Starting from Zero with $0: Building Mission-Shaped Ministries on a Shoestring

by Becky Garrison

Churches everywhere are suffering from draconian funding cuts, so how do leaders with a heart for alternative ministries fund their passion and build communities that will last? Journalist and commentator Becky Garrison looks deep into the experience of nearly a dozen ministries in the United States and United Kingdom -- all of them geared to the growing spiritual-but-not-religious demographic, and all of them highly creative venues doing a lot with a little money. How did these ministries start from zero with $0? And how could you?

168 pages, Paperback

Published September 1, 2010

About the author

Since my upside down birth, I've always viewed life from a singular perspective. "Becky only you would think that way" is a common statement made by friends and relatives alike. My quest to explore my creative spirit took me to Wake Forest University where I received a BA in Theatre Arts. Later, I enrolled at Yale/Columbia universities where I received a dual MSW/MDiv degree, where I began to take my childhood ramblings as a writer seriously. .

While I wrote my first play, an anti-Nixon rant at the age of 9, I did not call myself a "writer" until I sold my first article in 1994 to the Wittenburg Door, the nation's largest, oldest and only religious satire magazine. I continued to write for this outlet until they closed shop in 2008, rising to the position of Senior Contributing Editor.

My most recent book Roger Williams’ Little Book of Virtues will be published by Wipf & Stock. This is a part-memoir, part historical account that speaks to those concerned a politicized form of US based Christianity that enforces its will via governmental intervention. In particular, what can contemporary seekers like me learn from my ancestor’s life and ministry as this pioneer of religious liberty left the institutionalized church but continued his quest for truth and justice for all?

My other six books include Red and Blue God, Black and Blue Church (Jossey Bass, PW starred review), as well as contributing essays to a dozen other books and co-editing a book for a small transgender press. Also, for twelve years I served as the Senior Contributing Editor for The Wittenburg Door, the nation's oldest, largest and only religious satire magazine. Additional writing credits include 52 Perfect Days, American Atheist magazine, Epicure & Culture, GrokNation, The Guardian belief section, Hub Pages, The Humanist, The Kind, Northwest Travel & Life, The Revealer, Perceptive Travel, Travelhoppers, Advocate.com, Magnetic Magazine, On Faith blog, and Oregon Coast.

Reviews

[Alex Long · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was not terribly helpful. The introduction gives useful insights about the British Anglican church's work on innovative ministry structures, and I appreciated learning the concept of a "mixed economy church."
But the programs highlighted were all very similar, and I would have liked more details about the business and financial models.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Affiliation with mainline institutional churches has been steadily declining for several decades. From the churches' perspective, this constitutes a crisis of sufficient import to actually prompt change in institutions which are loathe to change. There is no shortage of prophets ready to explain how the church needs to be remodeled, reinvented or reimagined. The problem is that so few of them agree with one another. Becky Garrison has written a book in which she samples some efforts to create... (show more)