The Best Stories and Series of the Movement all in One Place
An 8-part video series that goes deep into the Marks with Henry Kaestner and Pastor J.D. Greear.
Thriving
City Networks
Supporting Churches and Connecting Entrepreneurs and Investors Locally
God is Moving in Cities and Churches
We believe entrepreneurs and investors have the power to transform nations. We also believe that there are two doors God is opening with more opportunity than ever before.
CHURCH
The mission is to awaken new entrepreneurs to the potential of the marketplace, and there’s no greater concentration of entrepreneurs than those worshiping in local churches. The movement has struggled in the past to effectively partner with a church to awaken and connect them. We’ve often worked separately rather than together. But God is leading us towards unity. More pastors are talking about the importance of the marketplace. More people identify as entrepreneurs than ever before. The barriers of time and money are being cut through with high quality content and free resources. We want to breathe life into these sparks.
CITIES
Entrepreneurs care about where they live. We’re all becoming keenly aware of the opportunities for transformation in our cities. Never before have we been more aware of the role of local officials, business leaders to make a difference where we are. We can do more together than we can apart.
Starfishy
We love the book The Starfish and the Spider. The authors Brafman and Beckman contrast two organizational models: traditional “spiders,” which have a rigid hierarchy and top-down leadership, and revolutionary, decentralized “starfish,” which rely on the power of peer relationships that quickly multiply. Ultimately, the ideal is what they call a “Combo Special” that takes the best elements of both, giving loose structure yet with consistent alignment - something starfishy.
We think it speaks deeply to the mission of Faith Driven. We want to be “starfishy” and create a collection of local communities united by a common language and DNA. Our desire is to decentralize this conversation in cities and for those cities to decentralize it into groups meeting across the city. We love seeing this happen in both Churches and Cities.
As we step into it, what can we learn from the past?
Learning from History
What can we learn from the last 20 years? City conversations are not new. People have attempted to gather before. We’ve seen a few challenges.
Reaches the Reached - We’ve all been a part of city, regional, or national gatherings where we have the same staff or internal volunteers from marketplace ministries show up. These tend to fizzle out over time. New life and new people are needed for these to continue. Can City Networks be an umbrella of those in the movement and a ramp for new people? Our hope is to create both.
Event Ministry without Community - Too often the movement has gone from conference to conference with little authentic community in between events. We believe that a missing piece over the past 30 years has been easy access to a local community of people so that entrepreneurs can be fully known and sharpened . We love the fact that so many find those through C12, Convene, and other ministries. Our hope is that Faith Driven Entrepreneur Groups supplement that, creating easy first steps for people to try community and ongoing places for churches to host groups or people to gather online. But to be clear, we’re FOR community, wherever someone might find it.
3 Goals of a City Network
ACCELERATE
Connect entrepreneurs, investors, churches and organization in the movement to go further, faster together
ENCOURAGE
Tell the stories in person and on video to highlight what God is doing locally through the Faith Driven community
REINVIGORATE
Bring new life to existing groups that are lagging or entrepreneurs who are disconnected from community locally or in their church
Common Activities of a City Network
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GROUPS - A concentration of 5 or more Faith Driven Entrepreneur groups are meeting in a common geographic location leading to a shared language and desire to connect for the good of the city.
LEADERS - As God begins to fan the flame of Faith Driven Entrepreneurs in a city, leaders emerge who desire to grow the movement through creating more groups, strengthening those that already exist and managing regular in person meetup for entrepreneurs across the city.
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MEETUPS - City Networks host several citywide meetups each year for encouragement, mutual learning, and spotlighting work being done in the city.
STRONG KICKOFF TO EVERY YEAR - Host a watch party for Faith Driven Entrepreneur Live every September to kickoff a new season of groups
PROMOTE AND LAUNCH GROUPS - As City Network leaders introduce people to the conversation we want to share all the options for community including those hosted by friends like C-12, Convene and others, but recognize the vast majority of people need a free model as a first step. City Networks cast a vision for entrepreneurs to start a group in their church or connect with pastors in the city and cast a vision for their church to serve entrepreneurs. Many cities will also have Faith Driven Ambassadors who volunteer specifically to support the launch of new groups in the area.
SPOTLIGHT STORIES - One of the best ways to inspire others to make a difference is to champion those who are serving well. City Networks can spotlight stories at meetups, through social media or creating experiences for other Faith Driven Entrepreneurs to do site visits to companies in their area and learn from each other.
CONNECT DIFFERENT MINISTRIES - As a team of committed volunteer leaders who share a passion for connecting entrepreneurs for the transformation of their city, you will work together as a City Network team and in coordination with Ambassadors and Coaches to combine all local efforts of serving people connected to Faith Driven. At the same time, we want to introduce all of these new leaders to the movement and the different things they might get involved in. So a City Network should be connected to the other entrepreneurial ministries in a region like C12, Convene, NCF, etc. The Faith Driven Team will support this by creating a list of resources, customized to each city to list on the City Network page.
COMMUNICATE - The City Network team will stay connected with the Faith Driven team to ensure alignment of other opportunities for growth of the network. We’re always here to help and standby whenever we’re needed to connect. At a minimum we would hope that means connecting every 3-6 months on the City Networks calls.
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One potential result of a thriving City Network is the formation of an Angel Investors Network. This is an exciting development but one that needs to be approached with care and professionalism. We believe that connecting entrepreneurs and investors is an incredibly necessary part of a healthy ecosystem. If your network reaches this stage, we have some partners that have built and partnered with different investor groups that you can learn from.
A word of caution here as Licensed City Network partners cannot conduct their own pitch competitions and demo days without partnering with a registered entity or working in partnership with organizations like Lion’s Den and others that have tightened processes in place. The same is true for Angel Networks. These are established entities that need to follow clear processes and are not something to be run informally. Our team at Faith Driven is happy to connect you with other friends who have established both of these to discover ways people from your network might form an organization.