We are doing a 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 in our series aimed at budding missional entrepreneurs comes from our own Kenda Creasy Dean with practical advice for communication in a digital age!

In case you thought that email or text would do the trick, think again:  new research reported in the Harvard Business Review (Vanessa K. Bohns, “A Face-to-Face Request Is 34 Times More Successful Than an Email,” Harvard Business Review (April 11, 2017), https://hbr.org/2017/04/a-face-to-face-request-is-34-times-more-successful-than-an-email)finds that people overestimate the persuasive power of text-based communication, and underestimate the persuasive power of talking in person. One study found that a face-to-face request was 34 times more effective than an emailed one.  When participants were instructed to ask 10 strangers to complete a survey, half made the request over email, and half did it in person.  Both groups felt equally confident about the effectiveness of their requests.  

One study found that a face-to-face request was 34 times more effective than an emailed one.

But wowzer, in terms of who actually responded?  No contest.  Why was face-to-face communication 34 times more successful? Researchers hypothesize that, in person, we send and decode subtle non-verbal cues that communicate trustworthiness.  The moral of the story seems to be: no matter how digitally connected we may be, nothing matters more to us than be asked to do something face-to-face.

Every day, young people are asked to commit their lives to something of value. Which raises the question: if churches are not making the persuasive, face-to-face asks of young people. . . who is?

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We are doing a 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.

The third post in this series is written by Sarah Turner, co-director of Try Pie in the Cedar Valley of Iowa. Try Pie is a social enterprise that employs high school girls to make and sell pie as they are equipped with life and leadership skills.

Q: What was right for your context? How did you all figure out that A) working with teenage girls was a good fit for your ministry, B) that employment was the right way to reach them, and C) that baking would be a good fit for them as well? And, from your experience, is there anything you can distill or extrapolate that might be helpful for others looking at their own city/church/country and wanting to start a missional enterprise?

A: How did we know working with teenage girls would be a good fit for our ministry? Why did we choose employment? And why in the world did we choose to bake? Jesus. Jesus, for sure. I don’t say that as a cliche, I say that to put it simply. Every time we reflect on our starting story as a team, it continues to be clear that entering into a social enterprise youth ministry centered around a single baked good was a graciously guided process that would have no hope without the deep desire to know and love each other the way Jesus showed us in the first place. Start there, friends.

Here’s the journey SparkNotes version:

Sometimes before you’re nudged to do something new, you have to notice what—or who—you have and listen up.

The original Try Pie crew consisted of a group of girls we, our friends, and church family already had relationships with through a partnership between our church and another in Waterloo. This partnership provided programs, community events and activities that would later connect us with the first Try Pie employees as it set a foundation of personal relationships developed over time.

It was through these relationships that we began to hear what our friends saw as assets of their neighborhood, as well as their hopes and expectations for the future. A few of the requests that stuck out in these conversations were desires for 1) ways to earn income and 2) productive things for youth to do while not in school. Because we had started to listen and spend time there, we realized these specific requests as apparent desires of the broader community. The city’s teen unemployment rate has stood at almost twice the national average, and various forms of disparity has left evidence of tensions, barriers, and untapped potential in the form of generational poverty, high overall unemployment rates and racial isolation.

We began to hear and see these issues through the eyes of our friends, and grow confidence in research saying employment for teens could decrease involvement in crime and increase their likelihood to graduate high school, attend college and retain higher earnings in their future. These were the learnings that would later give clarity and focus to our program’s values and offerings in areas of Job Skill Development, Financial Stewardship, Faith Development and Reconciling Community.

Looking back, it’s humbling to realize how God guided this process to illustrate the importance of listening, questioning, learning, and responding with those we seek to serve leading the way.

Each choice along the way—focusing on teenage girls, choosing employment as the tool and baking as the method—was only made after time spent in prayer and relationship. If God gives you the chance, give the people what they want—just become a friend who asks first.

In the midst of these findings and conversations, a youth soccer program had connected a handful of teenage girls with adults from our church. From there it was natural to bring together a few of these young women to brainstorm what type of business they’d like to see started, and what kind of work they’d like to do. Continued conversations with the teens, friends, and local business leaders, and a little bit of research, brought us to something unexpected: pie.

The idea really did almost “just come together,” and sometimes you have to prayerfully, humbly, gather up some hopeful expectation and roll with it.

For us, an employment program hasn’t been the goal from the beginning, but has turned out to be an incredible tool in engaging with teens on a deeper level.

I’m not sure exactly how to give advice to someone hoping to start a missional or social enterprise, but there are some practical pieces of starting a social enterprise that could have been helpful to know up front.

