Collaboratory: Turning Hair-Brained Ideas into Sustainable into Ministries (with Kenda Creasy Dean)

This intensive course for seminary students is now open to a limited number of pastors and lay leaders as continuing education.

Millennial change makers, hungry for meaning, are more likely to say they want to work for Tom’s Shoes than the church. While millenials’ entrepreneurial spirit is widely touted, the world’s first missional entrepreneurs may have been the first Christians who viewed their day jobs as means to fund service to the poor. As contemporary churches wrestle with rapid cultural changes that are influencing traditional giving patterns, we have an opportunity to do something similar. What if ministry were self-sustaining? What if ministries sustained each other? What if we borrowed principles of innovation and entrepreneurship to reimagine the way ministry is funded? Could we do that without losing our souls … or our shirts?

This course addresses millennials’ concern for sustainability in ministry—social, spiritual and especially financial. By exploring the relationship between ecclesiology, sustainability and social innovation in a collaboratory setting, students will learn the steps for translating a ministry concept into action.

Students should come ready to share a ministry idea with others and have some initial ideas for funding it. Working in teams on a common idea is especially encouraged; if you don’t have a team, please be prepared to phone a person with whom you can discuss your ideas.

Maximum Enrollment: 10