Do you have an idea for a new ministry but aren’t sure exactly where to start or how to get it off the ground? If so, listen on!

In this episode of the Pivot Podcast, hosts Alicia Granholm and Dwight Zscheile tackle the pitfalls to avoid when starting a new ministry, the most common hangups people have when starting a new ministry, and get advice for starting a new ministry with guest, Michael Binder.

SHOW NOTES:

How to Start a New Ministry Course with Michael Binder https://faithlead.org/course-lp/how-to-start-a-new-ministry/

For transcripts, downloadable resources, and more, visit the podcast homepage at https://faithlead.org/show/pivot-podcast/

Key Words: Pivot Podcast, Alicia Granholm, Dwight Zscheile, leadership, church structures, scripture in community, agency, action, new ministry, pivot in posture, Michael Binder, Luther Seminary, Faith+Lead

Dwight Zscheile: Do you have an idea for a new ministry, but aren't sure exactly where to start or how to get it off the ground? Do you wonder how to help leaders in your ministry context start new things in ministry? In today's episode, we're talking with Doctor Michael Binder about steps to take when starting a new ministry, whether that be within an existing church or a new form of Christian community itself. What are some pitfalls to avoid when starting a new ministry? The most common hangups people have when doing so, and how to join the Spirit's creativity as God brings forth new life in and through us. Hello everyone! I'm Dwight Zscheile.

Alicia Granholm: And I'm Alicia Granholm. Welcome to the Pivot podcast. This is the podcast where we talk about how the church can faithfully navigate a changing world. We are really excited to have Michael Binder with us today. Michael is Assistant Professor of Congregational Mission and Leadership at Luther Seminary, co-founder of Mill City Church in Northeast Minneapolis, co-author of Leading Faithful Innovation with Dwight Zscheile and Tessa Pinkstaff , and with his wife Carissa, the owner of a fourth generation family small business. Michael is also the instructor of our on demand course, How to Start a New Ministry and helps lead the Seeds project. Luther Seminary's incubator accelerator for ministry entrepreneurs. Michael, welcome to the Pivot podcast.

Michael Binder: Glad to be with you guys today. Thank you for having me.

Dwight Zscheile: Michael, your own experience starting a new ministry began in college when you began a Bible study in a college campus environment that was not altogether hospitable to Christian faith. Share that story with us.

Michael Binder: Yeah. That's right. I was going to college at Carleton College in Northfield, a great school. And when I arrived down there, I realized that Christianity was not the norm among the student body, and there wasn't really a Christian culture, so to speak, down there. Uh, and in my second year there, a person from my home church came down and invited me to start a Bible study, which I barely knew what that was, but I learned pretty quickly. It involved opening the Bible up with a few friends and talking about different passages and just sharing what we were thinking about it, and praying and trying to grow as Christians. And so we started a Bible study there, and just with three people. And I remember even in that first experience, you got some kind of side eye looks from other students who thought it was kind of weird that people would get together and read the Bible in a place like the student center, but we kept doing it anyway, and we just had this incredible growth from three students all the way to was either 7 or 8 by the end of the year. Just like crazy doubling high percentage growth for this, for this Bible study. Um, but what we learned over the kind of three years from my, my sophomore year to when I graduated was that there were a lot of students, even though they didn't have Christian backgrounds, who were really interested in the Bible, interested in spiritual things, and became part of our group just as an exploratory discussion group, centered on the Bible, very open, all kinds of ideas shared over that period of time. We really saw the Spirit of God shaping people's lives and their understanding of Jesus and their willingness to be open to what God had for them in their lives and calling in their future lives outside of college. And I was just overcome by the time I graduated, with awe at what God could do in a place that kind of seemed like it wasn't that interested in Christian faith at all. Um, and, and that group really had a life of its own, actually lived, has continued to live on for now, over 20 years in different forms. And it became really clear that that was something that God wanted to happen in this space. It wasn't a plan I had. I didn't go to college thinking I was going to help start a college ministry. Uh, I didn't even know how to do that. I didn't feel prepared to do that, but it was really an amazing experience to see, how God has something in mind. And sometimes you get to be part of it, whether you knew you were going to be invited into that or not.

