Meet Jonathan Hayden, Vice President of Operations at Leadership Foundations, a faith-based network that drives spiritual and social change in cities throughout the world through the unique lens of envisioning cities as playgrounds. With Jonathan’s leadership at their Colangelo Carpenter Innovation Center, Leadership Foundations supports churches to, among other things, move from charity-based models to systemic change. They are also working to equip young people as social and spiritual leaders for their cities. After 17 years in Washington, DC, Jonathan and his family are now enjoying a slower pace of life in Chapel Hill, NC.

Meet Chelsea Spyres, Pastor and Executive Director of Riverfront Ministries and the associated Wilmington Kitchen Collective in Wilmington, Delaware, which she has called home for five years now since returning to her native Delaware. Although Riverfront Ministries has a unique model without a physical church of its own, when a local organization wanted to start an incubator for small culinary businesses, Chelsea saw an opportunity. Realizing that industrial kitchens in traditional churches sit empty most of the time, Chelsea and partners innovated the Collective to put those kitchens, and various other supports, at the disposal of culinary entrepreneurs. Overcoming a lot of doubt and skepticism from churches about sharing space in this way, the Collective has grown into a successful model of faith communities partnering with other community organizations to use church assets to meet a need and drive economic development.

It’s an incredibly dynamic time for the faith sector. From the pandemic abruptly shaking up existing models and strategies, to religious nationalism planting a flag on the political stage, to the Israel/Gaza war straining interfaith relationships globally, to a range of longer-term dynamics in the sector, including the continued growth of the religiously unaffiliated demographic in the U.S., the first half of the 2020s have seen the good, the bad, the ugly, and everything in-between. 

Continue reading to explore a few faith sector trends we’re watching as we head into the second half of the decade. They give us great optimism for the future of faith.

A couple of weeks ago, I was having breakfast in a hotel lobby in Omaha, NE, when I noticed an older man hovering over a table where a dad and his two young children were seated. The older man, who had clearly just met this family, chatted with them while they ate their breakfast. After a while, it started to feel awkward, at least to me as an eavesdropper. It felt like the man had overstayed this encounter with strangers, that he hung around too long while the family was just trying to enjoy their morning. And then I remembered an event we co-hosted in September on Faith Communities Fighting Isolation and stopped to think: Maybe this man was lonely.

Meet Rev. Dr. Gabby Cudjoe Wilkes, Inaugural Director of the Technology, Innovation & Digital Engagement Lab (TIDEL) Fellowship at Union Theological Seminary, as well as pastor, author, public theologian, coach, brand strategist, and more. Faith, leadership, and innovation have been threads through Dr. Gabby’s numerous and impressive endeavors, and continue to guide her in her latest role supporting faith sector leaders to creatively use technology to help address critical challenges.

Faith & Philanthropy, an exploratory joint grantmaking initiative that aims to shape “a philanthropic landscape that embraces the transformative potential of spirituality and faith to address the pressing challenges of our time,” recently released a Spiritual Imagination report featuring twelve grantees rooted in various spiritual traditions that are leveraging faith and spirituality for social impact.

Faith leaders and religious communities across the United States have time and time again played a pivotal role in promoting justice, democracy, and civic responsibility. Their ongoing work continues to be essential in shaping a more inclusive democratic process. In the lead-up to the 2024 Presidential Election, faith-inspired actors are stepping up to provide a wide range of tools and resources that foster civic engagement and strengthen our democracy. The leaders, initiatives, and organizations linked below are not only preparing voters but also addressing critical issues such as equitable access to the ballot and community healing in times of deep division and polarization.

Meet Kimberly Daniel, Co-founder and Project Director of DO GOOD X and talented Brand and Communications Consultant. Kimberly, who hails from a small city outside of Myrtle Beach, SC, and has lived for over 16 years in and around Atlanta, GA, passionately uplifts and supports underrepresented innovators. She is also co-author of A Way Out of No Way: an Approach to Christian Innovation and an innoFaith Contributing Editor.

If Vice President Kamala Harris wins the upcoming U.S. Presidential election, she will make history not just as the first woman, Black woman, and South Asian president but also as the person with the most religiously diverse background to ever hold the role.

Meet E.N. West, Lead Organizer for the Faith Land Initiative at The Church Council of Greater Washington. An innovative community organizer, E is building bridges between communities in Seattle to help use church property assets to address community needs. In listening to churches, E and their colleagues spotted an opportunity to support white faith communities discerning what to do with congregational land by connecting them with the needs and vision of Black faith communities and other groups wrestling with issues of displacement from their communities. As a result, religious assets are now being stewarded to address the challenge of affordable housing and advance economic and racial justice.

