Cooperative Congregational Studies Partnership/Faith Communities Today (FACT) 2009 Annual Meeting – perhaps the most important meeting since our inception 12 years ago – August 10-12, 2009 at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Lutheran Center near O’Hare airport in Chicago.
For entertainment:
- Advance look at the FACT 2008 Report – which will be publically released at the September meeting of the Religious Newswriters Association
- Release of an electronic version of Insights into: The Compassionate Congregation
- Guest speaker on the use of the web for dissemination and communication
For entertainment:
- Advance look at the FACT 2008 Report – which will be publically released at the September meeting of the Religious Newswriters Association
- Release of an electronic version of Insights into: The Compassionate Congregation
- Guest speaker on the use of the web for dissemination and communication
Work to be done: FACT 2010
- Funding: We have sufficient funding for a very basic replication of FACT 2010, including partial reimbursement for doing your survey (a la FACT 2000). But we also have remaining challenges for securing funding for as substantial an effort as we achieved in 2000. I will provide an update about current funding and remaining challenges and opportunities in a couple of weeks.
- The questionnaire: the research taskforce will present a near final draft of the FACT 2010 questionnaire for the group’s review and response. Following the mandate from last summer’s meeting it will concentrate on replicating FACT 2000, with a few tweaks based on our experience with FACT 2005 and FACT 2008. The only new section, which we will present for your reaction, will deal with the effect of the economic crisis on congregations and congregations’ response to it.
- The process: Finalize the time-line and other logistics, including a session on best practices for online and email surveys.
- Expanding the circle: Review of status of participating denominations/faith groups, and what we might do in a final push to expand circle.
Looking ahead:
- Funding: We have sufficient funding for a very basic replication of FACT 2010, including partial reimbursement for doing your survey (a la FACT 2000). But we also have remaining challenges for securing funding for as substantial an effort as we achieved in 2000. I will provide an update about current funding and remaining challenges and opportunities in a couple of weeks.
- The questionnaire: the research taskforce will present a near final draft of the FACT 2010 questionnaire for the group’s review and response. Following the mandate from last summer’s meeting it will concentrate on replicating FACT 2000, with a few tweaks based on our experience with FACT 2005 and FACT 2008. The only new section, which we will present for your reaction, will deal with the effect of the economic crisis on congregations and congregations’ response to it.
- The process: Finalize the time-line and other logistics, including a session on best practices for online and email surveys.
- Expanding the circle: Review of status of participating denominations/faith groups, and what we might do in a final push to expand circle.
Looking ahead:
Turning data into leadership oriented products that actually get into the hands of local, regional and national leaders continues to be a major challenge. This will be the priority topic for the 2010 meeting, especially related to the utilization and dissemination of the FACT 2010 survey data. Accordingly, we will commit one or more sessions at this summer’s meeting to a) initial discussions and planning for the using the 2010 summer meeting for creating a vigorous and efficient strategy for using the 2010 survey data, and b) how we can use the dissemination of the FACT 2008 data to pilot approaches for the dissemination of the FACT 2010 data.
-- David Roozen
-- David Roozen
