Pastor Mike unlocked the front door to his church café at 6 a.m., grateful for the aroma of fresh coffee that filled the air. As he flipped the sign to OPEN, he couldn’t help but smile. This small café—once just an idea scribbled on a napkin—now paid for the church’s youth ministry, local outreach and mission trips. It had transformed not only their finances but their sense of purpose. For Pastor Mike and his congregation, this wasn’t just a café; it was a lifeline to the community—a place where conversations about faith flowed as freely as the espresso.
It also was an answer to prayer. Mike had spent many late nights asking God, How do we keep the lights on? How do we keep serving our people when giving is down? Like so many pastors today, he felt the tension between ministry and money, between calling and reality. The café was his step of faith, his yes to God’s challenge to think differently.
A New Approach
The biblical model of relying solely on tithes and offerings no longer works for many churches. The troubling reality is that over 15,000 churches in America are expected to close their doors this year. Behind every statistic is a congregation, a pastor and a community left searching for hope. The challenges are real: declining attendance, shifting giving patterns, and cultural changes that have made sustaining ministry harder than ever.
But underneath every challenge is also an opportunity. A growing number of innovative churches are getting proactive and flipping the script. Instead of just surviving, they’re thriving—launching cafés, co-working spaces, thrift stores, day cares and other creative, missional businesses that bless their communities while fueling their ministries. Church leaders are thinking like entrepreneurs and transforming their church spaces into engines of mission and sustainability.
Missional businesses offer a chance to transform empty spaces into vibrant community hubs while creating sustainable income streams to keep the doors of the church open.
Beyond Tithes and Offerings
The urgency of this issue for the church is personal to me. Not once, but three different times in my ministry career I’ve been called into a meeting where the pastor or board explained that due to finances—not because of any wrongdoing—I no longer had a position. I’ve had to pack up my office, say goodbye to colleagues I loved, and move somewhere unknown. I’ve had to sit across the table from my wife each time and tell her, “I lost my job today.”
Those moments of heartache helped me realize that frequently the financial model for churches is a challenge. We are relying solely on tithes and offerings—on Sunday mornings—while the rest of the week our buildings sit empty. So, I started asking, What if we could do more? What if our churches could serve their communities every day of the week? What if we could create income streams that blessed our cities and funded ministry?
Inspired by these simple questions and curious if I could make this new model work, I convinced my church to make a deal with AT&T: We’d let them put a cell phone tower on the back part of our parking lot, and in return we’d receive a monthly payment that helped support our ministry. That was in 2000.
In 2007, my church in Dallas created a café with free Wi-Fi and comfortable seating for local business leaders and congregants to gather, work, study and hold meetings.
In 2011, while pastoring in Missouri, I got creative again: We installed an ice machine in our church parking lot. People would drive up and pay for bags of ice. The revenue from that ice machine paid for my youth pastor’s salary. I call that creative financing—and it worked.
Today, as the tide continues to turn for how churches are funded, I’m convinced more than ever that we need to embrace this kind of creative thinking. I’m not just talking about missional businesses for the sake of income. I’m talking about ministry that empowers churches to stay on mission—and succeed. Churches have incredible assets—buildings, creativity, networks and passion—that can be leveraged to reach their communities in practical, sustainable ways. Entrepreneurship is the new outreach of the local church.
Why It Matters
The rise of missional businesses is a kingdom opportunity. It can also help in financial struggles. It’s about the church stepping into its God-given role as salt and light in the community throughout the week.
Jesus didn’t just preach; he walked among the people, meeting needs and building relationships. We are told that Jesus was a carpenter and was no stranger to marketplace ministry. Paul, the greatest church planter in history, funded his ministry by making tents—modeling what we now call bi-vocational or co-vocational ministry. These examples aren’t footnotes in the New Testament; they’re blueprints for what’s possible today.
We’re living in a time when the church is being challenged to innovate, to reach people in fresh, authentic ways while stewarding its resources wisely. Entrepreneurial church models allow churches to step outside the walls of Sunday services and meet people where they live, work and gather. They open doors to relationships that lead to discipleship. They create spaces for people who might never set foot in a sanctuary to encounter the love of Christ.
I’ll never forget hearing Andy Stanley challenge leaders at the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta by saying that the largest owner of real estate in America is the church. That quote stuck with me for over a decade, and I once said to a friend that there should be training for pastors to learn how to build and run a business. It’s time for that training.