Meet Rayce Lamb, Founder of Faithonomics and Baptist pastor seeking to inspire wild imagination. Rayce, who is also a certified financial education instructor, is passionate about supporting faith-rooted leaders to flourish spiritually and financially while pursuing creative ideas for good. He has just launched the Doers Creative, a digital community for faith-inspired creators, and also leads the Wild Imagination Fund, which seeks to eradicate poverty in his home city of Winston-Salem, NC.

Meet Marcia Dinkins, Founder and Executive Director of Black Women Rising and creator of the Black Appalachian Coalition. Based in Ottawa Hills, OH, Marcia is elevating Black voices to help drive positive change. In Appalachia, where Black stories are particularly invisible in the narrative of poverty in the region, Marcia is engaging the Black community to tell their stories and advocate for solutions to regional issues like air pollution and healthcare access.

Like every institution in the 21st century, religion today confronts existential questions about its future, uncertain of its place in an era where trust in institutions has eroded and traditional hierarchical organizational structures have started to flatten. The formerly reliable foundations of our religious life feel insecure–for no one more than clergy, who are largely trained to be solo, prophetic leaders of congregations. But in this uncertainty lies possibility. A new book by two religious leaders, Rev. Kathleen McShane and Rabbi Elan Babchuck, will help clergy, and all faith-rooted leaders, embrace the liberating opportunity this current moment provides. It’s time to adopt a new form of leadership, free of the burdens of pyramid-shaped empire that have shaped our past. 

In this one-hour webinar we will ask how faith communities can foster cogenerational innovation to create a better world and hear real-world examples of cogeneration in action within and across faith communities. Throughout the conversation, you'll hear from a panel of older and younger leaders and get a chance to ask questions. 

Meet Ray’Chel Wilson, CFEI®, personal finance teacher and Founder and CEO of ForOurLastNames, a financial education platform launching in February 2024 that bridges the gap in financial literacy and investment opportunities for underrepresented groups. Ray’Chel beautifully applies her values of collective liberation to the work of financial wellness, asking how building wealth can be not just about individual benefit but value for the whole community.

Meet Rev. Dustin Mailman, who is redefining what church looks like with his ministry Deep Time in Asheville, NC. Dustin created Deep Time as a faith community with and for those impacted by incarceration. Whereas many churches have a social ministry, Dustin flips the script, showing us what church as a social ministry can be. Part prison ministry, part coffee roastery, part workforce development effort, part violence prevention initiative, and more, Deep Time models a new vision of faith in action.

Meet Abigale Haug, who we are thrilled to introduce as innoFaith’s new Communications Manager. We are grateful to have Abbie’s passion, skill, and beautiful spirit supporting the innoFaith mission. Originally from Minnesota, Abbie just moved from Washington, DC, to Somerville, Massachusetts, where she is working on a Masters of Theological Studies at Harvard Divinity.

Meet Tameeka Washington, founder of the Interfaith Coalition of Bowie, Maryland. Though she has a full-time job with the Department of Defense, Tameeka devotes her free time to building interfaith bridges in her community. We are excited to be supporting Tameeka’s organization and another partner, The Giving Square, to bring innovative programming to Tameeka’s creative Vacation Interfaith School this summer.

Meet Stephen Lewis, President of the Forum for Theological Exploration, co-founder of DO GOOD X, and co-author of A Way Out of No Way: An Approach to Christian Innovation, and Another Way: Living and Leading Change on Purpose. Stephen is a committed and thoughtful leader and developer of leaders, always thinking deeply about, and helping cultivate, the types of innovative, changemaking leadership that the challenges of our time require. We are grateful to have him as a friend and advisor to innoFaith.

A couple of decades ago, the United Church of Christ launched a marketing campaign with the phrase, "God is still speaking." For people of faith, some version of that idea—that even in our modern world, faith still matters, the divine is still real and present, the wisdom of our traditions has something to say about our modern predicament—keeps us believing, praying, and acting according to our faith values and principles. Of course, some of our theologies proclaim that regardless of what we do or don't do, that God will find a way. Some of our theologies also teach, though, that we are the way, co-creators with the divine. So if we listen, if we pay attention to where faith is moving today in this time and place, what might we hear?