At Ministry Incubators, we are always excited to go beyond one-off interactions with ministry leaders. We have formed numerous partnerships with organizations around the world that allow us to engage with these leaders in ways that create lasting innovation. In that spirit of lasting innovation, we are excited to announce a new partnership with Indiana Wesleyan University’s Kern Ministry Education Program. We have been working with them through hosted Hatchathons, helping hatch initiatives ranging from a graphic design start-up to a new company focused on getting therapy dogs into local elementary schools. This new partnership will extend the impact of this existing partnership in new and exciting ways.

The focus of this new partnership will be matching Kern students with businesses in the local community of Marion, Indiana. Through this new partnership, the students and businesses will attend a Hatchathon, work with Marion Design Co to create a brand and strategy for their venture and receive coaching from Ministry Incubators. After the students and businesses have gone through this process, the students will do an internship with their local business partner.

We’re thankful to everyone who has made this partnership possible and are excited to see the great places this partnership leads!

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We are excited to announce that you can now connect with Ministry Incubators on our YouTube channel! We are just starting to put up content, but check it out now to see a video about our Hatch-a-thons and to see two of Kenda’s lectures on missional entrepreneurship from the Payton Lecture series at Fuller. You can view or subscribe to the channel here!

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This article was first published in Faith & Leadership on June 13th. You can fine the original article here.

This article is the last in our summer blog series aimed at those who are either starting a missional enterprise or thinking about starting one. During this series, we have looked at theological and practical concerns of missional entrepreneurs.

This week’s post comes from our friend Matt Overton, associate pastor for youth and family ministry at Columbia Presbyterian Church in Vancouver, Washington and founder of Mowtown Teen Lawn Care and Columbia Teen Enterprises. In this article, he talks about the various phases of launching a social enterprise through a church. You can find more of his thoughts on his Entrepreneurial Youth Ministry website and blog.

The Three Phases of Launching a Church-based Social Enterprise

Starting a Christian social enterprise is difficult and passion-filled work. It comes with a ton of setbacks and self-doubt. And a ton of excitement.

I believe that social enterprise — a business with a social good in mind — can offer a new way forward for the church.

But I realize as I evangelize about this new model that people will have questions about how to get started. How can a local congregation or minister launch a social enterprise that maximizes missional impact in a community?

I have identified three initial phases for this work: habitation and discernment; consulting with the community; and testing.

The advice here is aimed at ministers and congregations interested in starting a small-scale enterprise that has a relatively low bar for entry into the marketplace. Launching a large-scale idea for social innovation requires much more capital and risk.

Habitation and discernment

As Christians, we have an obligation to prayerfully inhabit a place in order to do this work in ways that honor God and neighbor.

I have participated in several programs that help launch social enterprises, and one problem I’ve seen is that they often encourage people to ideate quickly.

This worries me. We Christians have a long history of doing things to others in unhealthy and wasteful ways. I think we have a theological obligation to take the time to inhabit a place, to listen well and to pray, and only then, after a period of discernment, to come up with an idea.

Ideally, I think would-be social entrepreneurs should live in a community at least three and a half years to discern the context and to build up leadership capital and trust within the local church before formulating ideas. That time is also important for discerning whether the needs of the context and the specifics of a potential enterprise line up with a leader’s God-given gifts.

I happen to love physical labor and mentoring teens, and I know something about lawn care. So launching a teen landscaping company made sense for me. It was also something that our state’s highly restrictive teen labor law would allow.

It’s critical for churches preparing to launch a social enterprise to understand the social needs and marketplace of their particular community. And since the purpose of social enterprise is to place the mission ahead of the profit, it is crucial to think about the mission thoroughly.

Consulting with the community

The next step is to look at the cloud of witnesses.

One of my favorite lines in the book of Acts is when the apostles and the elders at the Jerusalem Council, trying to discern how Jewish and Gentile converts are to interact with one another and the standards of faith, arrive at their answers and say, “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us …” (Acts 15:28 NIV).

