 So welcome everyone to the information session about the spark tank. What the spark tank is, as you can imagine is a take off of the shark tank where persons come and they pitch ideas of the business that they have started and seeking funding and support from the, the, an expertise from the sharks. The thought of the original shark tank was to spawn entrepreneurship in the United States and they have seen that be very effective. And so we were copying off of that hoping for some to spark some innovations among our starting new innovative ministries and putting a spark that hopefully would ignite a fire of our new spaces and our new faces and new spaces. We launched new faces and new spaces and in 2018 and in 2019 we were kind of getting on a roll and then as you can imagine it came to a screeching halt in 2020 and no one was really thinking about how do I start a new dinner church or a messy church in the middle of pandemic. Well, after that we were still not seeing a lot of, of persons like starting new stuff or as far as coming to us for new funding. And so we wanted to get this something that could get it going again and that's where the spark tank designed after the shark tank got started. And so last year we recruited five innovators and had them come together, and we put the call out there for grants, and we were pretty thrilled that we got 30 applications which represented about 10, a little bit over 10% of our North Texas conference churches. Of those 30 all received funding, but we only wanted to put in about eight to 10 into the tank because of time wise, but we got to the point where we can only that the applications were just too good. And so we ended up having 11 of those come and pitch to the to the different sharks and how it worked is each one of our sharks got $10,000. And we were, we put max grants up to $15,000 so obviously to get $15,000 you would have to get more than one shark committing funds. We told the sharks they can find up to four and in $2,500 increments in those in their grants, but in addition, everyone that they fund they have to give a minimum of two hours of coaching to. And so a shark give the four different entities at $2,500 ranges and but then we need to give two hours to each one of those, or they could give the entire their entire $10,000 to one and and work with those. Then after we got these applications in and this is going to be and I'm telling you last year's process because this year's process is is pretty much the same will be gathering the applications. And then our team in the Center for church development will be reviewing these applications will pick the ones that go into the tank, and then we make with the sharks ahead of time. And evaluate those and people start saying okay which ones are you feeling called to fund. And it's not completely scripted who's going to be giving what once the tank is live. But we do that so that the people who come and pitch last may have the best pitch of the day and we're like sorry we gave all our money away earlier and so we we coordinate it. Once we go into the tank all bets are off people who said they were going to give don't have to give people who said they were going to give a certain amount could give less or could give more. And so it is live and it is real in that that that sense, but for those who are pitching last we don't want them to be afraid that all money will be gone by the time they get into the tank and so there's some of that coordination that takes place before we get in there. So we do. If you make it in a tank, there, there was a consolation prize of $1000 and so we knew no one would be going home, especially after they took all the time to do application and obviously they got in the tank it was a good application and coming and pitching and all that we definitely didn't want that to be for not. So there was a consolation prize of $1000 which we will be doing again this year, but last year the sharks were feeling we don't want anybody going home without a shark. And so the positive of that is everyone got sharks everyone got at least $2,500 which is the minimum grant in the in the tank. And the size is no one gets the full 15,000 because there's a limited amount of money that each of them have, but there was also one that got one amount, and then somebody was inspired by the spark tank and they had a private donor come and make a donation for the to make up even more of what of the gap from what they were asking for. So we are praying that once again that our spark tank this year will will give spark to great innovation and just your attendance here tells me that there's interest in this and that we will be getting more applications and so we have decided to move from doing one spark tank we're going to do three tanks. So the we're going to have a clergy tank, which is at going to be held at clergy retreat on Wednesday morning when we have our different options that we can be doing it will be in front of a live studio audience I say that but we probably won't have it. We're going to be holding one line, whereas the other ones will be the, and then we are going to be having an urban suburban tank, which is for the north central district and for the metro district. And we want to do a real push of our rural and our town and country churches and so we're going to be having a town and country tank for the northwest and East District and it's going to be held at White's borough United Methodist Church here at White's borough with us. Chad McSwain, and I'm thankful for them that they're going to be able to host that and the suburban urban one will be at the conference center. Those will be on December 3 up in December 3 and White's borough and the afternoon Sunday afternoon December 4 in the conference center. And then again the clergy retreat one will be on Wednesday. We'll only have four pitches for the clergy retreat because of time, but we anticipate eight pitches and each one of the, in each one of the two tanks. And, and if it's a good application, for example, we had an application come in from Terrell Texas last year, and all of they asked for was $1,000. It was a fantastic application. It was to turn a grief group of