Alicia Granholm: So you went on to co-found Mill City Church in Minneapolis. What are some things that you learned in that process?

Michael Binder: Yeah, we, Stephanie Williams O'Brien and I planted Mill City Church along with my wife Carissa, 2008, and some of the key learnings from that experience were how to wait in a kind of geographic space to see what it was that the Spirit of God might be doing there. And when we started that church, we had a vision for it that was very space oriented, geography oriented. So the idea behind it was, we think God is already at work in this part of the city of Minneapolis, and we feel called to help start a new church that will join in with whatever that, whatever that is that God cares about, that God's doing. And those are super hard questions in some ways, because they're vague, you know, like, who knows what God's doing in northeast Minneapolis? And we didn't know at the time. But, it became very clear, even as Stephanie and I formed a friendship over this work together, that this was really something God was calling us to do. So probably the first learning is there are a lot of good ideas for new ministries, but there's only some that God is actually inviting people to do. And that's a really important distinction, kind of the distinction between just, you know, any kind of startup idea and a spiritually discerned startup idea. And often when I talk about this with people, I say, you know, you, you know, it's an idea that God is giving to you when it keeps coming back around in your life over and over and over again. I spent years thinking about starting a new church, trying to avoid it, coming back to it. And when I looked back at that period, I could see God putting people in my life, conversations in my life, experiences in my life, even dreams in my life that kind of compounded to help me feel sure enough that this was something that God wanted us to try. And often you need that kind of confidence in order to try some things that are risky, because you don't know if they're going to work out. And there could be a lot at stake for trying them out. So, you know, getting clear about what it is that God's actually inviting you to do really helps. You can pray about it. You can talk to other people about it. You can try some small versions of it to see how that goes, and see if that clarifies and confirms what it is you're thinking you want to do. But as we got into that, then we learned some practices for helping a small group of people, we just had about 20 people or so to start, really get into a space. So when you when you start a new church, some of you who are listening to this maybe are familiar, you know, you often find a worship space and you get a group of people and you, you start worshiping there and try to invite people to come to that. And that's a good way to get something started. But we were we were going at it a different way. We were trying to get into the neighborhood, spend time in the neighborhood, get to know people there with the, you know, central question being, "Where is God already present? Where is God already working in this space?" And so the way we did that was we went to school meetings, you know, school board meetings. We went to neighborhood association meetings. We went where people were in the context. And, and then we'd come back together and debrief and say, oh yeah, we went to this meeting, or we went to this park, or we went to this event, and here's what we learned and here's who we met. And over the course of a couple of years, we started to discover the shape of this community, this new Christian community we were forming and what it was supposed to do. But it was a discovery oriented process that took a lot of trial and error and frankly, a lot of patience, because I can remember some worship services in the middle of the summer where, we'd been going for a while and we barely had as many people as we started with, and it just seemed like, man, maybe this is failing. Maybe we're not doing what we're supposed to be doing, but we had to have a little longer view. And as we kept going, we were able to say, oh, here's here's the kind of niche that God has in mind for this, for this congregation in this neighborhood. A nd then we continued to step into that and saw more people join us. So there's a lot of lessons from starting this new church, but that's a few from the kind of the origin of how that church started.

Alicia Granholm: Michael, one of the things that you've mentioned a couple times, that you wondered what God might be up to, and that isn't a question we hear very often for people who want to start a ministry or start churches. So I'm curious if you could share with us where that belief or conviction came from around God's activity in the neighborhood.