The idea here, at least in my Reformed mind, is that the discernment of God’s will seems to have been a group, rather than an individual, process. This is an important ethic in starting a Christian social enterprise.

That’s why I began by talking with the leadership at my church.

My initial conversation was with my head of staff. I made sure he understood why I was trying to do this and what the potential implications were in time, energy and dollars.

I also shared a couple of books to help explain the concepts behind my project, such as asset-based community development and social enterprise in general.

What was critical, in my case, was that my head of staff understood missional theology, allowed the staff a good deal of autonomy and was not opposed to marketplace-based thinking. We also had trust in each other.

My next step was to inform our Session, which is our church’s governing body. I worried that they would find my idea confusing or frightening, so I prepared a presentation on my own ministry journey, my idea for the enterprise, the financial implications for them and a critical FAQ.

I wanted to make clear that I wasn’t proposing to detonate their existing youth ministry. I also was not planning to leave the church. I made sure to help them understand how my idea linked directly to my job reaching out to teens in our county.

I also framed it as a six- to 12-month experiment and asked for four to eight hours per week to work on it during the initial phase.

To my utter amazement, they really liked the idea and thought it fit well with the stated mission and vision of our church.

I gathered eight key people on an informal team. I invited people who had run their own businesses, people who would be good mentors and people who were trusted by the church. I also consulted with folks who had legal and tax experience.

For a church that doesn’t have folks with particular experience, I’d recommend exploring congregants’ connections to people in the community who support the idea and consulting with the local community foundation.

Testing

The last phase is experimentation and testing.

I started small. I hooked up my V-6 to a church trailer and mowed a few clients’ properties each week. I also shadowed a local landscaping company’s crews and paid close attention to people I saw out working.

The point is to start with a manageable volume of business to see whether the ministry leader is cut out for the work. This also provides a glimpse of what the actual market looks like in the area — sort of like an informal market survey.

But most importantly, this phase offers a test of what ministry looks like in this setting.

Is it possible to do effective ministry within the context of this business? What is the actual potential of kingdom impact on customer and employee? This is essential.

At the heart of Christian social enterprise is the mission. Whatever shape it may take, the mission must be the focus in a church-based business.

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We are continuing our summer blog series aimed at those who are either starting a missional enterprise or thinking about starting one. During this series, we will look at theological and practical concerns of missional entrepreneurs.

This week’s post comes from Bryan Miller, our own Digital Strategist and Cofounder of The Smart Church Project, with a brief overview of how to get your idea of the ground using lean methods!

If you are reading this blog post and are familiar with what Ministry Incubators does, I bet this scenario resonates with you:

You have an idea that you feel in your bones is a great one. Maybe it will change the world or maybe it will simply change the world for 5 people. The problem is that while you know it is a great idea, you don’t actually know that it is a great idea. And, even if you did actually know that it is a great idea, you don’t have any clue how to get started.

If this scenario describes you right now or if it is one that you can easily see yourself in, there is good news! There are plenty of tools available that can help you get from this nascent state to a point where you can answer these big question – is my idea viable and how can I get started?

Lean Methodology

Almost a decade ago, lean methodology was popularized by Eric Ries’ book, The Lean Startup. Since that time it has proven to be incredibly effective in helping founders of both business ventures and non-profits get started without wasting a ton of time or money upfront.

The secret to this approach to getting an idea off the ground is that it flips the traditional way we think about starting a business or a non-profit venture. Traditionally, we are supposed to focus primarily on the idea – we spend countless hours writing up a business plan and developing the product. We think, “If we can just get the vision and execution right, people will love it”

What Ries and others found is that in startups and unproven ventures, this traditional approach leads to a tremendous amount of waste. Almost without fail, people’s actual needs are different than we anticipate. People end up using our products in ways that we never imagined. The feature or offering that we banked on being so popular was a flop. So all that upfront work perfecting the business plan and perfecting the product has to start all over again.

