Blog Archive

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

The Hard Truth about Innovative Cultures (Harvard Business Review)

We recently read this abstract from an article by Gary Pisano in the Harvard Business Review, and it makes some excellent points about the realities of the behaviors that produce great innovative performance! We think you’ll find it helpful. You can read the full article here. Innovative cultures are generally depicted as pretty fun. They’re characterized […]

Tags: innovation, innovation behaviors, innovative cultures, missional innovation

WonderSpace: A Journey of “Finding,” Not “Founding”

We’re excited to introduce you to Stephanie Freemyer, whose team incubated the idea of an indoor play space called WonderSpace as participants in one of our 2018 Hatch-a-thons! Stephanie hails from Marion, IN and also serves as Children’s Ministry Director at College Wesleyan Church. For more info on WonderSpace, visit its Facebook page or read this […]

Tags: Design Thinking, Hatch-a-thon, indoor play space, innovation, missional entrepreneurs, missional innovation, play, strategy

A Walk Through Rat Park, Part 2

This is Part 2 of a 2 part series by Ministry Incubators’ own Shari Oosting. You can find Part 1 here. Claudio Oliver, a Brazilian pastor and farmer, reflects on poverty and the nature of short-term mission trips. In reflecting on years spent working with homeless people, he points out that friendship is often a […]

Tags: community, creativity, missional innovation, wicked problems

A Walk Through Rat Park

This is Part 1 of a 2 part series by Ministry Incubators’ own Shari Oosting. One of the great things about missional enterprise is how it provides an approach to wicked problems. By that, I simply refer to problems that are complex in nature, enduring over time, and resistant to simple solutions. Wicked problems include […]

Tags: community, creativity, missional innovation, wicked problems

Entrepreneur? 5 (Unconventional) Tips You’ll Never Learn at Business School

A cultural tsunami is currently storming through the church—and for the best! The name is Missional Entrepreneurship or Missional Innovation: a fancy name to describe what the church has been doing for centuries (think of the monks in European monastery who were selling craft beer!), creating innovative, self-sustainable economic models to better serve the local community! […]

Tags: coaching, creativity, entrepreneurship, entreprenuer coaching, innovation, Missional, missional entrepreneurs, missional innovation, social capital

Discipleship and Missional Innovation: What’s It Called?

I spent so long groping for the right words to describe “missional innovation” (I still don’t like the phrase) that it’s easy to feel like no one else in the church “speaks” this language. It goes by many handles: Christian social innovation, faith-based enterprise, redemptive entrepreneurship, spiritual entrepreneurship. As the church’s unofficial R&D department, youth ministers […]

Tags: Church, innovation, Missional, social enterprise