Innovating Together Makes a Difference

Written by Jon Hirst 

Deep in the psyche of our mission organizations, we have an innovation narrative that we faithfully tell ourselves. We imagine the brilliant lone innovator. They are hidden away on the mission field working for years on new ministry approaches. Or maybe they are in a small cubicle somewhere in our home office refining their idea and sharing it with anyone who will listen. We often hear about these sparks of isolated brilliance that burst onto the scene and impact the broader missions community.  

While this narrative exists for a reason, we can all think of examples of it, it is steeped in our past . . . not our future. The future of innovation in mission is very different. It is highly collaborative, iterative, and inclusive. We will always need our brilliant subject matter experts, but we are realizing that one of the reasons that many of their wonderful ideas never scaled to global impact was precisely because they were tasked to “go it alone.”  

In light of the changing realities of mission innovation, Missio Nexus facilitated three cohorts of innovators in early 2026. These mission agency staff were assembled based on common innovation interests and challenged to reframe their innovation work through collaboration. The cohorts were recruited from the hundreds of applications to the Missio Nexus Innovation Fund (which ran from 2023-2025). Out of the many who applied and those who received grant awards, there were many doing similar things in different ways or contexts.  

The three cohorts that came together were focused on the following ministry topics: Media in the Muslim World, Global Mobilization, and Hackathons, Incubators and Accelerators. Each cohort met once per month over 6 months with an in-person gathering at the end. The objectives of the cohorts were four-fold:  

1. Help individual innovators advance their ideas. 

2. Help innovators coordinate with others to advance their ideas.  

3. Collaborate as a group to develop a new idea that involved all their capabilities and creativity.  

4. Seek funding in collaboration to make their new idea possible. In the end 27 people from 18 organizations participated in the three cohorts.  

While each made progress on their own ideas and several cohorts were successful in building a collaborative idea into a project plan and fundraising proposal, one of the most significant values that came from the how the cohorts challenged assumptions and helped each member to look at their work differently.  

Dave Hunt, VP of International Operations at Partners International Canada, was part of the cohort focused on hackathons, incubators and accelerators. In the early days of the cohort, he had the opportunity to run some structured experiments on his innovation program and get feedback from others. The results were not what he expected. His experiment disproved the assumptions he brought into the cohort. Dave reflected on that process, “It was a reminder to go back and keep experimenting… to make sure that we’re not just assuming a lot of things about our project.” 

Vir Kapur, Director of Innovations and Development at Renew World Outreach, was part of the cohort focused on media in the Muslim world. He commented about the tangible nature of the cohort. Because everyone brought their own ideas into the collaborative space and then identified new ideas to work on together based on their current work, it was very tangible. Vir said it this way, “It wasn’t just, hey, an idea for idea’s sake. There were a lot of rubber-hits-the-road moments.” 

Don Allsman, Chief Executive Officer for Completions Global, was part of the cohort focused on global mobilization. He described several key breakthrough moments on his innovation idea that came during the cohort. One key aspect that helped him was a clear and consistent process of experimenting that allowed him to move from his assumptions to new insights. Don shared, “The discipline that was embedded in all those things forced us toward implementation.” 

After the initial focus on each cohort member’s own innovation ideas, the cohorts pivoted to explore collaborative ideas that brought individual innovation ideas together into a unique and new approach. This change required members to set down their own ideas and pick up something new that the entire group saw as valuable.  

Vir highlighted the fact that everyone in the process came with their own limitations, “He uses incomplete people, imperfect situations, and he uses them for his glory. And it’s a wonderful thing to be a part of.” Dave shared the power of cohort member’s unique contributions, “I move quicker through the idea because I had people with high capacity and intelligence and abilities around me on things I didn’t have.” That mix of skills and flaws meant that the process was necessarily messy. Don highlighted that tension when he said, “When we started, I thought we’re never going to finish this on time. And it all came together and it was really excellent.” Vir celebrated the same thing by contrasting the progress people made in reframing around collaboration, “We went from, you know, ‘I have some stuff that I can offer,’ to ‘let’s zone in and create a pilot that then becomes scalable.’” 

These three cohorts model the shift we are seeing towards collaborative design and development within mission agencies. They also highlight how challenging the work can be to align different personalities, objectives and capabilities. Most importantly, they highlight what God can do when His people will hold their hands open, stay engaged, and take risks in community.  

Learn more about the three collaborative projects the cohorts worked on by clicking here. 

To learn more about the innovative work of the three cohort members featured in this article click on the links below: 

Don Allsman, CEO of Completion Global 

The Empowerment Network (thempowerment.network) is comprised of three communities who recognize the value of empowering disciplemakers in prison and after re-entry: 1) a nationwide in-prison coaching cohort; 2) an alumni association of Bible school graduates who have re-entered society; 3) a national directory of churches who welcome formerly incarcerated disciplemakers. Learn More: https://www.theempowerment.network/  

Dave Hunt, VP of International Operations at Partners International Canada 

Partners Canada has developed the Studio of Innovative Leadership, developed in Moldova, to help young leaders from challenging ministry locations around the world to develop capacity in their partner ministries so they can address their missional challenges of tomorrow through incisive and theologically thoughtful initiatives. 

Learn More: https://www.loom.com/share/5ebee68a8b3449b7aae1d97acfec7b1d  

Vir Kapur, Director of Innovations and Development at Renew World Outreach 

Renew developed and field-tested Visual Vernacular Gospel and Bible-story films. A dramatic, wordless approach designed to help Deaf people across sign-language barriers, including those without a formal sign language, encounter Scripture and begin evangelism and discipleship. 

Learn more: https://renewoutreach.org/deaf/