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

This post on Missional Context Reports 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

There’s a reason we made a decision to limit MCRs to a single page. Analytics like the MCR are not meant to provide congregations with prescriptive answers and solutions, but rather to provide them correlational and trend analyses that will enable them to form hypotheses about their neighborhood’s populations, issues, and resources which they must then go out into their neighborhoods and verify. 

As a wise person once said, “There are no answers inside the building, only assumptions, so get the hell out of the building and test your assumptions.” We have found that the two things that keep people from getting out of the building and into the community are knowing too little about the people in their neighborhoods and knowing too much. People need enough information to overcome their anxieties about going out, but not so much that they think they don’t need to. MCRs are designed to present just enough. Those who want to do a deep dive into the underlying marketing data can simply click a link at the bottom of the MCR to view the associated Tapestry report.

The congregation-relevant information and options provided in the MCR are extrapolated from market segmentation reports included in Tapestry, a geodemographic segmentation system, which contains market analyses of 67 distinct populations (click here for more information). FaithX conducted a year-long study of correlational research between market demographics and things congregations need to know in order to target ministries and programs, after which it produced MCRs for each of those 67 population segments. Both ESRI’s Tapestry segments and FaithX’s Missional Context Reports are updated annually.


If you’d like more information about MCRs, how they integrate with MapDash, and how to use them as a tool in strategic missional planning, contact Ken Howard at ken@faithx.net or book a MapDash/Strategic Missional Planning demo/discussion by clicking here.


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