1703: A Faith Collaborative

We help individuals, leaders, and faith-based organizations cultivate purpose, compassion, and community.

The name of our organization, 1703: A Faith Collaborative, comes from our roots in the Methodist tradition. 1703 is the birth year of John Wesley, an Anglican priest who was the founder of the Methodist movement. Wesley is known for many things, including the way he gathering people around faith. These gatherings were called "class meetings" where people came together to explore their faith, share their joys and struggles, supported one another, and cared for the "least of these" in the community.

In 2017 we acquired grant and private donor funding to conduct a professional market research study on the decline of organized religion in the United States. We partnered with Lieberman Research Worldwide, one of the world's top marketing research firms. The study was completed in June 2018. The results of our study confirmed much of what we already knew, that people are turning away from organized religion as an avenue to explore their faith. However, it also showed that people are still deeply interested in faith and spirituality and they still want to engage in that journey as part of a community that looks and functions differently from what many churches have traditionally offered.

Our programs include:

-Helping to launch new communities of faith and partner with existing churches and faith communities to help them learn from our research and decades of ministry experience.

-Social Thread: A community of small groups where people can belong, thrive, and explore faith on their own terms.

-UMC LEAD: Creates space for Christian leaders to be vulnerable and courageous, connects them around their hopes for the future, and equips them to bring those hopes into reality.