Michael Binder: Yeah, that's a great question. For me, that theological, assumption or question came from some of my training at Luther Seminary, where I did a PhD years ago and really wanted to study the the missional movement, the missional theology that has been popular over the last 20 years or so. And really the core tenet of a missional approach to ministry and even to reading the Bible, is that God is the primary actor and God is moving in the story of Scripture and in the story of our lives in the world and our role, our very important role is to join whatever it is that God is doing. So when you apply that to church planting, new ministry development, if you think about God as a primary actor, then naturally your first question is, well, what is the primary actor doing? You know, what is it that God is saying, doing? What does God care about? And I think those are hard questions. And they're a little bit unusual questions. And they feel like, well, how would you ever know the answer to that question? Like who? Who gets to say what God is doing or not doing or saying? And what we learned in just real practically was you're never 100% sure what it is that God is doing or saying, or it doesn't seem like you are. But you can get more sure. And when you're starting something new, you have to realize, like there's very little that's 100% certain and you learn as a leader or participant, you know, hey, my comfort level, if something is 40 or 50 or 60% sure I'm ready to do it, you know, you got to have a little bit of a bias towards action. So the theology of of mission and thinking about God as a primary actor in the world gave shape to the practices of really looking for God in neighborhoods, in meetings, in relationships, in schools, and learning to process and talk about that as a community as we got started.

Dwight Zscheile: So, Michael, you have a lot of experience helping other people start new ministries that are really impactful, impacting their own communities. Can you share a few stories about some of those ministries and what you've learned walking alongside other ministry founders or starters?

Michael Binder: For sure. We have a program at Luther Seminary called the The Seeds Project that has been in existence now for a few years, and we've had a number of fellows through that program who are, who are all trying to start or tend some things that that they've invested in and are trying to get going. So one that comes to mind is led by a woman named Jennifer Oliver, who's in Los Angeles, and she started something called the Manna Movement Collaborative. And you can you can look it up at Manna movement.org if you want, but it is, she's a food scientist, PhD food scientist who's also a minister and has been working on both the problem of food insecurity and food deserts in certain parts of LA, and also how you form Christian communities, start a new church, that has a tie and a focus on this kind of food insecurity problem. And so, man, she's done a tremendous job, as have been a really hard process in many ways, to figure out how to bring together spiritual community and also a focus on these kind of key issues that are happening in different communities. But it goes together so well when a congregation and a spiritual ministry has a very practical focus, social justice emphasis, because it highlights how the gospel of Jesus Christ, isn't just about what we can gain from it individually, but also makes a concrete difference in the world. And, the church and the movement can be kind of seen together in some ways that are, that are super positive. Another story from one of our seeds, fellows named Alma Cardenas, who's in, also in Southern California, uh, served as a pastor for many years and then felt called by God to try to elevate the voices of women of color in particular, who have a writing gift and want to use their voice in some particular ways. And so she started a ministry as originally called Wine and Right, which highlighted the the wine making skills of persons of color in southern California and other places, and also invited people to retreat settings where they could start finding their voice, and, as writers and figuring out, you know, what it was that God was calling them to express to the world through their gift of writing, many of them never having had the opportunity, or have anybody sort of see them in a way that says, hey, you can you could probably do this and the world could really benefit from hearing from you. So she's done a tremendous job of of getting that ministry off the ground. The great thing about a lot of our, our seeds fellows and other people that I've worked with is that they seem to be bringing together the idea of starting a Christian community, getting Christian community formed in a number of different ways. Some of them more traditional church types of Christian communities. Others a little bit more non-traditional. But they seem to all have a kind of other component to them that has a focus that's easy to talk about, and it's easy to draw other people in. And that can be an issue like food insecurity. It could be a question like, uh, helping empower people who are writers that just haven't had the chance to do that, or it could be something else. But I see seems like a pattern to me of how God is raising these leaders up where they have both the ability to bring people around worship and around Christian identity, but also some kind of external focus that really helps clarify why they exist as a community, and it makes it easier for other people to see how they are participating in something that God is doing that's benefiting people outside of themselves.

Alicia Granholm: Great story, Michael. As you work with people wanting to start new ministries, what are some key steps leaders can take?

