The FaithX Project

Strategic Missional Consulting

How many congregations leverage building and property to bring resources to their communities?


As you may know, The FaithX Project is partnering with TryTank Experimental Laboratory in running a proof-of-concept experiment with the idea of using weekly microsurveys to keep a finger on the pulse of The Episcopal Church. 

Every week on Tuesday afternoon we send out a new survey on a pressing issue. Then our volunteer respondents have until Friday afternoon to submit their responses. 

Last week we asked these two questions:

  1. Does your congregation leverage its building and property to bring resources to the community it serves?
  2. If so, what kinds of service organizations have your congregation brought to its building(s) and property?
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FaithX selected as Experiment Manager for Episcopal Pulse project

The FaithX Project is pleased to announce that we have been selected by ​TryTank Experimental Lab as Experiment Manager to develop the proof of concept for Episcopal Pulse, a project the purpose of which will be to put a proverbial “finger on the pulse” of the Episcopal Church on a regular basis through brief one- or two-question survey that respondents will be able to complete in under a minute (or maybe two if they want to give it extra thought).

The experiment, which will take place over several months, starting in July of this year and continuing into the first half of 2022, will have three major components:

  1. Selecting appropriate technology to host Episcopal Pulse polling.
  2. Recruiting an advisory committee to assist us identifying critical questions for our regular pulse polls.
  3. Implementation through pilot testing, then scaling Episcopal Pulse to full implementation.
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TryTank announces partnership with FaithX to develop Episcopal Pulse

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 19, 2021 

Lorenzo Lebrija | TryTank Experimental Laboratory 
703-461-1880 | lorenzo@trytank.org 

Ken Howard | The FaithX Project 
301-704-4390 or ken@faithx.net

TryTank announces partnership with FaithX to develop Episcopal Pulse: 
Keeping a finger on the pulse of the Episcopal Church with regular two-minute surveys 

Alexandria, VA | Germantown, MD: As part of an evolving collaborative partnership between TryTank Experimental Laboratory and The FaithX Project, TryTank today announced that it had selected FaithX as experiment manager for its Episcopal Pulse proof-of-concept experiment. 

The purpose of the Episcopal Pulse experiment is to develop an ongoing vehicle to keep a finger on the pulse of the Episcopal Church through regular two-minute surveys of a representative cross-section of the ordained and lay leaders and members at the denominational, diocesan, and congregational level. 

The role of FaithX in this experimental project will be to take Episcopal Pulse from concept to working prototype through a design–build–test process, with the assistance of an advisory panel and scalable test group, both of which FaithX will assemble with support from TryTank. 

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Covid 19 and Episcopal 21: A Survey of the Lasting Effects of Covid on the Episcopal Church

Click Here to Take the Survey

​TryTank Experimental Lab, a joint project of Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, VA, and the General Theological Seminary in New York, in collaboration with York St. John University in York, England, launched a survey on June 4, 2021, to study the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Episcopal Church.

We at the FaithX Project are pleased to have been chosen to provide data analysis and opportunity assessment and recommendations for this project.

The survey is seeking to understand how clergy and churchgoers of the Episcopal Church in the United States have coped with the COVID-19 pandemic and to solicit their opinions about how this may affect the Church’s future. The survey can be found online at www.EpiscopalPulse.org.

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FaithXperimental Spotlight: TryTank tries PitchTank

This post on the emergence of TryTank is
By Ken Howard

In our travels around the U.S., both digitally and physically,
we at FaithX like keep our eyes open for examples of people, programs, communities, or ministries doing creative, innovative, and experimental things in the arena of faith. And when we find one, we like to shine a spotlight on them in a FaithXperimental blog post.

There’s nothing that we at FaithX like better than shining a light on people and programs who are experimenting with new and innovative ways of creating and cultivating communities of faith… unless the people are doing it are one of our clients – then we love it!

On January 1 of this year, two Episcopal seminaries, Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS) and General Theological Seminary (GTS), joined forces to launch an innovative joint project focused on the future of the church. They called this exciting new program the TryTank: An Experimental Laboratory for Church Growth and Innovation.  

Led by the Rev. Lorenzo Lebrija, TryTank works to understand the forces threatening the church in order to identify creative ways to equip future leaders to reinvigorate the church, seeking to understand where new church models, business models, and technology can meet the needs of today’s church.

It is this focus on experimental learning that makes this program not simply a “Think Tank” but a TRYTank. As Fr. Lebrija describes it, “Any time we have asked ourselves, ‘what if’ as we do and are church, those are opportunities to explore and try. We are going to be doing a lot of that. And we know we’re going to fail. A lot. But that’s how we can discover new adjacent possibilities, by trying.” TryTank not only sponsors experiments but shares their stories across the church, “because something that may not have worked in one place, may just be perfect in another.”

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