the church into a community grief group. And they wanted funds to run ads in the newspaper run Facebook ads and say we're, we're launching this community grief group. I talked to Pastor Peter, and he said they just had an amazing turnout, and it really became a community, a community group they had Baptist had Presbyterians. But they also got who they were really going after and that was people who did not have a church home or have a community who found a community in there and some of those ended up coming into the church and I believe Peter baptized a family that came out of that that grief group. And so there is a huge diversity of types of applications but if there's if you're seeking $500 or $1,000, we get your application probably won't put you in the tank but if it's a good then we'll go ahead and issue funding on that and out of the 30 applications we got last year, I think all maybe except for one. We gave a check to and I think that one went back tweaked some things and they ended up getting funding. So to go over the dates again. Jessica will be going over that with some of the deadlines on the application, but our three tanks are clergy retreat which is just for clergy and we're going to have clergy sharks. John McClarity Jessica right they will be Jessica right had received a grant last year and this is right up her wheelhouse for the, and then on December 3, which I believe is a Saturday. I hope I'm not getting my dates messed up. December 3 is going to be the whitesboro town and country for the Northwest and East districts. So Ron Henderson is going to be a, a, a shark Chad has a businessman there and whitesboro Chad sent him an email and said, How would you like to give away $10,000. And so it's really a fun job and we're still recruiting a couple of more we're going to have four sharks on each one of those. We're going to have three sharks at the clergy one since it's going to be a smaller one. For this for the urban suburban one we have to Sasha tell who is a marketing expert out of the village she has our own marketing company as well as I think she works for AT&T and doing their marketing. So just very sharp person so we, we have a good mix of clergy and very, very gifted and talented laity that are going to be serving on on this and so the third is in whitesboro and the fourth will be at the conference center on a Sunday afternoon. So now I want to turn it over to Jessica to go over the applications and the application process. Jessica. Thank you and I think you're all for being here I'm excited to see so many faces that we're not part of this park and last year, and some of those that were that were as well. The application process as I always said for the clergy we keep the applications I do on the third of October and we'll be reviewing those. And then they'll be do be notified with any time before this part time at the clergy retreat. I am putting on the I'm sorry yes I'm the mission coordinator for the Center for Change Development for this. Yet, you probably have seen a lot of emails but it's great to see faces even if it's. I'm putting on the on the chat the application to follow the application for sparking. We've looked at those we review them and will notify you if you qualify to pitch at the clergy retreat that application is due on October. October 4. Yeah, October 4 as the application is new. We need to receive those and then for the regional one is on November 21. If you have questions through the application process or you know any of that. You can just give us a call and just because you submit the application doesn't mean that it has to be a final one but it has to be received before that date. We will notify you with time. If you are going to be part of the pitch. And then I'm going to be pitching out there at this park bank. We do ask if you can provide to provide a complete application for it. I'm your finances your financials. What are you asking for what is the money that you're asking for what it what is exactly that you're doing and we'll have not go over. What are the components that we are going to be look for in those applications that you know the new what does it mean by new faces what does it mean new spaces, etc, etc. He'll go over in detail over that soon. But like I said there's the applications for the clergy retreat are due on October 4. And we need to receive them in our office so we can review them go over them and notify you and you can have plenty of time to be ready for those pitches. For the region of Spartak, the applications are doing November 21. And something that we mentioned the clergy retreat is a small smaller ones will have three charts, but the amount of the maximum ground that you can receive it'll be the same at the clergy, or at the regional ones so you if you pitch at the clergy retreat you will not be at a disadvantage. Instead of a pretty pitching or submitting your application for the regional ones so the maximum amount of this year is $15,000. You will take at least to have to to charts to join into that application because for the for the Spartak. That is going to be clergy retreat. The maximum amount that each of the charts will receive is 7500. So you'll have to have convinced to the charts to to join and same thing as in the regional ones you'll have to convince at least two charts to join in in order to receive the maximum amount of grant. So, but there is no disadvantage and reaching and one person pitching on the other one because the maximum amount of the same $15,000 maximum grant. We got amazing spaces new spaces created last year, bigger scale smaller scale. And we look forward to to hearing those ideas that you are developing and that you're excited about connecting to to your mission field. And one more thing I want to bring is that when I said mission field we do have mission insight and mission insight is a key tool that can help you get to know who your neighbors are and who you have around around you when you're trying to connect with those same faces. So if you don't have an account mission inside, we can provide an account on how to get connected, how to start, how to learn about mission inside. There's a few webinars that are coming