God is forward thinking and always ahead of the curve! We believe that the innovations to bring the Gospel to new frontiers have already been given to the church. If you have an idea of how to bring the Kingdom to TikTok, eSports or Live Streaming, then the Kingdom Innovation Grant wants to help you!
Share your plan with us and if it’s selected, we’ll help you kickstart your idea with S$5,000. And if your plan gains traction, the Kingdom Innovation Grant will continue to support the expansion of your plan up to S$25,000.
PHASE 1 (5 Grants): S$5,000 each
PHASE 2 (3 Grants): Up to S$25,000 each
2021 and 2022 grants have been fully disbursed and grants will now be considered on an ad-hoc basis, so do feel free to share your submissions below!
About the grant
The reason why this grant is so important is because we are entering the golden age of social media, an incredible opportunity to reach a new generation without borders, without boundaries.
The church of Jesus Christ is alive, and full of talent. We believe there are many youths who already have gifts and ideas to share the Gospel in this new space. But because of the unique time that we live in, much of the church among us already have their hands full adapting and focusing on shepherding their sheep through this difficult situation. During these times, this grant hopes to supplement the work of the local church by helping our youth explore these new social media platforms.
Because of how rapidly media is changing, if we do not innovate to master each platform, we miss out on the huge opportunities these platforms offer. Now, even if the church does not seek out change, change is coming to us. Take Instagram for example, a medium which many of us are proficient in; and our comfort on it may lull us into thinking that there is no need to get involved with a new medium like TikTok. But change is coming to the church. In mid-2020 Instagram themselves recognized that TikTok is a large growing trend they need to address, and as a result, Instagram is now overhauling their app in their 2 largest markets: India & USA. Although it's not yet come to our shores, it soon will and Instagram now has a function called Instagram Reels, which essentially makes TikTok style content a large part of Instagram. By the church innovating on how to master new mediums like TikTok, we also ready ourselves to cope with the change that is coming to the mediums where we primarily reside; change like Instagram Reels.
This 2021 grant is a continuation of our great desire to support the local church in ensuring that our presentation of the gospel continues to always remain sharp and relevant for even 5-10 years to come. Our motivation has always been to empower local creatives: be it through bringing in global songwriters to collaborate with local churches, or by encouraging digital innovation, the goal has always been to support a new generation in reaching their peers for Jesus.
These 3 categories (TikTok, live streaming and eSports) are specifically chosen for their likelihood in being pillars of the internet in 5 years time. There is strong data coming out of the most advanced economies in the world, that shows us a convincing trend of how these 3 categories have some of the strongest growth in new users and time spent on the platform; and we are highly confident that these trends will likely strengthen.
While recognising these 3 categories are completely new areas that even many commercial brands have yet to explore, much less the church, we believe that we have a responsibility to bring the hope of Jesus Christ into an increasingly discouraged world by any means necessary. In the words of Jesus Himself in Matthew 25:14-30, God encourages us to investigate multiplying the Kingdom and its resources in ways that may not be entirely "safe" bets. In fact, Matthew 25:28 says of the parable of the talents: "Take the thousand and give it to the one who risked the most. And get rid of this "play-it-safe" that won't go out on a limb". Many may have often wondered why Jesus wanted us to take risk with regard to sowing in the Kingdom, but perhaps Apostle Paul said it best in 1 Cor 3 when he said we should sow as instructed, and another may water, but at the end of the day, it is God who ultimately is in charge of any increase; and our trust is entirely on Him to bring about a harvest.
Since the grant opened, we've had a few encouraging ideas - TikTok-ers, or even people who are top gamers getting in touch to explore how they think they can bring forward the gospel in their area of influence. All these are a great encouragement because it is a constant reminder that unbeknownst to many of us, the church of Jesus Christ is more gifted and more alive than we could ever have dreamt.