faithworks.com

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

For Laura Ayala, ministry means 'getting things done'
- By Daniel Pryfogle

You're a social entrepreneur and you want to create an employment opportunity for a disabled man with a keen mind but limited mobility, a man the government has written off as unemployable. You need to think outside the box.

In this case, the answer is in the box - the mailbox.

Mailboxes are the business of Community Office and Mail Inc., a new venture headed by 31-year-old Laura Ayala of Caguas, Puerto Rico.

Ayala felt called to ministry as a teenager. She knew it was a different kind of calling - it was not to be a pastor - but she didn't know what God had in mind for her. Ayala's path led to theological studies at Drew University in New Jersey. A wise mentor, sensing Ayala's gifts and passion, steered her toward nonprofit work. She eventually returned to her hometown of Caguas, at the invitation of her pastor, to build a nonprofit community ministry from the ground up.

Over the past five years, Corporacion Milagros del Amor ("Miracles of Love") has served hundreds of people through emergency food, housing assistance, advocacy for adults with disabilities, and training for women to launch their own businesses.

Ayala, who is completing an MBA at the University of Turabo, saw a need to engage the marketplace, to create rather than simply critique the economy. "I'm more into how to do things and getting things done," she says.

Along with a small group of American Baptist leaders, Ayala traveled to Seattle in 2001 to attend the National Gathering for Social Entrepreneurs. The experience of seeing nonprofit leaders use business to transform lives was a great affirmation for Ayala. "I realized I wasn't as crazy as I thought," she says.

Back in Puerto Rico she dreamed of a business that would employ her disabled client Victor. "He wants to work," she says. But the social service officials thought Victor was a hopeless case.

One morning Ayala asked her staff to pray. That very afternoon, a woman came to the organization with a gift. Unable to manage her mailbox business because of illness, she offered it to Milagros del Amor.

"Not only was the prayer answered," Ayala says, "but Victor had a job."

Once it becomes fully operational this summer, Community Office and Mail will offer shipping, fax, copy and translation services. The business will provide paid employment for Victor and three others while it generates income for the other activities of Milagros del Amor.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

A generation gets down to business
Coming of age as latch-key kids in a world of unraveling institutions, Gen-Xers had to figure out how to make it on their own
- By Daniel Pryfogle

I've just visited a Christian community center in Anadarko, Okla., called the "Indian Capital of the Nation." As I drive out of this town of high unemployment, broken families and generational despair, my mind shifts into high gear.

I'm not fashioning a fiery sermon. I'm not thinking of public policy. I don't imagine existing institutions solving this situation. Instead, I've got business on my mind. I'm wondering how hope can break into Anardarko through enterprise.

Why do I think this way? I don't think it's my bachelor's degree in English, my seminary degree or a lifetime of Sunday school. These seem unlikely sources for my commercial inclination. William Strauss and Neil Howe chalk it up to my generation.

Generation X is predisposed to be entrepreneurs, the two authors say. "In jobs, they embrace risk and prefer free agency over loyal corporatism," Strauss and Howe argue in their 1997 book The Fourth Turning.

Coming of age as latch-key kids in a world of culture wars and unraveling institutions, we Xers had to figure out how to make it on our own. Our passage to adulthood, say Strauss and Howe, nurtured in us a streetwise, pragmatic sensibility. We have a propensity to mix it up, to make use of whatever social and cultural tools are at hand to carve out a life. We might even use business to bring about justice.

And the likes of us have been seen before, say Strauss and Howe. They identify Gen-Xers as Nomads, one of four generational archetypes that have appeared every 80 to 100 years since medieval times. Earlier Nomad generations produced swashbuckling pirates in the 1600s and the tycoons of the American frontier.

Strauss and Howe's archetypes are: Heroes, like the G.I generation, which the authors identify as those born between 1901and 1924; Artists, like the Silent generation, born 1925-1942; Prophets, like the Boomers, born 1943-1960; and Nomads, like Gen-Xers, born 1961-1981. Now the Heroes are returning, say Strauss and Howe, in the Millennials, born since 1982.

Strauss and Howe's argument is generalization on a grand scale, yet fascinating and telling. Artists are sensitive, process-oriented managers - bureaucrats. Prophets are passionate communicators of strong moral convictions - preachers and political pundits. Heroes are soldiers in times of crisis, then builders of civic institutions.

Where else in history have Nomads appeared? In the 1500s the Nomads were "swaggering merchants, mercenaries, spies and sea-dog privateers who pulled off stunning reprisals through luck and pluck," Strauss and Howe say.

Following the Puritan Awakening in the mid-1600s, Nomads were the Cavalier Generation, "the most renowned merchants, trappers, mercenaries, rebels and pirates of their century."

As the Gilded Generation (born 1822-1842), with names like Rockefeller and Carnegie, Nomads sought their fortunes on the American frontier. As the Lost Generation (born 1883-1900), they were the barnstormers, gangsters and celebrities that "gave the roar to the 1920s."

