Announcing Cohort 4

Highlighting the 11 new ministries and ventures in our upcoming class.

Aug 29, 2024

Hey friends -

We’re excited to announce the next cohort of our accelerator program, which we’re calling Cohort 4.

Since we launched the program in 2023 after two pilot rounds, we’ve seen great fruit, and have had a ton of fun. We finished Cohort 3 in May of this year, and have spent the summer talking to leaders around the world to put this class together.

If you’ve tracked with us, you’ve seen us anchor on the idea that missional imagination is one of the keys to renewal in the Church and mission in the world. We see ourselves as in the business of discovering the new things God is doing on the edges, and coming alongside them as they build. We are simply the cultivators.

A few updates on the our latest thinking as our work evolves:

Founder-Focus: We’re committed to going deeper with a small number of ministries and ventures each year, and to surround them with genuinely helpful relationships and resources. We think this will be more sustainable, keep us founder focused, and have a compounding effect over time.
Spiritual Vitality: We’ve also continued to refine our pedagogy. While startup-support is our key value add for ministries, our conviction is that the spiritual foundations of our fellows is ultimately more important to their impact than their strategic or operational foundations. Doing deep times of prayer and spirit-filled ministry while we build is increasingly core for us.
Great-Commission Centered: There are numerous big problems for God’s people to tackle in the world. We’ve benefited from dialogue with many recent problem frames (The recent work from the Lausanne Network has been particularly helpful, along with Praxis and FDE). We continue to anchor our impact areas to the Great Commission, seeking ministries that primarily aim to announce the Gospel and form followers of Jesus.
Global Vision: Finally, we’ve continued to lean into the idea that the best cohort of innovators we can find would be a genuinely global cohort, and that it’s in our interest, and theirs, to select fellows from a global pool. We hope to keep growing in this way in the future, as the new era of mission is “polycentric.”

We had 70 qualified applications this cycle, and took 11 ministries and ventures that we believe have a chance to make a significant impact, through a rigorous review process with our team and external strategic partners.

Cohort 4 will gather in person three times - in New York City in September, in San Francisco in January 2025, and in the UK in late April 2025. In each city, we’ll have peer learning, direct coaching, 1:1 mentoring, times of prayer and ministry, and the opportunity to connect with a wider ecosystem of friends and funders.

If you’re interested in engaging with us during our city intensives, particularly if you’re a philanthropist or investor interested in our fellows, say hello for more information.

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Introducing Cohort 4

Each of the organizations we selected has a compelling thesis and impact model toward a particular ministry frontier, and has the potential to create a new “category” of ministry. We believe in them, we believe they are tackling a critical challenge, and we believe they carry an important story for the wider Church. Take a look.

See Cohort 4 and their full bios here.

Altitude Mission / Will & Lara Sussman, Sam Milchem, Meribel, France / (Nonprofit)

Showing God’s love in action on the ski slopes, working with bars in Ski Resorts to save lives on the mountains.

Altitude Mission draws thousands of young people, in the mountains and beyond, to Jesus. This will ignite a generation of nation-changers to bring home the life-changing love of Jesus and lead their communities into the full life that God has for them.

Be Amazing Online / Prateek Kashyap, India / (Business)

Engaging the world’s 5B people on social media, offering individuals a safe space for open conversations, fueled by curated, research-driven content.

Be Amazing Online (BAO) empowers purpose-driven organizations to reach global audiences, creating a safe, inclusive space for meaningful online conversations, with a focus on online security.

Doxology Studios / Murray & Claire Rodger, Baton Rouge, Louisiana / (Nonprofit)

Telling redemptive stories around the world so that people will know the hope found in Jesus.

We are a nonprofit studio that tells redemptive stories around the world so that people will experience the hope found in Jesus. We do this by creating videos, podcasts, and articles that bear witness to God's work in and through the global Church.

Eight Parables / Jan Lee, Seattle, Washington; San Francisco, California / (Nonprofit)

Restoring the mysterious way of parables, we tell beautiful stories that awaken the soul.

