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Communio just wrapped up another successful two-day training and planning session with one of the most influential Mainline Protestant churches in the United States – the historic Truro Anglican Church in Fairfax (photos below).

Along with two recent City Platform launches in Billings, Montana and Midland, Texas as well as the launch of one of the largest Evangelical megachurches in the country, Truro represents a growing diversity of churches and communities replicating Communio’s proven Jacksonville model to boost family stability at scale. 

• Additionally, Communio will begin serving a new group of Catholic parishes in two influential archdioceses later this fall and is slated to launch new City Platforms in Texas and the Mountain West with support from local funders there.  

Communio’s most recent strategy and planning meeting at Truro Anglican – a parish of roughly 1,000 weekly attendees – is representative of how we serve churches in each market we enter. 

Truro Rector Tory Baucum said: 

“We’ve been involved in marriage ministry at a serious level for the last 10 years, but we really haven’t cracked the code on how to reach people outside of faith and outside of the church in the areas of their marriage and relationships. Communio has that expertise. 

“I’ve been reinforced that this is the number one issue facing the church and society. There is no close second.”

Over the next two years, Communio will consult with Truro to build out its own data-informed, full-circle relationship ministry – a holistic ministry outreach and engagement strategy that fosters healthier relationships for singles, those preparing for marriage, married couples, and those in marital crisis. 

According to Communio’s Barna research, Truro is unique among churches because it already has excellent skills-based ministry offerings designed specifically for already-married couples. However, the church wants to build the lower rungs of what we call a “Ministry Engagement Ladder” – a series of community-oriented outreach events and ongoing engagement experiences that will flow new members – both inside and outside of the church – into Truro’s existing relationship ministries. 

During our two-day planning session, Communio helped the Truro team calendar out a 12-month road map with dates and specific outreach and engagement events. This involved developing a backout schedule to market fun community-oriented events for couples on the parish grounds and thinking through specific calls-to-action that encourage attendees to take another step up the engagement ladder. Communio is also helping Truro tweak its existing skills-based relationship programming as well as adding a ministry strategy around singles.  

An essential element of this meeting was the review of a Communio-administered mobile assessment on the relational health of the parish. The results were gathered from single, engaged, and married parishioners.  We also brought in data insights gathered from modeled consumer product data of people within a 10-mile radius of the church. It all revealed some eye-popping details about the health of the parish.

Below are some topline results from Truro’s assessment at the end of this email if you are interested in reviewing. As you’ll see, the fields are white for harvest.

In the end, this data diagnostic informs the direction of Truro’s new relationship ministry. And utilizing Communio’s marketing technology, Truro can build customized ministry audiences and run micro-targeted outreach that positions the right ministry offer to the right person, in the right way, at the right time. 

Communio is rapidly replicating its model in churches and cities across the country. 

These efforts are the beginning of a relationship health movement that is spreading around the nation – changing family stability in cities across the country. 

Truro Church and Community Assessments: 

Self-reported data of Truro parishioners:

• Of the 324 married parishioners that completed the survey, 24% used the word “struggle” or “difficult” to describe the health of their marriage. Academic research suggests these respondents are at heightened risk of divorce. 
• Of the singles, over two-thirds self-reported they would value opportunities on how to find and build lasting relationships.
• Of the singles, there is a sex-ratio of 73 percent single women to 27 percent single men. There is significant agreement among scholars on marriage that in-balanced sex-ratios tilting toward too many women drive down marriage rates.  Communio will work with Truro to devise outreach concepts and strategies to draw in single men.  

Data insights within a 10-mile radius of Truro:

• 70,437 married people fit a predictive score for divorce, meaning, at an 80 percent match rate, they share similar consumer purchasing behavior and web traffic as those who filed for divorce in the last 12 months. 

• Of those married people, 26,604 have marriages in need with children in the home under age 10
• 60,641 people are cohabitating. Setting aside the biblical and moral implications, social science research shows cohabitation increases the likelihood of single parenthood, domestic violence, and divorce. 
• 36,184 people are cohabitating with young children in the home. These are very fragile families for kids as additional research shows that 40 percent of the children conceived in this environment will be fatherless by age 5.