Matt Haughey is the founder of MetaFilter.com, and in this talk from the Webstock 2012 conference earlier this year in New Zealand, he focuses on starting with a long-term vision, rather than a desire for short-term success (“cashing in and bailing out”):

When it’s possible to get millions of dollars in venture capital funding, get a million users in just days, and then sell out to a larger tech company (what Haughey calls “the big fast route”), the slow and sustainable approach to growing a tech business that Haughey is advocating for is certainly counter-cultural.

Jason summarizes: “It takes longer but…

• you are able to develop authentic community
• which equates remaining authentic to the context and calling
• you remain a healthy model for those you lead
• you don’t have to be a wiz’ fundraiser to lead ministry”

It’s the last point that I want to flesh out further, as it relates to this question of funding the missional church.

Theoretically, a new church planter could get a bunch of VC money from a denomination to startup a new faith community. In reality, most denominations don’t have any (or much) money for this anymore. So the tech/church analogy doesn’t quite work.

The new reality is that church planters have to be entrepreneurial and think differently about how to fund new church starts, mostly by being bi-(or tri-)vocational and not working full-time for the church (or even expecting to in the short-term and possibly not even in the long-term).

But listen to what Haughey has to say:

• Self-fund to get started — “The hard part or the big question mark is, ‘Where’s the money going to come from?’ I wouldn’t necessarily focus on that on day one. I think it’s bad and sometimes leads to bad decisions if your day one worry is where some money’s going to come from. It helps to self-fund it for a while, let it grow a little bit at least. … I always have low goals, like paying for the [Web] server hosting.”
• Don’t be a free user — “Find mom and pop sites that will let you give them money, so there’s a chance they’ll stick around.” One could argue, based on this point, that you should be willing to invest your time and money into the new church start and ask/expect others who get involved to do the same. Create a culture of giving to support the mission of the community from the start. And, no, the mission of the community should not be paid staff, a cool building, etc. That’s old school thinking. Think different.
• Explore as many funding avenues as you can — On the Web, advertising (where appropriate) is the easiest, he says, but he also suggests funding drives, Kickstarter, merchandise, etc. I’d love to see a new church start launch a Kickstarter campaign tied to a creative project they plan to do, especially if it was something designed to bless and benefit the local community it was seeking to be a vital part of. Think local, contextual, blessed to be a blessing.
• Keep your day job — “I paid for my own sites for the first five-six years just by having a day job, and it wasn’t until the revenue really picked up that I could quit that.” Being bi-vocational is the new normal for people in ministry. Some communities will grow to be able to sustain having full-time paid staff, but many will not. And that’s OK.

As Haughey explains, “It’s a lot of work, it’s a lot of risk, [but] … having a long-term viewpoint makes a lot of dumb decisions really easy.”

There’s so much more to learn from Haughey as he unpacks WWIC? (why wasn’t I consulted?) and the values of being “platform agnostic and super flexible.”

I especially appreciate that Haughey says it’s not about staying small: “You don’t have to sacrifice growth, it’s just going to take longer. It’s not going to limit your impact. You’ll eventually get there, and you’ll have a more stable foundation. … You’ll have a community culture that builds up over years and years, instead of just ramping up from zero in a few months. It doesn’t necessarily shrink your aspirations.”

So just because you choose the slow and sustainable (and intentionally small to start with) approach to church planting/missional community formation doesn’t mean you have to give up the dream of changing the world!

Please take a look at the video and post your thoughts/reflections in the comments. And if you’re going to be in Minneapolis next week for Funding The Missional Church and/or Church Planters Academy, please let me know. I’d love to connect with you!