An incubator program and consulting group for early-stage impact entrepreneurs.
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!
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.
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 young adult resource center called The 20-30 Dream Hub—and transformed it into a virtual co-working meet-up for young adults. Check it out here —or join in!
Congrats, 20-30 Dream Hub, on your fearless holy imagination! (Thanks to Rev. Chris de la Cruz for tipping us off!)
If you have a creative COVID-19 adaptation we can share, please let us know—we’d love to share the good news!
| 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 might come alongside them (instead of simply expecting young adults to come to churches). These experiments taught us a lot about befriending young adults in our communities, and supporting their lives and their faith. This website shares the stories of twelve congregations, and others who joined this experimental work, who for three years formed an “innovation hub” through Princeton Theological Seminary and the Lilly Endowment that explored new ways churches and young adults might find God and one another. Will you join us as we present the innovations of these churches, and many others, through these stories? Here’s what you’ll find in our little “online festival”: visual poetry through film, mini-documentaries, story slams, podcasts, and yes, even a visual summary of a research paper (available later this summer by request). If we could have conjured up a campfire to put at the center of it all, we would have. While we are saddened that the coronavirus prevented us from gathering in person, we are thankful to share these stories with you online as the culmination of our three-year journey together. We invite you to celebrate the remarkable youth adults and ministry leaders who took part in the Zoe Project, in hopes their boldness inspires others. If you see a story that resonates with you, be sure to share it with others! With gratitude and joy, Kenda Creasy Dean, Senior Strategist and Project Director |
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, 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 Rockwell Street in Lincoln Square.
The blockclubchicago.org post says, “Though operating a brewery is a career change for the pastor, he said Burning Bush will build community much like a church does. He hopes to partner with local nonprofits and community groups to host coat drives, fundraisers and fellowship.”
The Rev. Meredith Mills, pastor at Westminster United Methodist Church in Houston, TX, received coverage by the Houston Chronicle for her work with Gastrochurch.
Rev. Mills conceptualized Gastrochurch—dinner gatherings where the food supports the theological theme for the evening—as an intentionally created “space where a range of guests could come, somewhere outside of church walls, and talk about spirituality,” and to be “’church’ for people who didn’t fit in at a traditional setting.”
Congratulations to both!
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