Faithventure Forum

If you didn't realize it yet, the social media revolution is here. Opportunities abound for the creation of new business ventures and social enterprise solutions to the worlds biggest problems. Watch this video and be inspired: Thanks to Jeff Cornwall of The Entrepreneurial Mind and his colleague Jennie Bowman for passing this along.

A few summers ago, I had the privilege to travel to San Diego with my family. We decided to try something different and camp out along Mission Bay to recapture a sense of the Mexico beach camping trips of my youth. But camping in the heart of San Diego is far from the experience of camping in Colorado. You are camping with In-N-Out Burger just around the corner and you are never far from a Starbucks. Every morning, I succumbed to the need for a really good cup of coffee. And dinner often found us having the best hamburger, fry and shake. It was one of the best camping trips ever. Now, if we could only talk In-N-Out Burger into opening in Colorado. One morning while waiting in line at Starbucks, I noticed the t-shirt on the man in front of me. In a bid to market his business, his shirt announced to the world that he worked for the Never When the Surf is Up Carpentry Company. On that morning, presumably, the surf wasn’t up or even surf must wait for Starbucks. But after seeing hi

I'm excited to be presenting a workshop on Business as Mission with Rudy Carrasco of Partner's Worldwide this Thursday, October 22nd at 3pm at the Christian Community Development Association conference in Cincinnati, Ohio. If you're in the area, come learn about this growing movement of entrepreneurial followers of Christ. Here's the details from the conference brochure: The Business as Mission movement is growing around the world. Also known as “business as ministry” and “business as a calling,” this movement is an Issue at the 2010 Lausanne Congress in Cape Town. This CCDA BAM workshop will provide an introduction to business as mission (BAM 101) and include presentations of a domestic model (Belay Enterprises) and an international model (Partners Worldwide). The workshop will be co-led by James Reiner and Rudy Carrasco. Reiner is the executive director of Belay Enterprises in Denver, Colo. Carrasco is a CCDA Advisory Board member, served for 19 years at Harambee Chri

I am very excited for the faith venture Second Chance Coffee Company which received a great boost of publicity from the Chicago Tribune yesterday. We profiled this boutique coffee roasting business with a commitment to hiring ex-offenders 2 months ago here in the Faithventure Forum. I am hoping the Chicago Tribune's publicity will help them grow and expand into Colorado in the near future! Neat guys with big hearts and a great idea. And for loyal readers of this blog, there's a special 10% discount offer for orders placed before October 31, 2009. Just go to the web site and enter the coupon code Da1-5570. I am hoping that churches in Colorado and throughout the country will support ex-offenders rebuilding lives in an innovative program by purchasing coffee at www.ihaveabean.com . Not only is it a good cause...it's super tasty coffee. Chicago Tribune : Grounds for Optismism In 2007, three Wheaton men, Pete Leonard, Ron deVries and Dave Scavotto, met for their weekly br

I have a friend who sometimes stops to help motorists stranded on the side of the road. He carries enough tools in his car to handle basic roadside mechanical issues. And if he can’t solve the problem, he assists them in finding help. Somewhere in his time with the stranded motorists, he always mentions, “If you had known me ten years ago, I would have never helped you.” That statement always draws an inquisitive question, “What do you mean you would have never helped me?” My friend then shares how a decade ago he was addicted to drugs and alcohol. He was only interested in his own selfish pleasure and goals. “I wouldn’t have even noticed you stuck on the side of the road. But then I met Jesus and things could never be the same.” He tells how God cared for him when his own life was broken down on the side of the road. And now he wants to share that love with others. I thought of my friend’s roadside activities as we explored the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5:16-26. This particu

By nature, Bud’s Warehouse is a chaotic place on several levels. As a faith venture, we hire individuals rebuilding lives from felony convictions, homelessness, and addiction. Individuals in these circumstances often are dealing with messy lives. Messy lives breed chaos. As a home improvement thrift store, Bud’s Warehouse also experiences chaos as a business. We rely on the donation of building materials for the supply of items to sell. Such a stream is never steady and easy to predict. Last week, we finally achieved some order in our back yard only to learn that a big load of composite decking is arriving in the next few days. The next day 200 windows unexpectedly showed up. We constantly fight the battle of the mess. When we are winning and getting organized that often means we are not finding as many donations as we would hope. When we are losing, it declares we are being blessed with an abundance of new donations. Fortunately, our customers are very understanding. In fact, they get

I am excited to be attending the Partners Worldwide summit later this week in Grand Rapids, Michigan. For the last several years, I've watched in fascination as this organization has grown and advocated cross-cultural business partnerships. Partners does on a global scale what Belay Enterprises has attempted to do domestically on a local scale. I am looking forward to meeting business people who are passionate about helping disadvantaged communities. I suspect I will have many stories of international faith ventures to share upon my return. In the meanwhile, watch the following video on Partners Worldwide to learn more about this great organization:

Over the last 10 years, I can count on one hand the number of times a Bud’s Warehouse program participant has worked with a parole officer that cared about their success. Most of the time, our staff members participate in a frustrating bureaucratic process where an over-worked parole officer just seeks to manage problems and enforce punishment for the breaking of rules. It’s a system where there is no pro-active problem solving and an assumption that parolees are destined to fail with very little chance of successful rehabilitation. This reality was driven home again this week with the imminent return to prison of one of our more successful program participants. After several years in prison, he reentered society through a half-way home and a job at Bud’s Warehouse. Over the course of a year, he made a successful transition from the half-way home into his own place and shined in our job-training program. But even with all of this success, he struggled with a poor relationship with hi

American society finds it difficult to give felony offenders a second chance in the area of employment after they are released from jail. Business insurance requirements and owner liability concerns make it difficult for businesses to hire individuals with felonies. Yet, the post-incarceration success of offenders is directly related to their ability to secure employment. At Belay Enterprises , we’ve had success placing non-violent felony offenders into real jobs in the community after they’ve completed 6 months to one year in one of our employment training businesses. Private businesses are willing to hire offenders after they’ve proven themselves with an employment history and the successful completion of a program. But for offenders with a violent felony offense, future employment opportunities are almost completely nonexistent. This is the case even though, in our experience, there are significant degrees of variance in the seriousness of violent offenses. For instance, running int