In the 1990s, Nomads returned as Gen-Xers to chase the boom on the tech frontier. Yet our wandering spirit, a hunger for something more, was evident even before the boom went bust.

In 1999 Christen Hokenstad gave up a good job with Ernst & Young to pursue theological studies at Harvard, where she concentrated in business and ethics. That same year, I left an ad agency to start my own consulting practice, working with nonprofits and faith-based organizations.

Around the world our peers are enrolling in MBA programs emphasizing social enterprise. Many are forming networks that serve as support groups for emerging nonprofit leaders trying to inject new approaches into old structures. And the tech bust has not diminished our fascination with the start-up - particularly the mission-driven start-up.

Hokenstad, 30, sought a way to combine an interest in justice, nurtured by her California Presbyterian congregation, with her skill in business. "I've always had this duality going on," says Hokenstad, who now lives in Brazil doing research on corporate social responsibility for Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

Justice and business. This blending of divergent passions, perhaps an odd combination to some, comes naturally for my generation. For some of us, this combination is our calling.

back to archives

back home

View related group tools...
Teacher/Leader Discussion Guide
Pastors' Bytes

Prophets of profit

A growing number of young Christians are starting businesses as a way to build the Kingdom

By Daniel Pryfogle

Social entrepreneur. The two words seem oxymoronic. Combining social activism with capitalism makes for an odd juxtaposition. Add faith to the mix and it gets even messier.
But look around. Former addicts are launching a staffing business in Northern California. Captives are set free in Seattle to build cargo bays for Boeing. In Houston the Golden Arches are raised just under a cross to provide employment to at-risk youth.

A growing number of young Christians are starting businesses as a way to build the kingdom - using profits for a prophetic cause. They are not afraid to mix the sacred and the secular. They eschew the liberal retreat into pure principals and the conservative reflex to otherworldly piety. In the name of Christ, they are getting down to business.

In San Francisco, Golden Gate Community Inc. is a community development corporation started by a Church of the Nazarene congregation. GGCI operates three social enterprises in San Francisco -- Ashbury Images, ascreen print shop that makes T-shirts for nonprofits and for-profit companies; Einstein's Café, a hip eaterythat serves up generous sandwiches and salads; and Pedal Revolution, a bicycle shop most popular among San Francisco's alternative crowd and bike messengers.

All three businesses employ at-risk youth and young adults. Some have been homeless. Others are recovering from drug or alcohol addictions. GGCI also operates a shelter for women and children. During the day, volunteers from the Nazarene church provide child care while the mothers work in GGCI's businesses.

Randy Newcomb, the 43-year-old ordained executive director of GGCI, says he never felt the "rescue mission" approach was right for the organization - hold out the carrot stick of a meal in exchange for an hour of evangelization. Two things make a difference, Newcomb says: "You have to be influential and you have to be present."

Newcomb, a graduate of Fuller Theological Seminary who earned a master's in economics from the University of Bath in England, says he came to believe in Jesus because he had relationships with people who influenced him. So he expects his staff to be in mentoring relationships with program participants. Program participants are invited but not required to take part in small groups convened by the church.

Every day, in small and gracious ways, the people of Golden Gate Community are literally working out their salvation, turning their lives around as they toss salads and tune up bikes.

Venture philanthropy

Melinda Tuan of Honolulu heard the call to become a social entrepreneur in the mid-1980s. Sociologist and evangelist Tony Campolo spoke at her Presbyterian church. She was sitting in the front row, an earnest teenager soaking up the evangelist's message of God's kingdom. Campolo's advice, delivered in his trademark shake-you-up style, was direct: Go to college. Get a degree. Get involved with the poor. Change the world.

Tuan did go to college -- Harvard undergrad and Stanford MBA. Now 34, she is managing director of the Roberts Enterprise Development Fund, a San Francisco foundation that "invests" in a number of Bay Area nonprofit organizations, including Golden Gate Community.

The foundation is like a venture capital firm but with a twist called "venture philanthropy." REDF helps nonprofits launch new businesses that have dual bottom lines - money and ministry. The businesses have a passion to help people on the margins and the management savvy to turn a profit. As Tuan's e-mail tagline preaches, it's "capitalism for a cause."

"The good news of Christ is about hope - hope for a life after this, hope for a better life, hope in something that will last throughout eternity, no matter what your circumstances are today," Tuan says. "In a small, indirect way, what I'm doing at REDF is about giving people who don't have a lot of resources hope for their lives and encouraging those with resources to invest more of their time and money toward caring for the needs of others."

Like a growing number of her Gen X peers, Tuan is building the kingdom of God outside the walls of the church. They're doing it through enterprising nonprofits, socially responsible corporations, emerging churches and missional communities.
Social entrepreneurs are mixing it up all over the planet. In New York, formerly homeless adults run a bakery. In India, a company manufactures affordable lenses for cataract patients living in poverty. In Brazil, a cooperative of migrant women, working with donated and recycled materials, sew unique designs for the high-fashion runways of the world.