Know your context, and walk alongside someone who knows it better than you do. So much of your approach will depend on the context of where God’s put you. There’s validity to asking for discernment for how God’s wired you—your passions, your resources, your skills. There’s equal, maybe sometimes even more, importance in asking whomever you feel nudged to know and serve what they see and desire and have to contribute. Choosing to learn from those we might feel led to lead keeps us humble and grounded in the reality we’re continually seeking to understand.

Partner with a church if you can. I wholeheartedly believe that God is blessing the overlap between business and ministry, and am being continually convinced that God is pulling the Church into this space for His glory and our good. I’m equally sure that it’s hard to do that well. Try Pie being a program of our local church has been an incredible catalyst for our growth and stability. The Church is equipped with a body able to answer questions on anything from payroll and tax forms to keeping faith as a foundation.

It’s no secret that upcoming generations are looking for the Church to go beyond its walls and respond to issues of division and injustice and brokenness.

A social enterprise starts to tackle this call as it offers the Church a chance to be involved in the community holistically, addressing a wide spectrum of needs while engaging the assets that are already there. Being present in the community gives us a chance to experience both brokenness and hope alongside each other, and puts us in the critical position of listening, learning, and growing as a community of friends.

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We are doing a 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.

The second post in this series is written by Antonin Ficatier. Antonin studied in three different continents and holds two Master Degrees in Business and Education. Antonin works in an international church in Hong Kong, and as Business Development Strategist for Ministry Incubators.

Why Embrace Missional Entrepreneurship

My friend Sarah realized one day that she could combine her love for Christ with her hairdressing skills by being a hairdresser chaplain! What if all of us were to combine specific skills (cooking, baking, design, drawing, farming..) with sharing the Gospel? This is what missional entrepreneurship is about. I define it as a self-funded missionary enterprise that aims to reach out and share the Good News of Jesus Christ in areas that are not usually touched. Since missional entrepreneurship is quite new within Christian circles and many are dubious about it, I would like to show you in three points why it is worth considering.

My first point is theological: we are called to be imaginative.

An argument that I often hear when talking about missional entrepreneurship is that Christians who have a heart to change the work place are not equipped, underprepared, naïve, and would be terrible businessmen. It sounds harsh at first, but if you scratch the surface of the argument, it is actually really true and relevant.

In missional entrepreneurship, Christians are not called to be the best businessmen but they are called to reinvent what business is about.

Mark Sampson, from the Church Mission Society in Oxford, England, describes it this way: “social enterprise is not simply the addition of social objectives to current business practice but an attempt to re-imagine the practice of business.” To claim a re-imagination of the way our world is run is theologically sound, because it relies on an understanding of God as the One who helps us to be imaginative.

God is often depicted in the Old Testament as the One offering new solutions to His people. In Exodus 14, the Israelites – who have successfully crossed the Red Sea – suddenly realize that being in the desert is not going to be an easy ride and that their comfort level will drop from what they were used to in Egypt. They feel stuck and decide to confront God with this dilemma: why follow you when if we stay in the desert we die, and if we go back to Egypt we die too? As you all know, God ended up providing the Israelites with what I like to call a “third-option,” – Manna – a solution that the Israelites were not able to envision. This biblical passage is a vivid example of how difficult it is for all us to re-imagine our situation and our environment.

I believe that missional entrepreneurship is worth considering because it helps Christian leaders to change the way business is done and the usual dichotomy between non-profit and for-profit. The underlying theological point is that of a God who helps us to re-imagine our world.

My second point is biological: Missional entrepreneurship is in the DNA of the church.

To embrace and use the world’s resources is to fully understand Jesus’ teaching about our relationship with the world: that we are in it but not of it (John 15:19) For the sake of the Gospel, Paul was very keen to use the Internet of the time: the impressive new Roman road system which stretched from Scotland to Egypt. And despite the establishment in Jerusalem frowning at him and threatening to cut his missionary budget, Paul stuck to his conviction to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ by planting churches in areas that had never been reached before.

Another compelling example is Martin Luther, who Kenda Dean described as “a hot-headed millennial [who] decided to post some of his gripes on his social media wall,” a humorous reference to the ninety-five theses that Martin Luther posted on the door of many churches in Wittenberg. Luther made intense use of the new technology of the 16th century – the printing press – to spread ideas for the purpose of his ministry. Where some religious leaders saw new technologies as a threat, both Paul and Luther saw opportunities.