up and a few that we have done already, and we can sit down one on one to and you can connect with me about this at mtcunc.org. I can give you the account you initially set up and I can go over with you a little bit on how to use mission insights and you can start getting to know that mission field and those new faces that that you want to connect. I think I cover pretty much now I'm going to pass it over to Matt, who is going to be talking about what are we looking for in those applications when we talk about new faces in this matter. Yeah, thank you. It's good to see all of your faces. I am Matt Temple I am the associate director of new church starts for the center of church development. And most of you look familiar to me and excited to see what what comes out of our spark tank this year, just going to go over really quickly sort of the five components that are that makes something qualify if you will, as a new space. And so the first thing is, obviously that it gathers new people so we were not wanting to fund a revamped Bible study or Sunday school we want we want to see whatever it is that you're trying at least in some way shape or form a vision to reach folks who you're not already connected with in reaching. And then the second is also in the name so new new faces in new spaces so we want to. We're really looking to fund kind of innovative creative ideas that are happening. Oftentimes outside of the four walls of your church, or at least a new space within your church that's gathering new people. And that is that is really focused on that. The third thing is that it gathers regularly and so that we don't we're not looking really to fund a one time event we want there to be some consistency, so that you're, you're in a sense like think about it like you're starting a little micro church you have this like a component of this regular rhythm of gathering with with your with this community that you're forming. The other thing is it connected to a United Methodist Church so we we realize that in a lot of cases the the ministry that happens in a new space, and the people that are reached may or may not ever come to the main sort of campus of your church so that's okay but we want the new space to be connected to the campus and that really ties into the last piece which is we wanted to have some sort of discipling component. So you're not just, you're not just meaning to do something fun but there's there's an element of gospel discipleship work that's happening. You know, even a pathway, if you will, of discipleship in that so we're looking for looking for those, those are sort of the main thing so really the fields wide open in terms of whatever your ideas are it we just want to make sure that whatever those ideas are, it implements those those five components so. Yeah, with that Owen, I'm throwing it back to you. I just posted a our last years those who made it into the tank, and the amount that they went home with to kind of give you an idea of some ideas I know a lot of those names don't tell you what that space is. I think, and part of us we there, we don't want to put in any boxes to. We were amazed at the diversity of applications we got the difference types of spaces that people in ways people were gathering people and discipling people. But we'll, we'll say that the, the ones that didn't make it. I think their weakest component was the discipleship component that it did not have a strong distinctive means of doing discipleship it may be gathering people but a lot in some of those they were, they were gathering for purposes. Well, you may gather for purposes other than disciples, but how is distinctly Wesley and discipleship taking place within that space is what we're kind of is what we're looking for. And with that, I'm going to pause and see what, what questions that you have that we didn't address. Before we go to question, I just posted, we did a seminar webinar, last year, we looked, Reverend Luke Edwards, he's a society director of precious expression, and he talks about part of what it is of new those new spaces and new faces like how to reach and he especially touches a little bit on the discipleship component, because there is different levels on how you can do that discipleship, and he talks about it in this webinar that we hosted last year, I included the link there. And so you can see any application there'll be videos that are practitioners local that have that are doing or have done new faces and new spaces here on the North Texas conference I'll include that as part of the application so you can look at those videos and you can see also here from practitioners here and for people who have established new faces and new spaces. How do they manage that discipleship or how they're able to integrate that discipleship component. And as you're thinking of what questions that you have right now, we have one of our sharks from last year, Danielle Kim, and I want to ask her to speak briefly about as she was sitting in the room as a shark and listening to the pitches and having looked at the questions before the people came into pitch. Danielle, will you share briefly what you were looking for. Yeah, good afternoon everyone. So, I think last year, as I was looking through the application one of the things that really was for me personally important different sharks have different importance but for me was how is this really and innovatively innovative. And how is this gathering people in a way that is structured. I was looking for the possibility and how do I say this the capability not capability but you know possibility of how is this going to be able to gather people and is this viable. And another thing that I remember it was important to me was discipleship component so yeah. To succinctly describe what was important was to me personally was was those. Thanks Danielle. Okay, what questions do you have to quick questions one seems kind of obvious but imagine that if we pitch at clergy retreat then there's no pitch later that's quick. Yeah, clergy pitch later based on the area roller urban or suburban is just for clergy that haven't pitch clergy retreat is that correct. Yeah, so the the the regional ones are