The Missio Nexus Innovation Fund is an initiative designed to foster collaboration, idea generation, and relationships within the Great Commission community. The primary objective of this fund is to accelerate innovative thinking and practices in the areas of evangelism, discipleship, and church planting.
2023 Innovation Fund
Missio Nexus received 90 proposals for funding over January and February of 2023 from member mission agencies. Each of these applications was screened by a team of reviewers who were confidentially chosen from across the Missio Nexus association. This team of nine reviewed the applications and narrowed the list down to a group of finalists that the Innovation Fund donor made a final determination on whom to fund.
The review team examined multiple factors for consideration, but the most significant three were:
- Is this project innovative? Is it uniquely innovative for the mission agency or on a broad scale in the mission’s world?
- How does this project specifically aid evangelism, discipleship, and/or church planting?
- Is this project implementable? Does this project have the staff and infrastructure to implement this upon receipt of the funds.
We would like to congratulate the following agencies for being awarded funds in the inaugural year of the Missio Nexus Innovation Fund!
We are hoping and praying there will be a year two for the innovation fund. Keep on the lookout for information on next year’s application process which will hopefully launch by December 2023.
Africa Inland Mission International
This project is focused on using social media as a means of engagement in North Africa. This is a media focused project that will use social media in a closed country to engage with Muslim seekers. This effort maximizes the ability to create open doors for evangelism and discipleship in a very restrictive country. The reach of the project is much wider than face-to-face encounters would allow. This method has been tested in other countries with compelling results.
Door International
This project is focused on empowering deaf leaders around the world and across several different sign languages with video resources in sign language that will give access to evangelism, discipleship, and church planting training along with underlying theological training that they otherwise would not have access. This would be producing novel resources that would build up deaf leaders for their continued work among unreached deaf populations.
Frontiers USA
This project creatively looks to use the arts as a means of outreach in a former Russian Republic. The goal is that it is not only a new entry point for the unreached to be engaged with the gospel, but also as a hub for other mission workers in the region to learn how to use the arts to reach the lost. This hub will help facilitation of training for church planters in the use of the arts and will also be a place to engage the unreached in the community.
Multiply Network
This project is for the development and implementation of a discipleship app. It initially will be used in more unrestricted countries where the mission has a presence with the goal of rolling out to more restricted countries once it has been evaluated and security protocols are proven. This app provides a means for missional mentorship that allows for great flexibility on who the disciple is and where they are located, and the for the mentee to be engaged in a pace that is suitable for their growth and development. The goal is that mentees over time will become mentors for those in their local communities as they come to Christ.
Ralph Winter Launch Lab/Frontier Ventures
This project is probably one of the most uniquely innovative projects that was reviewed. The Frontier Ventures Launch Lab, which is focused on discovering innovative approaches to mission is seeking to discover an innovative solution of using Bitcoin to support the mission’s movement globally. This project has a clear path of investigation, prototyping, and desired outcomes to create a Bitcoin solution to help ministry agencies and practitioners across the world.
SIL International
This project is focused on creating new training resources for the deaf around the world through an app that is in a gamification model. SIL has worked through an innovation process to help discover what would be helpful new tools for the deaf and how to implement this ideal. The goal would be new tools to help educational programs for missionaries to lead that could lead to evangelism and discipleship among unreached deaf populations.
Extreme Response International
This project is a mobile school project. Through innovative electric bikes they can help provide education to underprivileged children in areas without schools. The teachers have been trained and equipped to provide education, spiritual teaching, and nutritional support. It is a holistic project that seeks to serve communities and children that would not have these resources.
Global Gates Network
This project focuses on using social media to initiate disciple making movements in Southeast Asia in addition to diaspora populations worldwide. With elevated levels of mobile phone and social media usage within these groups there is a significant opportunity to leverage these tools to engage people with the gospel that would be otherwise difficult to directly engage with in person. The goal would be to equip believers in the country to be digital evangelist leading to church planting among those evangelized through the social media platforms.
Novo Mission, Inc.
The project focus is on raising up Latin American missionaries to reach the Tajik. Through building an online community that is designed to mobilize churches, identify, and train potential missionaries the goal is to build a new mission force to the Tajiks. This project complements a current similar strategy to mobilize Latins to reach Pashtuns. Through social media and online tools communities of Latin’s will be connected, trained, and equipped to begin a journey toward global missions.
Innovation Fund 2024
Missio Nexus has launched the second year of the Innovation Fund application process!