A matter of justice

Narrowly defined, social enterprise is about starting ventures that generate income for nonprofits. In some cases, the business provides employment for the nonprofit's clientele. The traditional soup kitchen is replaced by a restaurant where the hungry are fed and employed.

For others, social enterprise is a way of being. It's about taking risks on behalf of a community and leveraging whatever resources are available to creatively address a social need.

Not all social entrepreneurs are Christians. But when you add in the faith element, the social entrepreneur becomes a prophet with a passion for critique and construction.

Mixing faith and enterprise is "a matter of justice," explains Laura Ayala, 31, executive director of a church-based nonprofit in Puerto Rico. Ayala's organization is launching a mailbox business that will employ several people, including a 29-year-old disabled man whom the government deemed unemployable. "It's a matter of having resources available for everyone who needs it," Ayala says.

Tony Campolo made a prescient move 20 years ago when he started a faith-based economic development program at Eastern University. Today the Campolo School for Social Change in Philadelphia offers a variety of master's degrees, including a degree in urban economic development. Students come from around the world. One is setting up a sustainable marketplace in the nation of Montenegro. Another is pursuing an innovative development project in Ghana.

Jesse Johnson, 26, is completing a master of divinity degree and an MBA at Eastern. Pastoral ministry had some appeal for Johnson, but he wanted a "farther reach." Being a "holy man" disconnected from culture doesn't suit him, he says.

Johnson says it is responsibility of Christians "to enter into the secular and engage it with God's grace and God's love." His approach is rooted in a belief that "all of creation is God's and we are co-creators in his creation."

Artificial divides

Advocates of social enterprise may find an eager audience and ready army among Generation X.

Johnson and other Gen-Xers are not content with old categories and loyalties. They are holistic and eclectic, so they have little patience for the artificial divisions created by theology, social status and culture.

Many Christians tend to divide the spiritual realm from the social, creating a chasm between Sunday worship and Monday workplace, between the Temple and the town square. While some Christians embrace capitalism uncritically, others reject the free-market system as contrary to Christ's teaching -- although they still participate in the economy and enjoy its benefits. But most Christians are probably ambivalent about the morality of the marketplace.

Separating the spiritual and the social realms leads some Christians to exhibit an "aloofness, even naivete," about what's going on in the real, messy world, Jesse Johnson says.

But not Gen-X social entrepreneurs. They want to stand in the gap as bridge-builders and cultural translators.

Nathan Corbitt, who teaches at the Campolo School for Social Change, sees a growing number of young people committed to innovating to make a difference. But that impetus is not coming from churches, he notes. "It is coming from Christians who maybe feel like the church is irrelevant."

Corbitt, associate dean for research and development and professor of cross-cultural studies has been studying young Christian artists who are mixing art and faith to transform their communities. Corbitt and colleague Vivian Nix-Early, dean of the Campolo School, have written a book about the phemenon, Taking It to the Streets, due out later this year.

They profile such leaders as Rudy Carrasco, associate director of Harambee Christian Family Center in Pasadena, Calif., which started a neighborhood film school to train young Latinos and African-Americans. Anne Ostholthoff, a former advertising executive, launched Creating Pride, a nonprofit in Atlanta and Chicago serving over 13,000 children and more than 600 teachers through arts training and a corporate art program.

Among these young entrepreneurial leaders, Corbitt sees more emphasis on "horizontal theology" -- using God-given talents to serve others -- than "vertical theology." It's about "participating in what God is doing in the world right now," he adds.

Young entrepreneurs dream holy and ambitious dreams - big ideas for a big Kingdom. They feel the pull of adventure, the attraction of risk. They want to play the odds alongside a God who gambles on underdogs.

But they hear little encouragement to run this way. There are few models and even fewer mentors, especially in the church. So we have to find our own way.

Neal Johnson, a professor at Fuller Seminary and Biola University in Southern California, says "a guilt trip" has been laid on Gen-X Christians for these seemingly contradictory aspirations of faith and business. Among his young students, Johnson notes, a weight is lifted off their shoulders when they discover that faith and enterprise can be integrated.

"It's very validating," he says.

Messy people

Jesus called the risk-takers, the tax men, the fishermen. He called all sorts of messy folks. But he didn't call them out of the real world. They didn't form a monastic community. There were ideological parties they could have joined. There were partisan politics they could have played. There were fantasies of force they could have bought into.

Instead they got down and dirty -- in the fields, in the water, in the village square. Wherever life was lived. Wherever people breathed through dust and sweat and sought salvation.

That's still our world.

- Daniel Pryfogle is a writer, preacher and principal of Signal Hill a consulting company, based in Cary, N.C. (Daniel@signalhillspot.com)