January 16, 2020

Communio just launched its largest initiative ever and first citywide project of 2020.

Local donors have provided start-up funding for Communio to build its fourth, family-strengthening, City Platform in Tarrant County, Texas — home of Fort Worth

Tarrant is the third most populace county in Texas with a population of over 2 million people. It’s also home to some of the nation’s largest and most influential churches in the nation.  

• The major three-year, $2.9 million effort will equip roughly 70 of the largest churches – evangelical, mainline, and Catholic – across the Fort Worth metroplex with our tested Jacksonville model to measurably shift marriage, family, and faith dynamics at a city-wide scale. In doing so, churches will become community change agents by implementing their own Data-Informed, Full-Circle Relationship Ministry™. 

The Tarrant County launch comes after the completion of a three-month market viability study to determine interest among the city’s largest and most influential churches in participating in Communio’s Tarrant City Platform. 

During that viability study, 17 of the largest churches – including Gateway, The Hills, Christ Chapel, and Fellowship of the Parks – agreed to participate in the initiative.

This immediate and initial interest exceeded our expectations.  Given this demand, funders green-lighted the project to serve this initial group of churches in 2020. 

With the generous support from local donors, more than 60 percent of the funding for year one of the project has been committed. Communio will work with local funders to raise the balance of support in the coming weeks and months.  

• To serve the 17 initial churches in the market, Communio has already hired long-time evangelical pastor and Fort Worth-native Scott Sheppard as City Director.  Scott was the founder and president of 6 Stones – a ministry that helps churches and business to meet the material needs in a community. He helped 6 Stones grow to a $2 million annual budget and build a coalition of more than 60 churches in Tarrant County combating poverty.  

As Communio’s City Director, Scott will recruit and consult with churches and coordinate our county-wide efforts over this three-year project. As additional funds are raised, Communio will hire a second City Director to work alongside Scott primarily focused on serving Catholic parishes. 

The Tarrant County City Platform is an early part of Communio’s plan to launch a national movement to transform family and marital health by bringing its proven, 21st-century business strategies into ministry at scale.

More than half of the nation’s population lives in the largest 40 metropolitan areas.  Communio has set a strategic objective to reach half of these markets and half of the nation’s largest churches over the next 7 years.

Today, Communio has launched efforts in three of these top 40 cities: Jacksonville, Denver, and now Fort Worth.  Additionally, Communio launched city-wide initiatives in Billings, Montana and the Permian Basin (Midland and Odessa) in West Texas.  Two more launches are planned in large US cities over the next year. 

In each of these markets, Communio follows the same playbook seeking to make churches self-sufficient with its change model:

• It begins with diagnosing the marital and relationship needs of their members and those in the community through internal assessments and insights gained from consent-based, consumer product data. 
• Communio then consults with each church to develop and execute their own outreach and engagement strategy that puts people – both inside and outside of the church – onto a growth journey toward healthier relationships.  This makes the church a community change agent.  
• Once a critical mass of churches implements this model, Communio activates a city-wide digital marketing funnel inviting at-risk populations into ministry engagement. 

2020 is both a major growth year and an exciting year of execution for Communio. Thousands of families will be saved and strengthened as a result.  

And, today, we’re just getting started. 

For more information or to explore bringing Communio’s model to your city or church, call us at (703) 347-7800 or email us at platform@communio.org.