray these costs with a tax-deductible contribution to FaithX, please use to “Donate Now” button below.

Support 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 by Datastory
and Strategic Missional Planning by FaithX

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