There was a high school teacher who taught his students a call and response in his high school chemistry class.

“What do you do when we encounter a problem we don’t know?” He would ask them, 

“Don’t panic!” They would shout in reply. 

“Why?”

“Because you know more than you think.”

In the world of innovation, starting new things from scratch, we inevitably come upon problems that we’ve never encountered before, often problems no one has ever encountered before! 

It can be easy in those moments to be overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of all that you do not know. Many innovators have never launched this kind of enterprise or any enterprise. Maybe they’ve never fundraised, built a website, or had to recruit volunteers. There is inevitably some part of the process of building a new thing that feels totally foreign; otherwise, it wouldn’t be a new thing!

So we at Ministry Incubators find ourselves often in the chair of that high school teacher. In our coaching and consulting, people looking for us to offer magic solutions and silver bullets are often met with the uncomfortable and empowering truth that they don’t need anyone to fix their problems; why? Because they know more than they think. 

When we do our style of innovation coaching, we rely on walking alongside clients, pointing out possible pathways and opportunities by curiously asking questions. But most crucially, the journey is yours, not ours, and we serve to show you that you have what you need to complete it is already inside of you. 

One of Ministry Incubators’ more creative tools for helping innovators understand what they already have is Whoopsie. This game walks you through a hypothetical year of running your new ministry or organization and presents challenges that many organizations might face. You respond to the challenges or opportunities based on resource blocks determined by your organization’s existing resources. 

This game can sound intimidating to innovators, who, as they stack blocks, quickly realize that there are certain resources they are painfully short on. But it also makes it obvious what resources they have in abundance. One of our clients, Ken and Amanda Daniell, reflected that the game left them feeling encouraged. 

We didn’t start with a lot, especially in terms of finances, and we didn’t end with a lot of finances either, but we managed to figure everything out with what we did have, and I was surprised what we could figure out as a team. 

Ken Daniell

Ministry Incubators is an experienced team of coaches, consultants, innovators, leaders, PhDs, pastors, and more, and the greatest gift we offer most of our clients isn’t the answer to all of their questions, it’s the partnership that walks alongside them and reminds them continually, don’t panic. 

Why?

Because you know more than you think. 

Reach out to our team today, and we’d love to hear what ideas are stirring in your head that make you a little nervous or what vision you have for your community that you don’t know how to begin. It would be our great joy to walk alongside you.