Wesleyan Impact Partners Announces 2025 Locke Innovative Leader Award Honorees

AUSTIN, Texas (February 12, 2025) – Wesleyan Impact Partners, a national nonprofit and church ministry partner dedicated to lifting up the work of spiritual entrepreneurs, proudly announces the 2025 Locke Innovative Leader Award honorees.

Recipients of the Locke Innovative Leader Award exemplify creative and courageous leadership and an unceasing entrepreneurial spirit. They live out of a deep spiritual faith in their work to transform communities. This year’s Locke Innovative Leaders are reimagining higher education, repurposing property to better serve neighbors, and revolutionizing how the church uses technology to aid decision-making and increase impact.

Each Locke Innovative Leader Award honoree receives $50,000 and an invitation to join past recipients of the Award to nurture their spirit and ideas. To date, Wesleyan Impact Partners has invested over $2 million in Locke Innovative Leaders.

"The Locke Innovative Leader Award is all about celebrating and empowering change-makers who embody the call of the Gospel and the spirit of the Wesleyan movement,” said Rev. Lisa Greenwood, president and CEO of Wesleyan Impact Partners. “We are inspired by these Locke Innovative Leaders and are learning from them how to lead the systemic changes needed for human flourishing and thriving communities.”

The 2025 Locke Innovative Leader Award Honorees Are:

Joe Bowling is the executive director of Englewood Community Development Corporation in Indianapolis, Indiana, a faith-driven organization that promotes comprehensive community development with a specific focus on serving vulnerable populations. Englewood has developed, actively manages, and facilitates critical services to 400 households through its affordable rental housing, while also promoting a range of job creation and economic development strategies. The organization also supports faith communities with a range of resources through the Englewood Review of Books and Cultivating Communities initiative.

Rev. Joshua Hayashi is the CEO and Co-Founder of Mission Management Company (MMCo) in Honolulu, Hawaii, a business that promotes repurposing church assets and the power of cross-denominational collaboration. MMCo helps local religious communities thrive in novel ways by assessing their financial health, transformation readiness, and property potential, which then guides discussions on mission and property-development viability, as well as how to align church missions with neighborhood needs. Josh is also a school chaplain at Punahou School, helping students develop spiritual and ethical values inspired by their Hawaiian and Christian heritage.

Beverly Jenkins is the president and CEO of Refuge and Restoration (R&R) and the co-founder and pastor of R&R Church in Dellwood, Missouri, serving the North St. Louis community by creating resources that lead to sustainable growth. Originally launched as a transitional home for those experiencing homelessness, unemployment, or past incarceration, R&R has since added a career development center, the R&R church, and R&R Marketplace, a $20 million, 90,000-square-foot economic hub. The R&R Marketplace houses an addiction treatment facility, pharmacy, early childhood education center, bank, and restaurant, exemplifying the answer to Jenkins’ question: “How do we serve people better?”

Dr. Aaron Kuecker is the president of Trinity Christian College in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. Trinity is working to shift its institution – and higher education as a whole – toward an abundance mindset rooted in better connecting and receiving the gifts already present in Chicagoland. This approach to abundance, connection, and mutuality has produced upstream solutions for student loan debt and student well-being that have deepened the flourishing of both students and local partners. Among Trinity’s innovations are a 4-day class schedule that provides students a mid-week day to pursue spiritual, social, academic, and financial well-being, and a radically transformed economic model that reduces tuition by 40% while also partnering with local businesses to minimize student loan debt through paid internships and sponsored degrees.

About the Locke Innovative Leader Award

The Locke Innovative Leader Award recognizes individuals who demonstrate exceptional creativity and leadership in developing new practices and ministries that expand the reach of God’s love. The church is called to strengthen its witness through traditional congregations and innovative faith communities that further the Gospel. This mixed ecology of the church's witness requires diverse leaders with an entrepreneurial spirit and the ability to see beyond existing practices and models.

The Locke Innovative Leader Award aims to inspire and strengthen this spirit, fostering greater innovation throughout the Wesleyan community while celebrating the boldness needed to explore new ideas and embrace lifelong learning. By celebrating these leaders, the award aims to inspire others to pioneer fresh approaches that highlight individuals, strengthen neighborhoods, and advance the mission of the Wesleyan movement.

Each recipient is a proven innovator with a promising future who has positively impacted the Wesleyan ecosystem by working directly at the intersection of faith and transformation.

Through versatile ministry, social entrepreneurship, and collaboration, these leaders focus on reaching communities and populations that are often overlooked or under-resourced, guided by a Spirit-led generosity. To learn more, visit https://wesleyanimpactpartners.org/locke-leaders

About Wesleyan Impact Partners

Wesleyan Impact Partners is a national nonprofit fueled by impact investors, borrowers, and donors who invest in ministries and innovative leaders courageously doing God's work, empowering a cycle of generosity and helping bring about thriving congregations and flourishing communities. Throughout its 55-plus-year history, Wesleyan Impact Partners has made thousands of loans totaling over half a billion dollars, empowering churches across the United States to pursue their God-sized dreams while also lifting up the work of courageous spiritual entrepreneurs across the Wesleyan Ecosystem through the nationally recognized Locke Innovative Leader Award and its thought leadership in Igniting Imagination®. Our work is made possible through partnerships across the country with impact-focused investors, donors, and Methodist foundations. Based in Austin, Texas, the organization is led by President & CEO Rev. Lisa Greenwood, who is also President & CEO of the Texas Methodist Foundation. To learn more, visit https://wesleyanimpactpartners.org.