The role of the West has changed.
We need new starting points.
Scatter is a global collective that cares deeply about the flourishing of society. We believe that for this to happen, the voice and vision of local leaders around the world must be primary.
With a posture of listening, we connect local leaders to a broader community of people and resources by cultivating common spaces that nurture mutual partnership.
As marketplace leaders, creatives, risk-takers, investors, entrepreneurs, and disruptors, we are committed to showing up well and helping others do the same.
We choose to shift the focus...
enterprise over aid
partnership over paternalism
mutual flourishing over poverty alleviation
strengths-based over deficit-based
relational over transactional
We are choosing to no longer live in “West to the rest” but “everywhere to everywhere." We acknowledge that too often and for too long the current paradigms implicitly bias the West as superior in theology, knowledge, means, and expertise in solving intractable problems.
We commit to the practice of decentering oneself as the hero in the story of God in the world, seeking to embody the upside-down way of Jesus of Nazareth. We do not bring God as much as we are witnesses to a God who is already active and present in the world.
As a spiritually formed, globally interconnected community, we nurture friendships that seek to understand each other's needs and share resources for the common good.
What We Believe
We begin at the beginning: Inherent goodness in every person and community. We practice a strengths-based approach to seeing opportunities in every problem, beauty before deficit, and redemptive solutions in the face of intractable realities.
We recognize the inherent worth and dignity of every person, created in the image of God, though fallen, yet beautifully endowed. We longingly participate in dignity unveiled, renewed, and experienced anew by everyone we come into contact with.
We are not as much carriers of the good news as we are witnesses. We bear witness to a God who is already present in communities. We ask where God is already acting and moving.
We embrace ideas and ways of thinking other than our own. We name and frame power dynamics, always seeking empowerment. We are bound together and need one another as sacred siblings, approaching one another at eye level.
God consistently shows up next to those that systems have excluded and oppressed on the margins. This solidarity with us - walking our road, living our life, dying our death - is our pattern for loving our neighbor.
We defy cynicism and apathy through rooted, imaginative hope. We wade in a long tradition of Christian imagination, subverting despair on the one hand and hype on the other.
We affirm the crucial role of persistent curiosity; we actively resist algorithms that encourage us towards a confirmation bias, believing we are better builders and shapers when our thinking is crystallized by hard conversations and views divergent from our own.
We affirm the impulse of human beings to design, shape, invent, and optimize. We believe creativity mixed with Christian imagination is a gift to be stewarded for the common good.
We define more than defend, creating as a practiced response to criticism.
What We Do
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Cultivate
We want to journey together, growing in both thought and action. We want to be a hub of relevant resources that help individuals, organizations, and churches show up well in the world. We want to develop a prophetic imagination for a way of living and being in the world, through education and content creation/curation.
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Convene
We want to pull up our chair to sit at the table of local leaders around the world. Accepting invitations to partner together to see flourishing in their spheres. What do they want to see? What do they have driving their vision? What do they need to thrive?
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Connect
We want to invite others to the table. In a spirit of mutuality and co-creating, let’s bring the right people together in a thriving partnership. If talent is needed, we want to connect leaders with talented individuals. If capital is required, we want to find the right investors. Sharing resources to bring dynamic, global flourishing.
Join Us on this Journey!
Connect to Resources
Learn more about how God designed us to show up in the world - here, there, and everywhere. Get connected to relevant books, curated articles, video content, daily devotionals, and more!