LAUMC’s new Changemaker Church Project is funded through Lilly Endowment’s Thriving Congregations Initiative, which aims to help Christian congregations nationwide strengthen their faith, build stronger relationships with each other and contribute to the flourishing of their local communities.

Watch the video to see Senior Pastor Kathi McShane and members of The Changemaker Initiative team walk through the background of the Initiative and how we came to this exciting point.

The Changemaker Church Project will pursue the work of creating a network of changemaker churches. LAUMC launched The Changemaker Initiative in 2018 as an experiment in pairing the compassionate presence of Jesus Christ with the skills of social entrepreneurship. What we hoped was to empower and equip “compassion-driven changemakers like Jesus.” Since then, 37 Changemaker Fellows have completed a nine-month fellowship and connected their faith with their actions in the world, through projects designed to “risk something big for something good” with their families, schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods.

You can read the full, official announcement of this grant award on The Changemaker Initiative website.