Stories of Impact
Across the country, churches are capturing this vision and transforming underused spaces and innovative ideas into missional businesses that impact their communities while funding their ministries. Here are just a few examples:
• Access Church in Lakeland, Florida, launched Radiant Printing, a missional business that prints everything from banners to bulletins. The revenue supports the church’s local and global missions while serving the “big C” church’s printing needs.
• Church Project in The Woodlands, Texas, rents out its facility daily for concerts, classes and community events, allowing the church to be mortgage-neutral and invest in ministry.
• St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Huntersville, North Carolina, transformed its property into The Rafters, a wedding and event venue that generates income to sustain outreach programs.
• Mosaic Church of Central Arkansas in Little Rock, Arkansas, runs multiple missional businesses, including a medical clinic and job-training initiatives that empower local families.
• Crossover Church in Tampa, Florida, created an entrepreneur outreach with a Shark Tank pitch night and a conference that brings business leaders together in faith-driven inspiration.
• National Community Church in Washington, D.C., opened Ebenezer’s Coffeehouse, a place of community and connection.
• The Rock Hill Dream Center Church in Rock Hill, South Carolina, runs A Hand Up thrift store, open six days a week, offering affordable clothes, prayer and practical assistance.
• Impact Christian Church in Moon Township, Pennsylvania, runs a coffee shop, sports complex, and a School of the Arts—using creative financing to transform lives.
• Ridge Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, transformed its facility into a multifaceted community center. Their Nexus Co-Work & Event Space serves local entrepreneurs, while the preschool and after-school programs meet community needs, making the church a vibrant hub for local residents.
• Ginghamsburg Church in Tipp City, Ohio, has pioneered church-based social enterprises through New Path Outreach, which runs 19 community service ministries, and New Creation Counseling Center, which provides affordable mental health services. These initiatives sustain the ministry while meeting real needs in the community.
Lessons Learned
These churches didn’t just launch missional businesses; they launched ministries with real impact. They also learned that starting a missional business takes grit, faith and a willingness to learn. They faced challenges: navigating zoning laws, managing staff, balancing ministry and operations, and building trust in their communities. Some leaders even found themselves learning entirely new skills, like marketing, accounting or human resources.
One pastor shared how he had to learn to negotiate contracts with vendors and manage permits with the city—a far cry from seminary training. Another described sleepless nights worrying about cash flow and wondering whether the coffee shop would make enough to pay the barista. These stories are raw and real—and they’re a reminder that entrepreneurial ministry is not for the faint of heart.
Some innovative pastors face skepticism from board members and congregants who worry that “running a business” will distract from the gospel. But time and again, they discovered that the payoff was more than financial. It was missional, transformative and community-building. The café wasn’t just selling coffee; it was creating jobs for single moms, offering a warm space for local kids to study, and even hosting Bible studies.
They discovered that their communities didn’t just want a church on Sundays—they wanted a church that showed up in everyday life, through employment opportunities, affordable services and spaces that foster connection and hope. They found that their neighbors were more willing to walk through the doors of a coffee shop than the front doors of a sanctuary. One leader put it this way: “We’re not just serving coffee; we’re serving Jesus with every cup.”
A Church for the Community
Imagine a future where every church becomes a beacon of hope in its community—not just on Sundays, but every single day of the week. Picture church buildings that come alive on Monday mornings with the hum of small businesses, local entrepreneurs, childcare programs, and bustling cafés. Imagine people from every walk of life gathering in these spaces—business leaders meeting over coffee, single moms finding community in a playgroup, college students using free Wi-Fi while encountering the love of Jesus in the process.
This is more than a financial strategy; it’s a call to reimagine how the church fulfills the Great Commission in a changing world. As a pastor who has felt the sting of layoffs and the weight of financial strain, I know firsthand the heartbreak of telling your family that your calling might not be sustainable. That’s why I believe so passionately in helping pastors think like entrepreneurs so no one has to choose between their calling and their family’s well-being.
The time for innovation is now. The world is hungry for hope, and the local church has always been God’s Plan A for reaching people. Missional businesses give us a new way to step into that calling—to meet needs, build bridges and fund ministry that transforms lives. Every church has assets that can bless the community and fund the mission. Let’s start seeing them as opportunities.
The next move is yours. The world is watching, and your community is waiting. Will you be the leader who says yes to the next chapter in your church’s story?