Listening to amazing stories of congregations selling their space to build long-term housing for the houseless, starting a baking and farming social enterprise to dispel youth loneliness, and transforming their building into a small business incubator, it’s tough not to get a little church imposter syndrome. You may wonder: Is our church really creative enough? Is our community cool enough? Are our assets shiny enough?
The good news is: They don’t have to be! We believe in a God who turned five loaves of bread and a couple of fish into a feast (John 6), who turned water into wine (John 2), who turned family heirlooms and dusty treasures into a tabernacle (Exodus 35-36). God is accustomed to working miracles out of humble ingredients.
During the pandemic I had the time and patience to try my hand at a few advanced baking recipes like sourdough bread, macarons, croissants, bagels, pretzels, baguettes, and more. One of the things that struck me quickly was that almost all of these treats started out with the same humble ingredients: water, flour, salt, and yeast. Yes, some might include sugar, chocolate, or a special spice, but for the most part it’s not about complicated ingredients, expensive equipment, or even sophisticated techniques. It’s about having the time, patience, and perseverance to follow the recipe often to surprising and seemingly miraculous results.
As I looked across the data from the second phase of the Funding Forward research project where we interviewed 12 congregations, I saw a recipe begin to emerge here as well. The congregations who seemed to find the most “success”, both missionally and financially, brought together these three ingredients:
- Assets: For many congregations, it was their building, but there are countless other property, financial, skill, time, and/or network assets congregations brought to the table as well. Often the key ingredient ended up being an asset that was previously overlooked.
- Community Need: The congregations were connected with the needs, hopes, longings, and losses of their community. They identified a specific gap they felt called to fill.
- God’s Mission: Finally, they discerned what God was calling their church to do and to be in this time and place. They had a clear sense of identity and purpose.
It was the sweet spot where these three ingredients overlapped where the creative ideas began to emerge. The ingredients can be combined in any order.
You can see the recipe clearly in the story of The Table UMC who was featured in our November 2024 Funding Forward webinar. They formed their social enterprises Table Farm and Table Bread by bringing together these three ingredients:
- God’s Mission: The Table UMC “seeks to create a community of faith in Sacramento that is rooted in grace, growing in faith, and reaching in love.” In this season, they also felt God calling them to do youth ministry differently so they joined an innovation accelerator out of Princeton Seminary.
- Community Need: As part of the innovation accelerator, they began listening to youth in their community and they realized a key issue was loneliness. They wondered what it might be like for youth to come bake and break bread together. Might it help to dispel their loneliness and bring them closer to God and one another?
- Assets: They had a 1959 kitchen that would need to be upgraded. They had a ministry staff member who was also a baker. And when the kitchen remodel was paused due to COVID, it was this staff member’s relationship with a local farm that helped them pivot the social enterprise from baking to farming. They leased the farm in the backyard of a local Catholic school for $1/year.
While the recipe may seem simple, I’ve seen churches struggle to bring together these ingredients:
- Assets: It’s easy to spend more time focusing more on what you don’t have than what you do. It takes a keen eye to see the variety of assets God has already entrusted to your care. Which assets might God be calling your congregation to use differently in this season?
- Community Need: Many congregations struggle to get to know the community outside their doors. It takes time to get to know their needs, hopes, longings, and losses. How might your congregation get the conversation started?
- God’s Mission: While many churches have a mission statement, this statement often has little bearing on the congregation’s current identity and doesn’t point to what God is calling them to do in this time and place. What faithful future might God be inviting your congregation into?
Too often I’ve seen congregations rush the process by focusing on just one ingredient: the assets. Yet, what good is the asset if it’s not meeting a community need? What good is the community work you’re doing with the asset if it doesn’t align with God’s mission? It doesn’t matter how fine your flour is, you can’t bake with flour alone.
I invite you to come explore these ingredients with me during our January Member’s Only Workshop: Mission, Assets, and Community: How to Find Your Congregation’s Sweet Spot in the Funding Forward Process. I’ll help you gain clarity on each of these three ingredients and begin to envision how they might come together for your congregation. You’ll be amazed at the creative things God can do with such simple ingredients. You’ll leave this interactive workshop with concrete ideas and practical next steps.
Unlike previous Funding Forward offerings, this one is just for our Faith+Lead members. But don’t worry—you can join today for as little as $19.95 (nearly 65% off our usual workshop price of $45). As a member, you’ll gain free access to this workshop as well as other upcoming member workshops like our February member workshop: Mental Health and Ministry:
Becoming Communities of Care with Hollie Holt-Woehl. You’ll also get free access to over 30 Faith+Lead Academy courses including Funding Forward, Money and Logistics for Starting a New Ministry, Getting It Done: Practical Tools for Managing Ministry, and more. Want to join the membership but finances are holding you back? We have scholarships available.
Still wondering whether your congregation is really creative or cool enough to participate in Funding Forward? You’re not alone. We heard this sentiment from many of the congregations we interviewed as well. At the beginning, they felt just as lost and confused as you might feel right now. They thought about giving up hope. They wondered if God could really make something beautiful out of such humble ingredients. Even as the questions emerged and reemerged, they trusted God and leaned into the process. They let the soft whispers of the Spirit drown out the voice of their congregational imposter syndrome. They are just as amazed by the results as we are.