open for everyone the clergy retreat ones just open for clergy and it's a smaller one now the maximum prize we want to make sure it's the same so you can still get 15,000. But it's smaller. And if you if you pitch at clergy retreat and get a shark at clergy retreat yes that would disqualify you from the the regional one. But say you pitch at clergy retreat, your application it's still fresh still active and we'll say hey you didn't go home with the shark. We can give you your consolation prize of $1,000 or do you want to hold off and we'll put you in your regional, your regional tank. And if you get your application in for the clergy and say you're not going into into the tank at the clergy retreat. We could say, we'll just hold on to your application and for your regional and see what other applications we get because you may go into the regional tank, because there's only going to be for go into the clergy retreat. And that's from throughout the whole conference, whereas we anticipate having eight to 10 go into the regional tanks, and that's just from two districts. So that answer your question. Was there two questions or just the one. Well, the second question is kind of can you go through the process again so you apply you get selected or not and then you pitch. Is that correct. Yes. I'm sorry, go ahead. So, yeah, so you know get the application in by those due dates, and then we will be reviewing those between they come in and the spark tank and we'll let people know who is going to pitch and who's not. And it may be a situation where as you know we get your application and said, Okay, this isn't going to go into the tank. It may be $500 for this or $1,000 for this or, you know, it may go into and receive one of our micro grants or we'll just, are we call you and we explain this is why you're not receiving funding, which, you know, if you apply for the clergy one, you could reformulate it and apply and see where your shortcomings are and apply again for the regional ones. So, then they pitch. One thing we're doing differently this year from last year is last year, we prioritized getting the grants out quickly. And so, after the spark tank, we got the grants out real quick. So, I saw an interview with Mark Cuban and Mark Cuban said, you know, only about 30% of the deals on shark tank actually become deals because once we get off camera and get into the details. A lot of times there's, well, most of the times something comes up and it doesn't work out. Well, we had to go after a few of our grantees and asked for the money back, because it for whatever reason that, you know, it was their idea they formulate their idea it was a great idea it was a great pitch, but sometimes the clergy moved sometimes the lay person moved that pitched it and other reasons that we had to go and ask for some some money back. So, what we're doing this this year is the shark is going to be the one who has to release the money. If a shark funds something they have to commit to two hours to doing the coaching, we also had some persons get the money and then they never contacted the coach the shark to get the coaching. One wanting the shark to take a little more time to bet it on the other side of the tank, and to ensure that the coaching takes place. And so it's on the grantee to contact the shark, set up a time receive the coaching and then the shark contacts the Center for Church Development and says, hey, they're ready to launch now or hey they're not going to be ready to launch for another month or two months or whatever it means. Hey, this is, this is not, it's a great idea. They're working on it but it's a long ways from launching and and then hopefully we can avoid as a Center for Church Development having to go fish money back which no one enjoys. So, that's one of the changes that we're making from last year to next year. Great questions. Thank you for that, Jonathan. Others. Hello, and my name is Ted Hyde. I have two questions. Let me lower my hand here. Can you hear me all right. Yes, Ted, thanks. Okay, my first question is, how do you know so I'm a lay person at a little Methodist Church in Flower Mound. So, if your church is considered a town and country church or an urban suburban church. Just districts is how we're doing it. And so that's probably not a fair descriptor but that's how we're doing it to describe what's happening in the district so one for the northwest and East which would be our town and country which where I'm from we would have considered Wichita Falls a city and not a town. I'm from small town as well, but because you're in the Flower Mound you'd be in the north central district. And so it would go, it would go to the December fourth one, which we're calling urban suburban. I must have missed that I dialed in a few minutes late so I didn't understand that thank you for the clarification. Okay, y'all are experts at this. And so I have just a little peanut brain. And I'm just wanted you to expound a little bit on making decisions on funding before you've heard all of the proposals. Indeed I heard you say that there is a process to hold back funding until everybody gets a chance but it's possibility that the ones at the end are really terrific, but there's also a possibility that the ones at the end are not as good as the ones at the beginning so you've been held holding back funding to work that could anyway, maybe I hope that makes sense. So, yes, why wouldn't you listen to all of them, and then make a decision on, Okay, here's how we're going to split this up. It doesn't make for good TV Ted. And so it makes for much better TV if we're in real life, you know, making the making the offer. And, and, you know, if you've watched any of the videos the best part of the videos is when the people came out of the room. How did it feel to get that who or who's the shark you get to and so it really made for a for good TV to be able to do it live. And now the reason we, and it's probably not fair to say holding back funding from the beginning basically, you know all the sharks saying we're doing this and doing that and the sharks do not have to give away all their money. And there wouldn't be anything to say hey we have this fun