Lean methodology tries to turn this process on its head – instead of starting with countless hours spent in the planning phase, lean methodology suggests that founders spend most of their time with actual and prospective customers. In other words, get out of the office and get your hands dirty!

Phase 1 – Build (getting your hands dirty)

While it may seem strange to start with building your product or offering instead of planning – have you ever heard the phrase, “measure twice, cut once?” – lean methodology suggests that you begin here so that you can start getting customer feedback as soon as possible. In this phase you want to build out what is called a minimum viable product. This product or offering will not embody your entire vision or idea – it won’t be perfect. Instead, it needs to be just good enough that you can start testing and validating your idea with actual and prospective customers. Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn and one of the most successful Silicon Valley venture capitalists is famous for saying, “If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you launched too late.” While this does not mean that you should put out a bad product or service, it does mean that you should try to get to Phase 2 as soon as is reasonably possible.

Phase 2 – Measure (test, test, test)

If it isn’t clear yet, the true purpose of Phase 1 is to get you to Phase 2 as soon as possible. In this phase, you want to start testing your idea in the real world. This phase is where you start validating your idea and its underlying hypotheses.

Blake Mycoskie, the founder of TOMS shoes, didn’t try to figure out how he could produce or sell thousands of shoes before he started selling them. Instead, he had a handful of shoes produced that he tried to sell to a group of his friends. When he started selling the shoes, he didn’t even tell his friends the philanthropic aspect of the idea – he wanted to test whether people would buy the shoes on their own accord. When they bought the shoes anyway, he told them about the philanthropic part of the business and they bought twice as many (Interview with Blake Mycoski on the Tim Ferriss Podcast, https://tim.blog/2017/06/28/blake-mycoskie/)

In this TOMS shoes example, Blake did something that is absolutely vital in Phase 2 – he broke up his idea into a set of underlying hypotheses that he could test – 1) would people buy the shoes on their own accord, 2) would people pay X for a pair of shoes – notice that he did not give them away and 3) would the philanthropic aspect encourage people to buy more shoes. By breaking up his idea into a set of testable hypotheses and testing them in a real world setting, Blake was able to know that his idea was viable before pouring tons of money and time into mass production.

Phase 3 – Learn (and pivot)

In the last decade, it seems that the term “pivot” is always in the news. Some technology company or app is “pivoting” from its original vision and business model to something new. YouTube used to be a video dating service. Twitter used to be a podcasting service. Flickr used to be an online role-playing game. Each of these companies tested an idea, learned that it didn’t quite work and pivoted to a different vision (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2015/07/02/the-7-greatest-pivots-in-tech-history/). Lean methodology does not necessarily suggest that you pivot to a completely new vision (unless that becomes necessary), but it does suggest that you carry out a series of micro-pivots.

After testing your idea and its underlying hypotheses, you need to apply what you learned to your idea and reformulate any hypotheses that were proven incorrect. If Blake found out in his tests that people were not willing to pay enough money for a single pair of shoes to produce a second pair to give away, he would have had to go back to his idea and tweak his hypotheses about the shoes, pricing or philanthropic vision.  

Phase 1 – Build

Once you complete this process and have formulated new hypotheses about your idea, you cycle back to Phase 1 and rebuild out your idea according to the new hypotheses.

The Never-ending Cycle

As you can tell, lean methodology does not end once you launch your product or offering – in fact, you have already launched once you get to Phase 2! It provides a way to continuously innovate throughout the life of your business or non-profit venture.

Of course, lean methodology is only one tool that you can use to help get your big or small idea off the ground. There are many other tools that you can and should consider as you take on the challenge of starting something new (be sure to also check out Design Thinking).

If you are interested in learning more about the lean method, here are a few resources that can help you dig in deeper and figure out if it can be helpful for you (also, checkout any YouTube videos by any of these authors):

Eric Ries, The Lean Startup

Steve Blank, The Four Steps to the Epiphany and The Startup Owner’s Manual

Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneu, Business Model Generation

Michel Gelobter, Lean Startups for Social Change

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