Completed Experiments
The Missional Wisdom Foundation has done numerous experiments over the years that have led to fruitful and life giving creations. Yet, experiments tend to have a timeline. You try something new and see how it goes. You adjust and experiment again based on how the experiment goes. There comes a moment when you have to ask yourself, “Is this experiment over? Does it need to end?”
Below are the experiments that we have done in the past, felt that we have learned all we need to from the experiment, and that they were completed experiments, so we ended the experiment.
To learn more about these completed experiments, please reach out to Larry Duggins.
Epworth Houses
Epworth Houses were one of the first experiments of the Missional Wisdom Foundation. Inspired by the New Monastic movement, this experiment began with students from Perkins School of Theology who lived together in an intentional Christian community house. The people there lived and prayed together, followed a rule of life, and sought to befriend their neighbors in their community. This vision expanded over the years, and at one point there were over ten houses spread across the Dallas Fort Worth area and in Waco, Texas. The houses were overseen by an Abbess and Prior on staff, who brought people into the houses, offered spiritual counsel to residents, and helped them work through conflict. After a number of years of decline, Missional Wisdom decided to close all of the houses in the summer of 2020. Watch past resident interviews here.
Ahadi Collective
The Ahadi Collective was an economic empowerment initiative with African refugees. Through the relationships built with refugees in New Day, the Missional Wisdom Foundation had learned that finding good, quality work was difficult. We sought to create a space where our friends could create a business and type of work that they desired to do in the context of the United States. The Ahadi Collective became a sewing collective that created unique, African clothing, house items, and clergy stoles. After a few years of attempting to make the business sustainable, the Ahadi Collective disbanded in 2019. We still have a variety of the items they made for sale here.
The Foundry House
An intentional community experiment that was done in collaboration with Crossnore School and Children’s Home and Wake Forest Divinity School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The Foundry was meant to become the next Epworth Project, but up in North Carolina. The Foundry offered people in their 20’s and 30’s the opportunity to live in intentional Christian community and partner with the farm space on the property. The community was overseen by Prioress Sarah-Howell Miller. In the Summer of 2020, the Foundry House closed its doors. For more info about it, you can contact Sarah at showellmiller@missionalwisdom.com.
New Day Communities
New Day was initially an experiment started by Elaine Heath before Missional Wisdom began. What began as a simple alternative worship service, became a house church network within apartment complexes where refugees were being resettled. People and languages from all over the world could be found during the New Day gatherings, which included teaching and singing each other’s languages, food, and worship. New Day functioned through a non-heirachal leadership model, where leadership at gatherings was shared and decisions were made in groups. In the Summer of 2017, the last New Day apartment house was closed, but continued at Ceciliah Igweta’s home until the Summer of 2020, when she transitioned back into pastoral ministry at a church.
The Julian Way
An intentional community that centers around those with, for, and by persons with diverse physical and developmental embodiments. The Missional Wisdom Foundation had hired Justin Hancock to be on staff in 2013, and learned how much work they and the church had to do around disability. We cultivated a space for Justin and Lisa (his spouse) to create the Julian as a way to advocate for the disabled community and accessibility in churches. Justin also wrote a book called The Julian Way: A Theology of Fullness for All of God’s People as part of his work with Missional Wisdom. In the Summer of 2020, Justin transitioned the Julian Way out of Missional Wisdom’s umbrella to expand the ministry and work. You can contact Justin and learn about his work at revjustinhancock@gmail.com.
