Resources for Congregational Leadership

Click here for a variety of resources for your congregation's leadership.

Small Church Emergency Maintenance Fund
A limited fund is available each year out of which grants and loans are available to small congregations to help cover up to half of the cost for emergency maintenance or repair. The application is available here: Emergency Maintenance Fund Grant/Loan application

Get Demographic Data on Your Community & Congregation
Click here for a tool that will display and print two charts and a community demographic profile. The two charts track membership, participation, and giving over the most recently available eleven years for your congregation and your diocese. These data are from annual Parochial Reports. The community demographic profile will give you a demographic overview of the area within a three-mile radius of your congregation’s physical location.

Congregational Vitality Assessment - The Congregational Vitality Assessment tool from Episcopal Church Foundation and The FaithX Project is designed to provide congregations with an assessment of its Vitality (how healthy it is) and its Sustainability (whether it has the people, financial, and contextual resources necessary to survive).

New Camino: Hispanic/Latin@ Ministry
Many church leaders (both clergy & lay) are interested in growing with and being responsive to their Latino/a neighbors. The New Camino conference, held May 8-9, 2015, provided information and resources. Participants learned how Latin@/Hispanic Ministry has changed from old bifurcated Spanish only/English only model. Led by The Rev. Anthony Guillen, Episcopal Church Officer for Latin@/Hispanic Ministries, this seminar explores the changing face, cultural backgrounds, interests and needs of Latino/a communities, and how we can welcome, serve and involve these communities in our Congregational Life and Ministry. Click here to view the New Camino resources.

Asset Based Community Development
Asset Based Community Development is a tool to help grow your church by building into your community. The resources HERE are from an ABCD training conference held in Petersburg on Sep. 21-22, 2012. The conference addressed topics like: Learn how to discover what people in your community care about and are willing to work toward to change or build; Learn how to discover the gifts in your community and deploy them for action; Learn how to develop networks of community partners to make positive change.

Roanridge Grants for Creative Ministry in Rural Areas
Roanridge Grants are awarded annually for new and creative models for leadership development in small communities across the Episcopal Church. Dioceses, congregations and Episcopal related organizations and institutions are invited to apply for the grants which range from $5000 to $20,000.

How Welcoming is Your Church, Really?
Check yourself out with this hospitality audit. Click HERE.

Five Marks of Mission
Over twenty years ago, in 1984, the Anglican Consultative Council put forward a basic notion of the Christian mission in general. The five marks of mission are:
To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom
To teach, baptize and nurture new believers
To respond to human need by loving service
To seek to transform unjust structures of society
To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth
Click here for more.

Congregational Resource Guide
An effort of the Alban Institute in consultation with the Indianapolis Center for Congregations and other specialists, the Congregational Resource Guide (CRG) exists to help congregational leaders connect with resources that will enable them to face challenges and foster vitality in their communities of faith. Click here.