“When a Church Matches Missions with Entrepreneurship”

When Pastor Daniel Harrell unexpectedly received around $2 million from a land sale in his business, the first thing he thought of was to use 20% of these funds and put it to his passion of being a missionary. At first, he didn’t know what to do with all this money, and how to put it to use in the missions field, while still being personally involved. He could have just written checks and sent them out, never to be a factor in what the money was used for; but he finally decided how to use the agreed upon $250,000.

After finding 139 candidates and six selected “proteges” to fund, Pastor Harrell set up a social entrepreneurship competition. There was a wide range of non-profit and for-profit ideas being pitched, spanning from “church-school partnership programs,” to “sex trafficking prevention” ideas. These ideas all had their own unique ways to continue and expand God’s mission in the world, however, the social aspect of entrepreneurship is what they wanted to focus on.

This was proven to be a good way to expand redemptive entrepreneurship, whether he knew he was impacting the business world in that way or not. As a pastor, his primary purpose was to be able to spread God’s word through the business field. All the ideas created and pitched were all created for a cause that meant something to someone. It was not just to make money, but it was to make an impact and help change the world through God’s eyes. Innové forced people to really think about what they wanted to start as a social enterprise, and the results were remarkable.

Innové brought people that wanted nothing but to serve God and to share the gospel through social entrepreneurship. The $250,000 put to use in this competition brought together people of all different specialties with all different talents to glorify God through business.

https://blog.acton.org/archives/61292-matching-missions-entrepreneurship.html