Ministry with an entrepreneurial spirit
Event brings together seminary students, grads to learn more about new worshiping communities and international ministries
ATLANTA — “The ministry you are called to serve may not even exist yet,” the Rev. Michael Gehrling said to a group of 18 seminary students and recent seminary graduates at a Discerning Entrepreneurial Ministry event held at Columbia Theological Seminary from Aug. 16–18.
Gehrling, the associate for assessments and recruitment for the 1001 New Worshiping Communities Movement of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and the Rev. Lindsay Armstrong, executive director of the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta's New Church Development Commission, introduced leaders from seven new worshiping communities around Atlanta to a diverse group of discerners, which included seminarians from Pakistan, Ghana, Korea, Madagascar and nondenominational but “Presby-curious” students in the United States.
Through her work with the New Church Development Commission, Armstrong said she sees a strong entrepreneurial ethic of leaders who are serving or have served ministries internationally or hope to establish new worshiping communities for immigrants. “Most internationals do have an entrepreneurial ministry in their future because they are multi-vocational.”
As the weekend began, participants shared their hopes that ranged from changing cultures of their existing churches to those of their home countries. Mordecai Gorleku, a Presbyterian pastor in Ghana who is pursuing a Master of Theology degree from Columbia Theological Seminary, was looking to invigorate his ministry back in Ghana with new ideas that might facilitate intergenerational relationships.
Awrish Javed, a student at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, came with big dreams. She introduced herself as the daughter of a Presbyterian pastor in Pakistan and part of the 2% of Christians in that country. After completing her degree in the United States, Javed envisions returning to Pakistan to start a seminary where women can learn the Bible and leadership skills.
To prime the imaginations of the attendants, Gehrling told the story of how 1001 New Worshiping Communities started as a response to new forms of church, from Bible studies in tattoo parlors to church plants meeting on Sunday mornings in a nightclub. “In 2012, our denomination made a commitment to start 1001 new worshiping communities and to put resources and funding to support and nurture these new forms of church that were springing up organically.” Four years later, in 2016, the 222nd General Assembly in Portland, Oregon, made another commitment to focus on congregational vitality, systemic poverty and structural racism. Gehrling said he believes the two actions feed one another “because they are commitments to pursuing profound cultural change in the church and in the world around us. And the best way to change culture is to create something new.”
Participants found something new in each of the communities they visited. On Friday night, they gathered around tables and homemade pho as the “people of peace” who attend Soul Soup Community, a new worshiping community in Tucker, Georgia, would do. The flow of this evening of hospitality mimicked the preparation for, gathering around and responding to the Word that undergirds the Reformed order of worship — except the revelation of God’s incarnate love emerges through guided conversations. Saturday morning began at Crossfit Liminal in Clarkston, Georgia, with the embodied worship experience in the form of an interval training workout based on the stations of the cross. Participants were invited to consider the equivalent barbell weight of Christ’s cross and to drop to a plank on the floor three times as Jesus did on his way up Golgotha.
Two leaders of online worshiping communities, aijcast and the FaithStudio, and the founder of Shalom, an international ministry serving new immigrants and refugees in Clarkston, Georgia, discussed the importance of finding financially sustainable models or freelance work while starting up something new. The Rev. Marthame Sanders, founder of aijcast, a podcast community for artists, marketed his recording and editing skills to outside nonprofits and businesses as his primary source of income. Gina Brown has launched a private coaching, spiritual direction and retreat facilitation that supports her and her ability to sustain the online community of ecumenical seekers in the FaithStudio. Often, new forms of ministry require those called to this vocation to be professional entrepreneurs as they start up what may or may not be self-sustaining churches with full-time pastors.
On Saturday evening, the group was welcomed by teenagers who are second-generation Brazilian immigrants with handheld audio devices. The teenagers provided simultaneous translation from Portuguese to English on Saturday night so all could enjoy the lively worship of Casa Brasil Church and the sermon created “for such a time as this,” delivered by the Rev. Rafael Viana on the book of Esther.
On Sunday, participants grabbed a coffee, a snack and their own chair before settling into the newly renovated and open-design Sanctuary of Ormewood Church. The light-filled space and child-accessible worship service attracts young families and LGBTQ+ young adults looking for an authentic and accessible spiritual community. According to Armstrong and the organizing pastor, the Rev. Jenelle Holmes, Ormewood is a “church restart,” which found a new mission and call from the neighborhood after the former congregation had to close its doors.
“We don’t have to limit ourselves to traditional groups in the church,” Gorleku said, reflecting on how what he had seen affected his outlook toward ministry. ”Now, I will be able to identify new communities even in the church.”
Support for educating women in Pakistan is difficult to garner, but Javed said the weekend with entrepreneurial leaders gave her hope in trying to make a way where there was no way before. “Where do I start?” is a question she often asks herself. “Now I know that I am the platform, but I have to plan. I have to find support.”
Cultural shifts surrounding church attendance and demographics over the past several decades popularized the adage, “All ministry is transitional ministry.” The testimonies heard during the weekend of Discerning Entrepreneurial Ministry suggest that “transitional” is too tame a descriptor. In 2024 and beyond, God may be calling the church into a “ministry that may not even exist yet,” one that is fed by a Spirit with skills of creativity, translation, advocacy and the sustaining drive of an entrepreneur.
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