I believe that missional entrepreneurship is worth considering because God gave us resources to be used in this world and that we are called to use them in order to spread the Gospel. By looking at our own resources in a fresh way, missional entrepreneurship does what the church has been doing since its early days.

And my last point is spiritual: as we are being made new in Christ, we can create new enterprises.

Addressing the church of Corinth, Paul wrote “if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Cor. 5:17). If we are called as Christians to become new creatures in Christ – the spiritual transformation Paul talks about – it is no surprise that we should also try to develop new ways of doing ministry.

A spiritual transformation of our being means a transformation of our ministries, not to cling to the past in fear of change.

At Ministry Incubators we host training sessions with folks from around the country who crave the chance to express their missional creativity in order to share the Gospel in places where it is not shared at the moment (think of Sarah’s salon). It seems that the institutional church has developed a culture of saying “no” to all new ideas presented by it congregants, and that this culture prevents entrepreneurs from flourishing. By saying “yes,” my colleagues and I allow people to create new projects, with the understanding that it is okay to try new models of ministry because it reflects the movement of our spiritual transformation in Christ.

I believe that missional entrepreneurship is worth considering because it is one of the many signs of the spiritual transformation that we are developing in Christ, through Christ and for Christ.

Although the term missional entrepreneurship is new for the church, the concept is not. Christians have always developed practices of sharing the Gospel in non-conventional ways, which reflects our calling to be imaginative, our ability to use resources that surround us, and one of the many signs of our spiritual transformation as new creatures in Christ.

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We are starting a 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.

The first post in this series is written by Wes Ellis, Associate Pastor of First United Methodist Church of Toms River, New Jersey and PhD candidate at the University of Aberdeen. You can find more of his work at www.whateverisgood.blogspot.com.

4 Reasons Not to Engage in Missional Entrepreneurship

The church’s energy around missional entrepreneurship and innovative approaches to ministry is encouraging. While there is no shortage of complacency and while fear still too often precludes real creativity in our churches, more and more church leaders and clergy are beginning to discover new ways of engaging in the mission of God in the world. A movement is afoot. But as you consider being a part of that movement—as you consider taking the plunge into a journey of innovative missional entrepreneurship—consider your motivations. Why innovate in the first place? It may seem like a silly question to ask (like, “why breath?”) but I would argue that it’s the most important question for this journey. There are all kinds of good reasons to engage in missional entrepreneurship, but here are four reasons NOT to engage in missional entrepreneurship:

We need the money. You’ve likely heard the argument that passing the offering plate in worship services isn’t “working” anymore and that we need new ways to generate revenue. This is, of course, true from a certain point of view. We are to be reminded that we haven’t always passed the plate in churches. This innovation emerged as a response to the disestablishment of the church—the separation of church and state. With no money coming directly from the government, churches had to get money somehow. That’s why we started passing the plate. It was a mistake, in the first place, to begin a practice simply because we needed the money. So before we go and make the same mistake with entrepreneurship, let’s rethink this motivation. Despite whatever originally motivated the practice of passing the plate, for the past few decades we’ve been calling it “worship.” Have we been lying? Sunday after Sunday, in my own church, I stand up in front of the congregation and tell them that our giving is an act of worship. “We don’t give out of obligation,” I tell them. “We give as a free and joyful response to God’s own generosity.” Whatever motivated the practice of passing the plate originally, what motivates us in our church now and what should motivate us in all our practices is free and joyful worship. If you are engaging in missional entrepreneurship because your church needs the money, STOP!

We need “youthfulness.” I’m owe this point to Andrew Root and his forthcoming book, Faith Formation in a Secular Age.  So much of the literature and rhetoric about the future of the church seems to revolve around the need to engage young people or, more specifically, to keep the young in the church so that their “youthful spirit” will save us. Young people don’t like the church, the argument goes, so we need to do something new and relevant. Root has offered a really strong critique of this motivation and I see at least two problems with this approach. First of all, it sensationalizes young people’s actual experience. If it were about actually engaging in the lived experience of young people, that’d be different. But the obsession with “youthfulness” can actually obscure our ability to authentically encounter young people (or anybody, for that matter). Young people become mere objects of conquest and instruments of the church’s survival and whatever we end up doing for the sake of “youthfulness,” however relevant it may be, it’s hardly to be considered ministry.

it’s not youthfulness that’s going to save the church, it’s God.

Secondly, and perhaps more fundamentally, it’s not youthfulness that’s going to save the church, it’s God. We should engage in ministry in order to encounter God, not so that we can feel young and vibrant again. So if you’re engaging in missional entrepreneurship because you want the church to be youthful again, STOP!

