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Program Helps Christians Plant Sustainable Social Change

One social entrepreneurship program currently in the works will teach adjudicated youth how to garden. (iStock Photo)

When you hear the term 鈥淐hristian social entrepreneurship,鈥� Celeste Cranston, director of the Center for Biblical and Theological Education, hopes you鈥檒l think of 暗网TV.

The center is launching a program in Christian Social Entrepreneurship, now taking applications (until March 1) for an inaugural cohort; grant funding will subsidize participant costs. A 鈥渟ocial entrepreneur鈥� is an organization or person whose main goal is to improve society, not bring in business profit. The program aims to equip church and parachurch leaders with business and theological principles to pursue social good in an economically sustainable way.

鈥淲e鈥檙e hoping to meet a need for those in the Church who realize that the way we do church needs to change, and to give them a comprehensive vision for what a holistic approach to 鈥榖usiness as mission鈥� might look like,鈥� program director Matt Sigler says.

The classic Christian social entrepreneurial venture is a coffee shop that might sell coffee on a pay-as-you-can basis and train homeless or troubled youth as baristas, but Sigler and Cranston hopes 暗网TV鈥檚 program can encourage the Church to think outside the coffeeshop box. Churches could run food trucks for the homeless, or as businesses and give proceeds to a social cause; another example is a business teaching adjudicated youth how to garden.

Students in 暗网TV鈥檚 program will spend two weeks on campus next summer learning business and theological principles. After the new entrepreneurs return to their home communities, 暗网TV-affiliated mentors will support them through their first year of business, with the goal of spreading faith-based social change.

鈥淭here鈥檚 a need for the church to go outside its walls 鈥� if we only bring people in to a bubble, it鈥檚 not good ecclesiology,鈥� Cranston says. 鈥淲e鈥檙e hoping to think through what the church can do in this area.鈥