leftover. Let's go back and give a little more to this other one, which is, which is kind of what happened but it happened through a donor who went back and gave one to somebody who came earlier in the day. But we're hoping that having the pre meeting and having all the written application down, we can get a good idea who the sharks want to fund. And so I don't serve as a shark, I don't. You know, I don't advise kind of how money goes. I serve as more the facilitator, but we spent the sharks get all the applications days before we meet, and then we have a pre meeting that lasts a couple hours where we're where we're kind of discussing the funds. But it's a funny answer but it's an honest answer. The reason that we don't wait and hear all the pitches and give it to them is it just doesn't make for good TV and we're wanting to people watch we're wanting people to engage. Because not only from the applications we're getting, we're hoping that the ideas that we get and people here and they listen to by watching the live stream sparks ideas and inspiration for them and their ministries. Thank you so much for allowing us to participate in this call. Yeah. Alright Kathy. Yeah, could you elaborate a little more on the pitch itself. And by that I'm, I'm more or less asking is the pitch closer to sorry for those who haven't been through this process closer to the ordination interviews or closer to the clergy spouse video at annual conference. Or anything in between. Danielle how would you answer that. I'm sorry Kathy was your repeat the question. I just wanted to ask about the pitch itself how, how creative is it, is it more like a question and answer, or is it. I would create a presentation. Oh yeah go I would say personally go creative go go and sprays your wings. Yeah. And how much time is allowed. Owen. How much time. So we last year. I think we allowed five minutes for the pitch itself. This year we're going to have to wait and see and how many pitches we actually allow to go into the tank and and that will determine a lot of it but it's it's a quick time it's all it was only like five minutes. But you know we had somebody doing dance ministry and they came in and they put on the music and they started dancing. The type and abundance was a holistic health, spiritual and physical health, and the people in the pitch came in jazz or size type outfits. And, and so I think it's much less like ordination interviews and much more like clergy spouse. And then, and I think just watch the shark tank and see how the shark tank pitches go they come in creative, but they get their information apart, and then things get more serious during the question answer time, and that's kind of how it happens. Yeah, I think shark tank watch YouTube videos of shark tank and YouTube videos of shark tank pitches and that'll give you kind of, that'll give you a good idea what we're looking for. Like from the sharks perspective, I really appreciated all the humor all the visuals that they brought so one of the things I still remember is that they brought the box of. So the whole ministry was about like teaching people how to cook with the boxes of food donations that they get. And I still remember the food donation that they actually brought and you know they asked what this particular zucchini I don't remember what it was a corn. So you do know how to cook a corn. That's a good question and you know so that so I would say, but then that's me that I'm not the shark this year. So, the shady Grove, who was asking for a baseball ministry for their kids brought all the kids in there and in their baseball uniforms and passed out baseball cards to us. I mean, they had a great pitch. So, yeah. I'm looking for good TV and ordination interviews are probably not very good TV. Kathy. So, what about using media like PowerPoint and so forth is that permissible. It could be but I'm just thinking about a setup and how easy that's to get set up because we're doing quick turnarounds and how good that would be on our, our, our media. But you might could I think I'm trying to think if somebody did bring in a screen I don't think anyone brought in a screen last year, but if you let us know ahead of time and you want some sort of video we might can accommodate that. I'm looking for the excuse me for the clergy pitch. Does that mean that only the clergy pitch. So we can't bring any lady with us. Well, I mean I guess you could have them come into clergy retreat Wednesday morning for that during that time. I mean I don't think we would prohibit that. But I was just kind of operating off of the assumption. That it would be just clergy, but I'm not sure I was limited clergy from a church pitch. Yeah, yeah, but I, yeah, well we had multiple applications from from the same churches. And sometimes they got in, you know, sometimes they didn't and then we had multiple clergy from a church pitch. They didn't all make it into the tank, but they did all receive funding. These are good questions. Appreciate them. What other questions do you have. Well, I am hearing none and but I'm well pleased with the turnout for this for this meeting and it makes me think we're going to have some good applications in and a lot of applications come in. And again, don't our contact information there. It's just all of our last names at ntcumc.org North Texas Conference United Methodist Church.org Ross at ntcumc.org Vargas at ntcumc.org and temple at ntcumc.org. And any phase in there if you're still in just trying to think about ideas Matt temple loves to do the ideation with people and and and can do that and assume call with your church. Jessica is there to help you with your application in any way I can be helpful. We are we are available to you. And we are just praying that the, the sparks that are being ignited in this turn into a fire of revival. Because the Lord knows that our, our people needed our churches needed them, even more than that, the people we are called to serve and minister to need some good news and this in these in these days. So I thank y'all for your time here. I thank you for your presence and we'll be praying for y'all as you put together your spark tank applications. So blessings to you.