From stand-alone churches to mixed economy ministries

Podcast explores innovation and social entrepreneurship in new models of church

November 19, 2024

“What does it feel like to be stuck?” asked the Rev. Sara Hayden, host of the “New Way” podcast, a production of the 1001 New Worshiping Communities (1001 NWC) movement. Her guest, Dr. Corey Schlosser-Hall, deputy executive director for Vision and Innovation at the Presbyterian Mission Agency, gave both a theological answer and a personal anecdote. According to Schlosser-Hall, to be stuck is to be without confidence and faith, i.e., lacking in “con-fidelis.” Feeling stuck reminded him of driving a brown Ford Pinto station wagon in high school and having to navigate the North Dakota winters with only rear-wheel drive. Sometimes, one needs more to get unstuck and stop spinning one’s wheels than to exert more effort doing the same thing. Sometimes, one needs a group of people pushing from behind or sand to help with traction under one’s tires.

In the first episode of two, titled “The Holy Spirit is the Sand Under the Tires,” Hayden and Schlosser-Hall speak about the balance between following surprising leads and new ideas and sustaining organizations with predictable patterns and a culture of comfort, drawing on examples they’ve encountered over the years. Schlosser-Hall has worked on the mid council level in the Pacific Northwest and currently oversees the PC(USA)’s Center for Innovation, and Hayden has spent her career working with church planters and founders of new worshiping communities, most recently as 1001 NWC’s associate for apprenticeships and residencies. The conversation lifted up examples of ministries built in the back room of fair-trade chocolate and coffee shops to small-business incubators born out of industrial-grade church kitchens that inspired churches to think about themselves not as ministries seeking members to join them but as their churches as members belonging to a larger community and economy of social entrepreneurship.

“To be clear, we need them both,” said Schlosser-Hall. “If you pull up the volume too high on the comfort and familiarity, then you get stuckness. But if you pull up the volume too high on the serendipity and holy newness, then you get out of whack.”

In episode two, Schlosser-Hall delves deeper into defining what ministries built on a social entrepreneurship model mean in contrast to stand-alone churches that contract with what they consider outside partners in mission as a “supplement to our stand-alone church,” rather than part of their core identity as a church that is itself a member of the larger community.

“I’m fascinated by how the church is moving more into an understanding of itself as less a stand-alone church and more one node in a constellation of relationships in its community,” said Schlosser-Hall.

Hayden and Schlosser-Hall then imagine how the stand-alone church is sustained economically by its members, but the social entrepreneurial model of ministries shares the economic responsibility and the call to serve others among many initiatives. One of the ways that the PC(USA) is helping communities imagine, transition into or build new models of ministry is through the “Good Futures Accelerator Course.” Because of the partnership between the Presbyterian Mission Agency and Rooted Good, which has developed the course, PC(USA) churches receive a 50% discount on the course.

Beth Waltemath, Communications Strategist, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Today’s Focus: Dr. Corey Schlosser-Hall, guest on the New Way Podcast

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Beth Zornick, Vice President, Customer Business Systems, Board of Pensions 
Princeton Abarahoa, Associate for African Intercultural Ministries, Racial Equity & Women’s Intercultural Ministries, Presbyterian Mission Agency 

Let us pray

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for the windows of opportunities that have opened. May your Word go forth in power, and may new believers come to faith. We pray, too, for protection, discernment and boldness for those who labor. Amen.