Developing a new ministry & business to support it

It's always been my vision to develop a christian recovery ministry that ministers to the whole man. While running a halfway house in wichita, I built a woodworking shop in a garage behind the house & taught wood working to the residents as I ministered to their spiritual lives. I truly believe God has given me 2 ideas to support both myself & ministry, & teach the residents I'm working with a trade. First though, type my username into your search window: getrealwithgod & you will find over 1,000 entries directly related to me personally. It's my first concept to launch a line of products using my user name: GRWG or GetRealWithGod the same way the WWJD? developed. The second is to build a small factory building picket fence panels of all sizes & types that bolt to a concrete footer & one another to form one continuous fence. With all of the new construction going on it should be no problem to sell these fence panels. Pray that God will raise up someone to believe in both my business concepts & my concept of ministry to back the work financially & be a partner in both.Waynegetrealwithgod

Wayne,I HAD to reply to your post. I am somewhat in the same 'area' you're in right now. I am looking at purchasing 38.09 acres in my area to be used just as you are describing, a place for making disciples of those the Lord saves off of the streets through the ministry He has me doing now (Open Arms Ministries, Inc.) and at the same time using woodworking (I've worked with wood my whole life and am planning to go through a local junior college's woodworking courses with the end of being able to train others as we disciple them) and gardening (to be sold at our local farmer's market every Tuesday). I know I'm rambling a bit, but would love to communicate with you more on your vision to do what you feel the Lord has placed on your heart.

Good to hear from you Bro. I've worked in about every kind of program you can name over the years, even secular, & I've come to realize only one thing works in recovery; establishing your own very real relationship with a very real God, & allowing that relationship to influence every area of your life. You always neesa storefront ministry somewhere to make contact with people who really want to get their lives back on track & headed where God wants it to go. You always want your residential recovery program somewhere else. You'll end up with another mission with a hot & a cot for bums who have no intention of getting there lives straightened out otherwise. You have to be wise as a serpent when you're dealing with these people to decide who's sincere & who's not. You have to know how to catch people off guard & get them involved in a normal conversation so you can see where their priorities are. It's never enough to just help them get a relationship started with God & send them back out into the streets. They need to be discipled & taught how to make it in the real world. They need to be relocated once their discipleship training is over. You never want to send them back out into the same streets again. There has to be a halfway house in still a third area somewhere. The best program is the one Jesus Himself set up. he never sent out one disciple to do anything. He always sent them out in twos to keep each other honest. The ideal setup would be three couples who feel the same call to do what the church is supposed to do themselves. Let one couple run each phase of the three step program, & let them have some kind of a business established to support themselves & their phase of the program. Eventually you would have @ least two couples involved together in each phase of this three step program. I'm expecting a financial miracle soon. Satan has hindered it, but someone is working to get this miracle released soon.

Wayne, I hear you, bro. I've been doin gthis for about 3 years now...1 and a half full time. I don't have a place (yet) and I couldn't agree more with what you said about becoming another mission just doing what so many are already doing. I believe God has us in a unique place in a unique time for a unique purpose. I have told my team from the beginning, "We aren't a humanitarian mission. We are desiring to provide a spiritual response to the the spiritual situation that is around us." Sure we help people as we feel the Lord leading us to, giving to him who asks because "Freely you have received, so freely give." But that is not the primary concern. The primary concern is one of the heart. Bottom LineMy vision is to have a place in the city (for Bible Studies, meetings, like you said, a store front to interact with people) and a place outside the city (the 38.09 acres I previously mentioned...It happens to be called 'Hope Ranch'...hmmm) for discipleship and then re-introducing them back into 'society' as productive members, thereby bieng an example to the city.Again, would continue to appreciate any feedback you could provide. And 'Amen' about the financial miracle. I don't have two pennies to rub together but I am convinced that this is the direction God is leading us and woke up the other morning (Saturday) with the assurance that God had it all worked out.

So you're in california then. I'm in the Texas panhandle right now. It's funny really because another minister prophesied to me that my final destiantion would be in rolling hilly country just like the country I'm in right now. It's a good place for a residential program because land is cheap out here. There are a few major cities within 100 miles of me in every direction too. The amazing thing is every other phase of the vision my friend saw for me has been fulfilled except this one; & it took someone stealing my home out from under me when my exwife died to get me here. My present wife & I are both from Baton rouge, La. here we are together again 900 miles from home. She was here when I got here. We hadn't seen each other since the 4th grade. Both of us are over 50. We found each other again in a church here, & she normally wouldn't have been @ that church. I'm praying hard because this fits the bill my friend gave me for my final destination to a T. he said id be living between a church house & a walled in or fenced in area in rolling hilly country. I haven't seen that place yet, but it well may be near here somewhere.

I did country gospel concerts in the streets & preached there for years myself. Met a lot of people during that time that really wanted to get their lives straightened out, but I couldn't get churches in my area interested in helping me start a ministry for them. They weren't interested in anything that wouldn't benefit their church.In fact, when I got several people involved in my church & had to leave to work in another program for a while, they ran them off. so much for the agape love of Jesus :-D

Brothers I understand the heart that yearns to get people saved and trained and being productive in society---being salt and light in life. Thats on the mark. BUT--- once you move over into a for profit buisness you'll just open yourself up for dissapointment and trouble.A buisness has to make a profit , even though its a christian buisness and should operate in christian principles , you'll have trouble and should keep the buisness aspect seperate from the ministry and the vocational aspect of this work.I could write a book from the hearts of many Godly buisnessmen as well as having been in buisness for myself for many years before going into ministry.At present I still have some buisness interests out there.To mix the two is a very serious mistake and seldom works. However if you start a buisness and the Lord prospers it and out of that buisness you fund a ministry that also provides vocational training thats do-able.Or if you start a ministry that has vocational retraining and seperate from the ministry you run a buisness that supports you and the ministry, Praise God. But never the two shall cross, too much conflict of interest.