Parables are a trademark of Jesus. Inspired by the marathon of eight parables Jesus taught in Matthew 13, we exist to catalyze parables in the Church to life. Suspiciously christian, scripture-based and soul-awakening, our parable short films will spark curiosity, deep dialogues and make you ponder.

faith.tools / Cameron Pak, Edmonds, Oklahoma / (Unsure)

The best place to discover and distribute apps for Christians.

faith.tools is a unifying force, connecting and empowering Christians in tech to advance technology and equip the body of Christ. Through our curated directory, we make it easy to discover and distribute apps for Christians. Our heart is focused on unity for the builders in faith and tech.

Foster the City / Philip Pattison, Bay Area, California / (Nonprofit)

A Church for Every Child

We inspire and equip churches to provide a loving home for every child entering foster care. We provide resources, coaching, a pathway and tools to create strong fostering communities. Our dream is to one day see a waiting list of families, rather than a waiting list of children in need of a home.

Friendship Lab / Sheridan Voysey, Oxford, United Kingdom / (Nonprofit)

The word's first non-profit empowering adults to make their friendships thrive.

We envision a day when every person has at least three ‘2am friends' - someone they can talk to, depend on, grow with, and enjoy; someone they can call at 2am when everything has gone wrong. We pursue this vision through evidence-based courses, inspiring media campaigns, and actionable research.

JOMO(campus) / Christina Crook, Toronto, Ontario / (Business)

JOMO(campus) is building more joyful lives through digital wellness education.

Our mission at JOMO(campus) is to promote digital well-being for every student, empowering school communities to deepen learning and engage with technology in ways that allow flourishing in classrooms, hallways, and homes.

Life to the Full / Chris Cipollone, Sydney, Australia / (Nonprofit)

Holistic Christian flourishing through psychology, relationship counseling, coaching and theology.

Life To The Full is a coordination of Christian wellbeing services. Our three activities are 'Life Content' - books, speaking and podcasts. The 'Life Centre' is where we offer counselling and coaching. Finally 'Life Retreats' are a chance to go deeper by setting time apart with God and others.

Tapfer / Alissa Cohan-Allen, Atlanta, Georgia / (Business)

Answering mental health needs of patients and providers with Spiritual Health practitioners.

Tapfer pioneers digital access to spiritual health and chaplaincy services, informed by 50+ chaplain and provider interviews. It integrates with Epic and Cerner to streamline insurance billing and transform spiritual and mental health care in the major healthcare systems.

Twelve / Abla Kossidze & Ruth Lawanson, California / (Business)

Helping churches easily manage, report and scale up their finances.

Twelve is an integration-first product, the first of its kind in the industry. In the world of church and nonprofit management, vertical software does not connect well with other software, if at all. Twelve does not try to replace ChMS tools, it amplifies their capabilities by enabling them to sync with the best software for any particular task. It enables them to increase giving opportunities by syncing with any digital wallet, manage finances more easily by syncing with accounting software and, simplify non-cash, cross-border and commercial transactions by syncing with investment management, money transfer and POS tools.

How to Get Involved:

Pray - We’d love to invite you to cover our fellows in prayer throughout the cohort. We think that their kingdom work is significant, and we want to continue to build a community of intercession around each of their ministries.
Share - If you know of church leaders, ministry leaders, business networks, donors, or investors that would be helpful or resourceful to any of these ventures, please get in touch with us, we’d love to make the connection.
Give - We are continuing to build a core community of supporters behind our work at Missional Labs, to enable us to run our accelerator program and wider ecosystem at a high level. If you’re looking for a high-impact model of giving that advances mission in new ways, we’d love to talk to you. Email us for a conversation, or give online here. Thanks for your support.

Thanks for reading our journal. We write at the intersection of mission, leadership, and innovation. Our nonprofit organization runs a 9-month venture accelerator for high-impact ministry projects. Say hello to connect to our community.