<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zYzDGyXLhj8?rel=0&showinfo=0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The Stone Table: Maximize Your Dollars
In August 2015, four pastors and 6 businessmen traveled to East Africa and the Arab World. We wanted to give The Stone Table a trial run of sorts. What could we do for missions if we worked together?
The experiment was simple enough:
The Stone Table committed $175,000 in matching funds from its partner business, Community Reinvestment Foundation, and the pastors and businessmen accepted the challenge of raising the remainder of a $350,000 budget.
But for what, you ask?
Together, we hoped to underwrite five LiveDead missional business church plants throughout East Africa and the Middle East. These highly relational, fully functional businesses are aimed at meeting specific needs in their local communities.
- English schools
- Medical Clinics
- Tourism Companies
- Crossfit Gyms
They offer employment opportunities for locals, provide stimulus for the economy, and even become financially self-sustaining operations.
Yet all while, these missional businesses are also strategically and intentionally planting the church among an unreached people group in areas of the world where the church cannot be planted through traditional methods.
After returning home, the pastors met regularly throughout the fall, worked together on scripting the stories and experiences they had just shared, crafted a common sermon series, and cast the same vision to their separate congregations over a 3-week period around the holidays. The results were astounding!
Not only was our fundraising goal met, it was exceeded! One of our coalition church partners doubled their largest offering ever! An additional LiveDead missional church planting project had to be added in order to handle the $30,000 overflow.
If you’re a pastor, entrepreneur, or business leader, The Stone Table is inviting you into a story just like this one. We can maximize our giving dollars if we work together in creative ways. The whole really can be greater than the sum of its parts, and the Gospel really can be preached to the Ends of the Earth.
Erik Cooper
After starting his career in the business world, Erik spent 12 years in full-time ministry, both on staff at a large suburban church and as a church planter in a downtown urban context. In addition to his role at The Stone Table, he also serves as the Vice President of Community Reinvestment Foundation, a nonprofit real estate company that provides high-quality affordable housing all over Indiana while investing its profits into missions through The Stone Table.