Michael Binder: Yes. Well this is outlined some in the course we have online on Faith +Lead. Shameless plug for the the New Ministries course. But the first step that's the most important step is to pray. You know, start by asking God to show you what it is that God may want you to lead, what my God may want you to start and be open to the a number of different ways that God may want to communicate that to you. You want to start there, and you want to keep paying attention to that question so that you don't kind of get off on this other path that might not be in line with where the Spirit of God is leading you. And then, you know, there's a number of things that you can do to start out that are very helpful. And the first one is just to be really clear about what the ministry is. And as kind of simple as that might sound. I've talked to lots of leaders who will talk about their idea with incredible passion. You know, they're just like, oh my gosh, this is so cool. We're doing this and we're thinking about this and we're going to engage these people. And I'll get to the end of the conversation and I still don't know what the ministry is. And so you have to have enough conversations with other people where you're clarifying, like in just two sentences, you know, if you only have two sentences, what is it that this ministry is about? And once you've got it down to two sentences, you can certainly add more description and color and passion if you want. But make sure that your "what," I call it the "what" in the class, you know, is clear enough and simple enough that when people hear it, they go, okay, that makes sense to me. Example: Like I'm going to start a ministry that helps persons of color who have an interest in writing discover their voice. Okay, cool. I get it, right. If you can't do that in two sentences, you need to start there. And then, a couple other things that are helpful is defining, you know, who who it is you want to be involved, both who you want on your team and also the the people that you hope to impact with your ministry. You want to talk about why you're doing this in the first place, especially with the initial group that you might recruit to be on your team. You want to be able to tell them why this is important to you? Why is it important to you personally? Why is it important to do in the world? It needs to make a difference, beyond just kind of a passion area that any of us has. It's great to know, like where the ministry is going to take place. It's great to know the the core practices that the ministry is going to engage in to try to get started. Just like, here's the kind of meetings we're going to have or the kind of practices we're going to do, it's great to sketch out what your funding source is going to be. That's usually the hardest question and the most intimidating for a lot of people. There's maybe this is jumping ahead a little, but there is a kind of mistaken assumption that you need a ton of money to start stuff. And in my experience, if you have a ton of money, you're probably not going to succeed, because having a bunch of money at the beginning will actually prevent you from discovering what's actually going to land with the people you're hoping to serve or engage with. And so having a little bit of money enough to buy some time and enough, you know, supplies, resources, event space, whatever you need to try the thing that you're testing out, get a version going so that people can experience it and you can learn, is this actually going to work? Are people going to respond? Does anybody care about this? Doing sort of small, cheaper versions at the beginning to test and see is really helpful. And then finally, you know, clarifying some partnerships. Don't think that you're the first person to do whatever it is that you feel called to do. Someone else probably does it already. They might be near to you. They might be far away. But look on the internet, see if you can find who's doing something similar and have an open mind about how you might partner with other people In ministry we're not competing with each other, you know. We're all part of the kingdom of God. Um, shockingly or not. Sorry, that was sarcastic. God sometimes draws people into the similar work from different places and you can partner with other people, learn from them, you know, gain experience that they've already, um, learned from. That really helps accelerate your work. If you just have an open mind towards who you can partner with.

Dwight Zscheile: So, Michael, you've touched on this a bit already, but say more about common pitfalls that people can avoid when starting a new ministry.

Michael Binder: Yeah. That one I just mentioned, just to reiterate is, you know, don't don't start by thinking you have to raise tons and tons of money. Start by thinking you need a little money. And especially if you need some money to buy your own time. That's how I like to talk about it. I don't like to talk about it as staff. I like to think about it as buying some time for people to invest in leadership that helps you get started and get down the road to see what's possible. So you definitely need some funding but you don't need a lot of funding not to test something new out. You might need more down the road. And then a second common pitfall that I would mention is just that people are too vague about what they are trying to do and, and who it's going to impact. So, you have to really be clear about who you're hoping to engage with and what you hope happens from those engagements, especially if you're trying to help people see how they can contribute or participate on your team and your ministry, vagueness will will kill it pretty quickly. A nd so you need to be clear, and you need to try some things and see if whatever you're doing makes an impact right away on whatever it is you're trying to accomplish.