Hey Dohzman,Appreciate all the input that's offered. I have a non-profit and am not looking to 'make' any money, just being obedient to what the Lord wants. Definitely appreciate your wise counsel and will take it into the closet. Pray for us as we seek the Lord and stay walking with Him, focused on Him and yoked together with Him in where we are and what He has allowed us to be used in. What a huge blessing you are, sharing your advice. Thanks, brother.Would really appreciate the family to lift up Open Arms as we are desiring to see God show Himself strong here in Escondido, Ca.

You can delete my membership here. I've heard enough. I've been actively involved in one form of street ministry or another for 25 years, & you can't get the support you need because believers won't obey God & help with any kind of work outside the church. If a street ministry is going to maintain the independence it needs to be totally successful for God's kingdom, then it has to be self supporting for that very reason, because believers won't obey God & support those works.Waynegetrealwithgod

Brother Wayne; I ministered on the streets for many years and ran a buisness (Construction) to provide for myself and the needs of my wife and growing family (4 in all- 2 sons and 2 daughters).During this time ,in my zeal, I would hire thoughs from the streets who had made committments to Jesus.I would train them and buy thier equipment , trucks ,hand tools or what ever they needed.Normally they needed to get drivers licenses and practical things like that but I invested the time and monies needed. The buisness end of my life barely made it as I walked in the knowledge of God's word I possessed. There are some people who God has his finger on and has gifted to do this,but they're the except rather than the rule, I couldn't seem to make it work. I would minister on the streets 2 or 3 times a week. I had no illusions to gaining support from the church (organized church). I went through your frustration with the church until I finially came to the point where I went to Jesus and cried out to him for help. This became my pattern of life until I came to a place of resting in him. I'm not against having a buisness and a ministry--- 2 seperate things (and both are ministry) but in the sense where you take someone from off the streets and give them a job in your own buisness as a means of the repentance/reform process. In my buisness dealings I made alot of buisnes contacts/friends who I could turn to and provide help in finding jobs for these people in need . NOW comes a HARD SAYING beause it can be taken wrong in the area of pratical helps -- for some people, they need to struggle inorder that thier confidence might rest in a God who Cares for them on a personall level and to help them would be like cheating them.I'm reminded of a stroy where a little girl who lived on a farm was in the hen house and saw a chick trying to break out of its shell and decided to help it , days later the chick died. The little girl asked her father why and he explained that inorder to live the chick had to develope the strength by breaking out of its shell,God made it that way.My dear Brother, don't be discouraged or angry , break out of the shell of thinking that an UNLIMITED GOD can only provide though the free will offerings of his church. I have some more to say but will refrane in doing so for now.Your Brother-Daryl

None other than Jesus Himself told us to be wise as serpents, & yet be as harmless as doves. Are you aware that the serpent represents Satan's kingdom in the Bible? We're to be as wise as Satan's people folks. Can you imagine the impact believers could have on the world around them if they banded together to form businesses that could compete with the secular world around them; businesses where the down line was not making a buck, but providing a better life for all believers? Can you imagine the impact we could have if those of us who have been involved in the construction trade for years banded together to form construction companies that could compete with secular companies around us? We could build christian communities with the profits with a drug free & violence free environement where believers could live @ an affordable price & in a christian environement. Could you imagine the impact those of us who are involved in computer related businesses could have on the world around us if we banded together to form our own businesses, using a lot of the profits to form powerful online ministries that would be a real tool for God's kingdom? The problem is, most of the church world has been conditioned to think like the world around us who would like to keep believers begging for scraps on their doorsteps. The original church in Acts was concerned about the body as a whole, a body that wholeheartedly took care of one another. There were those in the body then who had God given talents for making a lot of money who used that money to make sure all of the believers among them had a decent life.

Can you imagine the impact believers could have on the world around them if they banded together to form businesses that could compete with the secular world around them; businesses where the down line was not making a buck, but providing a better life for all believers? Can you imagine the impact we could have if those of us who have been involved in the construction trade for years banded together to form construction companies that could compete with secular companies around us?The original church in Acts was concerned about the body as a whole, a body that wholeheartedly took care of one another. There were those in the body then who had God given talents for making a lot of money who used that money to make sure all of the believers among them had a decent life.GRWGI was goint to stay out of this one, but the latter paragraph here has absolutely no scriptural evidence for it.

and toward the main topic of the thread I firmly believe that ministry does NOT need business to fund it but rather if the call of God is there to start the ministry God will supply the need. The person involved with ministry must have his/her entire heart and devotion in that cause.I think you are right here Greg. There are some things much better kept separate; church and state, church and business... church and just about anything that isn't church.

This refers to the believers walk in the area of fulfilling the great commission. Not in buisness. The problem with your idea is that the original intention of God was to make His presence available everywhere and for that to happen ,"we chistians" need to be salt and light in the world.Jesus even prayed that way for us ; note Jn 17:15 . I often think that the reason there was 12 tribes--13-- was because God was trying to let us know that even under the New Covenant the church would be splintered into different extremes and factions. The early church was a responsive church to the needs of the people around them both in and out of the body of believers. I see that today in many churches and home fellowships. But to restate my earlier post-to use buisness as part of the repentance/reform process in the life of a new believer is a mistake. Best to just get new believers active in some ministry to the community where they can have both accountability and mentorship (discipleship) built into thier lives.