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Planting Garlic
Ministry Incubators consider themselves “biased toward action,” meaning that we believe that an imperfect attempt is always superior to a perfect idea and that willingness to try imperfectly has incredible power to teach, inspire, and invite others along.
Tags: missional entrepreneurs, missional innovation
May 24, 2022
The Plywood Palace: Constraint and Invention
The plywood palace was a terrible place to work. It was dark and filled with asbestos and mold; it was falling apart at the seams, and passing trains rattled the whole building, which meant more delicate experiments could only be done in the middle of the night. And no less than 10 Nobel prizes have been awarded for discoveries made in that building.
Tags: innovation, social enterprise
May 17, 2022
The Sows You’re Given
Still Waters Landing is “a local pasture raised pig and produce farm with a mission to restore the community through farming, food, fellowship, and faith while ensuring the poorest in the community gain access to high quality food.”
Tags: Church, Ministry, missional entrepreneurs
May 10, 2022
Innovating for Love
Flotsam is also the stuff of salvation Dr. Kenda Creasy Dean of Princeton Theological Seminary’s Institute for Youth Ministry, is one of the most widely read scholars of practical theology, youth ministry, and church leadership. She is an icon, an expert in her field by every possible measure. If there was anyone that the mainline […]
April 26, 2022
Hare Brain & Tortoise Mind
Cleese argues that innovation and creativity doesn’t come from just tortoise mind or hare-brained thinking but the rhythm of back and forth between the two. We focus on writing, or math, or problem-solving until we feel our brains tire, and then we stop. We go outside, we play a game, we do household chores, we exercise, we rest, and let the other levels of our brain work on the project.
When we return to the hare brain work, we will find it easier but more fun, life-giving, and productive.
April 19, 2022
Innovation Should be Fun
Where in your world could you embrace a bit more of the fun? The work of innovation you are doing has the chance truly fun, but we sometimes miss it by taking ourselves a bit too seriously. Where could you recognize the playfulness inherent in your work and allow yourself to truly become immersed in it?
Tags: fun, Ministry, missional innovation
April 12, 2022
Funerals, Potlucks, and the Ripple Effect
We can sometimes get so caught up in the minutia of our problems that we miss their interconnected nature. Because we miss how the problems are interconnected, we deprive ourselves of the hope that comes with the reality that their solutions might be as well.
Tags: Ministry, missional entrepreneurs, missional innovation, Resources, social enterprise
March 30, 2022
Invited into the Story
The idea of the lone founder is a myth. Nothing we create we create on our own. It can be easy to love our dreams and ideas so deeply, and to be so afraid of their rejection, that we cling them too tightly to our chests to let anyone else in. But for those ideas, those dreams, to grow from hopes into programs and places and people transformed, we have to be willing to invite other people into the story.
Tags: Ministry, missional entrepreneurs, youth ministry
March 22, 2022
How to Spend 100 Million Dollars
Churches tend to think of money in two ways: they either gather, save, and grow it to keep the lights on, or they give it away to help people. Elsdon argues that the church can do both and find new and invigorating purpose along the way.
Tags: Church, Ministry, missional entrepreneurs, social enterprise
March 16, 2022
Who & Why, not What & How
Ryan and Tami knew the community they wanted to serve (their neighbors who were disenfranchised from the church, particularly due to addiction). They knew the mission they were trying to achieve (a community, free of shame, where people could know they were loved exactly where they were on their journey). Ryan and Tami had their who and why, but the how and the what constantly evolved.
March 8, 2022
3 Lessons on Innovation from Ash Wednesday
Ash Wednesday’s reminder of our limits encourages us to innovate ministries with freedom, bravery and humility as finite creatures serving an infinite God
March 2, 2022
The Lies We Believe
There is a whole contingent of people in wellness sectors of the internet promising that celery juice will not only detoxify your body and regulate your digestion, but clear your mind, help you drop ten pounds, and maybe even cure you of diseases (they say it with an asterisk so they can’t get sued). There […]
January 12, 2022
The Scientist Mindset
In his book Think Again, Adam Grant suggests that the key to being an effective, innovative entrepreneur is all about being a good scientist. He suggests that being able to frame our work with the mentality of the scientific method – hypothesis, experiment, analysis, hypothesis – allows for the mental flexibility necessary to succeed in […]
January 4, 2022
THE 4 DISCIPLINES OF EXECUTION
Anyone who works in Church leadership can imagine what we mean when we say that much of work energy is devoted to “the whirlwind.” Emails, meetings, bible studies, setting chairs up, it is no surprise to anyone in ministry that most of a church leader’s time falls victim to the tyranny of Sunday. It comes […]
December 30, 2021
3 Lessons on Innovation from the Christmas Story
Here at Ministry Incubators, we’re focused on missional innovation, sustainable revenue streams, and learning everything we can from design thinking, tech startups, Native American agriculture, psychologists, and ivy league business schools. But we are also people of faith, and before any of our work is informed by the latest research or biggest trends, it is […]
December 21, 2021
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