We need to survive. This third motivation is closely related to the second one and it is a pervasive motivation when it comes to innovation in the church. It is the shadow side of the growing enthusiasm surrounding entrepreneurial and innovative ministry—the motivation of survival. A mountain of data and just basic intuition are telling us that if the church continues on its current course, it’s going to die (at least in the United States). As we watch the decline of the church, the diminishment and distortion of its voice in society, and the shrinking of its bank accounts, we are learning that our models are no longer sustainable. Naturally, we are anxious about this.

Anxiety is the opposite of joy and our God is a God of joy, not anxiety.

But if our anxiety is allowed to steer us, we’re bound to head in the wrong direction. Anxiety is the opposite of joy and our God is a God of joy, not anxiety. Anxiety will force you to value everything for its effectiveness instead of faithfulness. It will slowly shape your spirit to look in the wrong places in search of success. But ministry is not primarily about success, or productivity, or numbers, or even effectiveness. When it comes to these things, we are to count them all as loss (Phil. 3:8) and be willing to “waste” our time on real ministry. As Kenda Dean writes, “those who waste their lives for Jesus, who squander their talent on the church, who throw away their lives in ministry…will gain it. Following Jesus is a waste. The Bible tells us so” (Almost Christian, 87). As a minister, your gaze should ever be directed toward Christ and even when you look at the budget (and you’re gonna have to look there eventually) it’s Christ you’ll need to be looking for. Ministry is not about solving the problem of survival, it’s about freely and joyfully engaging in God’s own free and joyful action in the world. The enemy of ministry is not death, it’s anxiety. God is not so insecure as to be anxious about the survival of the church. Believe it or not, God doesn’t even need the church. So if you’re engaging in missional entrepreneurship because the church needs to survive, STOP!

The world needs the church. The great German theologian, Jürgen Moltmann writes, “when religion, church, and faith are considered only from the standpoint of their expediency and usefulness for society, they are bound to vanish as soon as the purposes of society can be served by other means.” (Theology of Play, 61) In other words, if the church exists to fulfill a “purpose”—to meet the needs of society, to serve food to homeless people, to make the world a better place, etc.—then once people figure out that those needs can be met through other means (and they can!), then the church and faith become unnecessary.  Atheists are discovering, all the time, that they can be perfectly good people and can meet all kinds of needs without believing in God or going to church (many of them, in leaving the church, have become better people!). Moltmann goes on to say that, “those who try to defend religion by establishing its external usefulness and necessity turn out to be its worst enemies in the long run” (62). As someone who wants to meet the needs of society through missional entrepreneurship, that may be hard to hear… and it certainly is harsh. But Moltmann’s point is not to say you should give up on doing good things, but only to realize that the true value of the church and faith are in themselves, not in what they can accomplish. The true value of the church is in the joyful, voluntary, and unnecessary reality of communion with God through Jesus Christ. The faster the church realizes that the world doesn’t need the church and that the church is valuable and important anyway, the faster we’ll be able get to the real unnecessary and beautiful work of ministry. So if you’re engaging in missional entrepreneurship because the world needs the church, STOP!

These are just a few reasons not to engage in missional entrepreneurship. And as hard as it may be to admit it, there are plenty more. Innovation is not something to take lightly in the church. The pursuit of the “newer,” “better,” and “best” can often get in the way of the kind of gentle, patient, slow, and empathetic ministry to which we’ve been called. But there are certainly plenty of good reasons we should engage in missional entrepreneurship. Our God is indeed creative and invites us to create. Our God is indeed passionate and invites us to participate in God’s passion. The best reason, the best motivation, for entrepreneurial ministry is the same as that of any ministry—the desire to joyfully and freely participate in the ministry of Christ in the world. All ministry is God’s ministry and it is a good and joyful thing that we are invited to be a part of it!

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With a mix of movement, soothing activities and cooking, The Brain Kitchen helps struggling kids learn skills to calm themselves and even rewire their brains to cope with challenges. It’s a picture of how innovation happens — with insight, small steps and experimentation.

If you have been following Ministry Incubators for a while, you will recognize the wonderfully named, The Brain Kitchen. One of our favorite “hatchlets,” The Brain Kitchen participated in a Hatch-a-thon at Princeton Theological Seminary a little more than a year ago. Since then, the founder, Amanda Drury, has been hard at work creating a ministry that works with kids in Marion, Indian, teaching them how to manage trauma. Recently, Duke Divinity School’s online magazine, Faith and Leadership, wrote a feature on Amanda Drury and this amazing ministry. You can read the entire piece here!

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