Blog Archive

Innovation Curious? Mark DeVries and Meg Gaston Explain

Have you ever wondered what innovation looks like in the church? Check out this video, created by the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church, that features Meg Gaston and our own Mark DeVries!

New Futures for the Post-Pandemic Church: A Continued Conversation with Kenda Creasy Dean and Paul Nixon

Thursday, May 27, 20214:00-5:15 pm (Eastern) • via Zoom Last June, in the midst of a terrifying pandemic and countrywide protests against police violence, the BTS Center invited Paul Nixon and Kenda Creasy Dean to share their insights about what the future held for post-pandemic faith communities, as we all looked forward to the day when everything […]

How Faith and Gaming Help Us Survive the Worst of Times

If you have a couple of minutes, check out this article by one of our innovators, Rev. David Petty with Crossfire:faith+gaming! David was one of our Hatchletes in 2020 in the Mountain Sky Conference. For decades, people have talked about churches “meeting people where they are.” Getting out of the building and into community requires […]

Tags: community, entrepreneurship, gaming, missional enterprise, missional entrepreneurs, missional innovation, resilience

Still Waters Landing – Harvesting a God-sized Dream

Check out this article by one of our clients, Rev. Meg Gaston, written about the innovative work of one of our clients, Still Waters Landing in Tennessee, that she wrote while pastoring in a conference that we’re serving!

Tags: missional enterprise, missional entrepreneurs, missional innovation, still waters landing

God Plays Indoor Soccer

Check out this article by Rev. Meg Gaston about Konnoak Hills UMC (with Pastor Chris Smith) in Winston-Salem integrating into the community, offering their largely unused gym for kids’ indoor soccer! It’s an outcome of our process at Western North Carolina Conference and an example of the kind of work we’re midwifing there.

Tags: community integration, missional enterprise, missional entrepreneurs, missional innovation, social enterprise

A Conversation About the Church After Covid-19

While none of us have a crystal ball to help us predict what the Church will look like after Covid-19, here is a helpful conversation hosted by The BTS Center, featuring Paul Nixon and our Kenda Creasy Dean. You can find a video and an audio recording of this conversation on the Reports from the […]

A Student Social Enterprise Needed Now More than Ever

Check out this inspiring story on Duke Divinity’s Faith & Leadership about the students of the Baptist Student Ministry at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. They started a pay-as-you-can deli at the end of 2019, not knowing that their service to the community would be more important than ever!

Join Will You 52 in Praise, Prayer, and Thanks

Our good friend, Cynthia at Will you 52 has an important message for all of us in these crazy times. Please check out her website to learn more about how you can join us all in praise, prayer, and thanks!

Tags: Partnerships

Some COVID-19 Resources for Entrepreneurs

As we wait for the dust to settle from COVID-19, here are some resources to help entrepreneurs to know what resources are available to help make it through the quarantine on their feet. We commend both of them to you! Our compliments to the Duke School of Business and to Westaway for the incredible info […]

Tags: COVID-19, entrepreneurship, missional entrepreneurs, Resources

COVID-19 Creativity: A Virtual Co-Working Empower Hour

JAMAICA QUEENS, NY—FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH The 20-30 Dream Hub’s Virtual Co-Working “Empower Hour” Okay, so when they designed it, it was supposed to be a co-working space…but, you know, COVID-19. We love what Zoe Project and Ministry Incubators Start Up Clinic alums from First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica, Queens did instead. Undaunted, they took their innovation—a co-working space and […]

Tags: 20-30 Dream Hub, Co-Working, COVID-19, creativity, innovation, missional innovation, Zoe Project

Online Storytelling Festival

We’re excited, and we hope you are too! Today’s the day the Zoe Project’s Online Storytelling Festival website goes live! Over the last three years, more than 100 Zoe Fellows worked to “flip the script” of young adult ministry, listening for how God is working with young adults in our communities, in order to understand how churches […]

Tags: Client Story, innovative cultures, missional entrepreneurs, missional innovation

REDESIGNING EASTER

Profound thanks to our friend Victoria White, who pointed us to our friend Casper ter Tuile, who pointed us to our friends in other religious traditions.  Casper notes how everywhere in the past few weeks people have had had to redesign rituals,  “from Passover seders on Zoom to virtual Iftars later this month with the start of Ramadan. While […]

Tags: creativity, innovation

Hatch-a-thon Alumni in the News!

It’s so exciting to see Hatch-a-thon alumni doing amazing things throughout the US, and to see their hatchling ventures flying! Pastor Brent Raska and Burning Bush Brewery Pastor Brent Raska, former pastor of a Chicago-area Presbyterian congregation, recently made the news with his new venture, Burning Bush Brewery, opening later this winter on Chicago’s North […]

Tags: Client Story, entrepreneurship, Hatch-a-thon, Hatch-a-thon alumni, missional enterprise, missional entrepreneurs, missional innovation

Ministry Incubators Welcomes Trey Wince as Project Director

On August 1, Trey Wince—who has served with Ministry Incubators our the past three years as a permissionary and coach—will become Ministry Incubators’ first Project Director and Senior Sales Whisperer.  Most recently, Trey served as Director of New Disciples for the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference, where he still works half time.  He has been […]

Gift and Social Enterprise: An Interview with Mark Sampson (The Distillery Podcast)

Shari Oosting, host of Princeton Theological Seminary’s podcast, The Distillery, recently interviewed Mark Sampson from Matryoshka Haus. We think it’s definitely worth sharing with you! Titled “Gift and Social Enterprise,” the episode description reads: The lines between business and charity are dissolving, and a new category—social enterprise—is emerging. In this episode, Mark Sampson explains that […]

Tags: missional enterprise, missional entrepreneurs, social enterprise