It is my thorough honor and pleasure to partner with the vulnerable to not just ensure their survival and thriving, but to link arms together and brings pieces of heaven to earth. In obvious ways, this includes my work with survivors of clergy sexual abuse through Hagar’s Voice and my volunteer work with Kinbrace as part of the live-in host community providing a safe place for refugees. But it also includes my work with Boundless Enterprise – an incubator for nonprofits working at the intersection of faith and justice.
As an organization that empowers folks passionate about the living, breathing body of Jesus (the Church) bringing peace and vitality for all, we find ourselves often partnering with entrepreneurs who developed that passion in the margins. And, thus, they are innovating paths forward in this moment that are off the beaten path, without traditional funding sources to rely upon, and even without the collective imagination to see what they can envision. These entrepreneurs step out in vulnerability to forge new paths & it is the joy of my life to partner with them in the overwhelming, scary and uncertain start-up waters.
My title might be Operations because I help these incubating initiatives develop healthy, sustainable systems, but in doing this work I have discovered it utilizes the same parts of my heart and passions as my previous pastoral roles. And the innovative, path-forging ways of these nonprofit entrepreneurs means that I find myself in a position much like my childhood dreams imagined: missionary. And just like my heroes have before me, I find myself looking to the established church to catch a vision and heart for places unknown so that through their generosity it’s possible for us to ‘go’ there.