Dwight Zscheile: So I'm curious, why do we need a lot of new ministries, right? Don't we have enough, like, plenty of churches out there? Don't we have plenty of ministry structures already, right? In this landscape right? Why do we need new ministries? Can you speak to that?

Michael Binder: Well, I'm so glad you asked me that. Thank you very much. Um, yeah. We need new ministries for a whole bunch of reasons. And one of the common pushbacks to new ministries is I think while you're asking this question, you know, like people will say, well, we already have a lot of churches and some of those churches don't have that many people in them. Wouldn't it be smarter for us to just try to help more people get back in those churches before we go starting new ones? And that is really wrong. Like just, social science data says that's wrong. Theologically, I think it's wrong. I understand the sentiment, but what we found is when you start new ministries, new churches, ministries, out of existing churches, you get life in two ways. You get life with a group that's helping the new things start. And you also get life with the folks who are sort of supporting it, making it possible, you know, launching it out of an existing congregation. And so we need new things in part to revitalize what exists and also to discover how to do ministry in new ways that you're forced to learn when you're starting something new, and engaging with people who maybe aren't already engaged in ministry or church. So that's a key reason. The second reason we need it, maybe the biggest reason is just because God is doing new things. So, you know, if we're saying that, at least I'm saying that my theology is such that God is a creative God, and God creates new things all the time, and God has always created new things. Then part of being the church is joining in the new things that God is, that God is doing. So it's sort of not determined by us that we would do new things. It's part of participating in God's mission. And then finally we need new ministries, just in part, especially in Western contexts, because there's just an astronomical number of people in our communities who are, who will raise their hand and say that they are spiritually interested, spiritually curious people, but don't want to have anything to do with church. So what that says to me is people are interested in Jesus. People want to know God. A s Christians, we have a particular way of understanding who Jesus is and who God is and what that means for our lives. And we need some new, accessible ways for people to hear that story, to understand that identity of God that's understood by Christians, and to engage in a community that allows them to explore that. And if they feel like they can't do that, in some of our traditional forms of church or forms of church that have existed, then we should probably start some new ones in order to make it accessible to people who don't feel welcome or don't feel comfortable in those other spaces. Why wouldn't we do that? S o I think there's a lot of good reasons. I, I sound a little flippant about it. I don't mean to be. I have a ton of respect and have spent a lot of time in my life trying to help existing congregations discover their identity and really revitalize some of the ministries that they've invested in. And that's really important. We should keep doing that. And it's very fruitful work in a lot of levels. It's just not mutually exclusive with starting new things They can both happen, they can help each other, and we should be investing in both of those things all the time.

Alicia Granholm: Michael, you're the instructor for our on-demand course How to Start a New Ministry. Can you share a little bit about the course, who it would be good for? What will people learn in it?

Michael Binder: Yes I can, this course is a very meat and potatoes, practical, here's a step by step guide for shaping what I call a pitch. You know, a short description of what your new ministry is about and who might want to be involved in it in a variety of ways. And so I just kind of actually worked through the pieces just a minute ago, of all the different steps to creating a good summary, a good pitch for a new missional ministry. And so if you want to start something new, the course would be great because it will just tell you, hey, start with this, then describe this, do this little bit of work that tries to outline those things in really accessible ways. And then by the end of the course, you'll have a really solid five to no longer than ten minute, pitch to share other people, and get them involved in whatever your idea is. So especially if you have an idea and you haven't been able to shape it or articulate it in a way that allows it to kind of live and be accessible by other people, this would be a really good course to, to help you move from, from A to B.

Alicia Granholm: Thank you so much for joining us today. You can learn more about our on demand course for starting new ministries on FaithLead. Org or through the link in the show notes for today's episode.

Michael Binder: Thanks for having me.

Dwight Zscheile: Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Pivot podcast. See you next week.

Faith+Lead: The Pivot podcast is a production of Luther Seminary's Faith lead. Faith lead is an ecosystem of theological resources and training designed to equip Christian disciples and leaders to follow God into a faithful future. Learn more at Faithlead.org.