In this episode of the Future Church Podcast, Todd Wilson (President & CEO, Exponential) talks to Tami Lakey of the So Shine Foundation.
So Shine Foundation is a nonprofit that exists as a co-vocational opportunity. Their approach through their initiatives is to be practitioners that can then teach out of their experience. In 2017, the nonprofit purchased an existing coffee bar and used it as a co-vocational opportunity for mission in the community. They launched using the proceeds to fund an after-school program that has now reached hundreds of families in their town of 20,000. Since then, the So Shine Foundation has assisted with the startup of two additional coffee bars with strategic outreach initiatives.
Listen to Episode 3 of the podcast and access the show notes below.
 
Future Church Insights:
1. Tami discusses the differences in the bi-vocational/co-vocational model of church.
She says there is a distinction between the two, highlighting that in their co-vocational model, “this is my missionary income, this is what I’m doing.”  She views bi-vocational as a way for pastors to have income while building a church with the end goal being 100% financial support from the eventual church.
2. Tami calls the So Shine Foundation a “fresh expression of church.”
She uses that term in light of what most people in her community think a church is. Their goal in the community is to “be able to show them the person of Christ in our words, and in our actions that they might be open to rethinking what church actually means. And that relationship that we’re building with them, and showing them that fresh expression would give us more opportunity to engage them in conversation.”  
3. Tami talks about “being sent.”
She shares the picture, that Jesus was a sent missionary by the Father. And Jesus then tells His disciples, “Just like the Father sent me here, I’m sending you.”  Tami feels there are so many opportunities to say, “This is where I’m sent, how can God use where I am to be a missionary, to be able to point others to Christ in that context?”
Goals and Desired Outcomes of So Shine Foundation

* To find ways that the coffee shop can point the community to Jesus, or to Kingdom values.
* To operate the coffee shop under the principles that will allow customers to feel joy when they are in that space and for it to be a place of peace where customers feel they are accepted just as they are.
* To take down that wall of the sacred secular divide when it comes to our work.

Links: 
So Shine Foundation
More of a reader? Download the transcription here.
Key Quotes from the episode:
“If we can see every bit of the work that we do as followers of Christ as being sacred, because he has sent us to that job, and to those people for a reason, I think that’s really empowering to followers of Christ.” -Tami Lakey
“Honestly, I think that what God’s doing here, it’s not spectacular, and yet, it’s miraculous and spectacular too.” -Tami Lakey