Religion might be the hot-button issue of all hot-button issues.
Everybody has their own beliefs on the subject and most people don’t like being pushed one way or the other to follow someone else’s path.
Stephanie Vazquez is the communications manager at First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple. It’s the oldest church in Chicago — founded six years before the city was incorporated.
Vazquez loves the diversity of the church’s congregation and the fact that the church does not try to push people.
“It’s an offering to the city,” Vazquez says in this month’s Uniquely Chicago. “Not, ‘Hey, look at us.’ But, ‘Hey, we want you to join us.’”
Conversations take place in the church about various social issues and everyone’s opinion can be heard.
“What is beautiful about this congregation is that they span the spectrum in all sorts of different ways,” Vazquez says. “They span it theologically, so you’ll have someone who is extremely conservative and someone who is extremely liberal. You could have a CEO sitting next to a homeless man. It’s the norm of this church. In order to be part of the congregation, that’s part of the DNA of the congregation.”
One can only hope that more of these conversations can take place across all aspects of society, leading to meaningful change that helps us all.
Do it your way
Jacob Babcock still finds it weird to call himself an entrepreneur.
“I just don’t like that word,” Babcock says. “For me, it’s not about being a wear the black turtleneck and stand up on stage and hold up your device kind of entrepreneur. I like to look at problems and solve them and build teams around those problems.”
Judging by what’s happening at NuCurrent, Babcock seems well on his way to meeting that goal.
The subject of this month’s feature story, Babcock reveals that he got his first taste of running a business in seventh grade.
“Me and two of my friends were selling candy out of my locker,” Babcock says. “Our moms would go to Sam’s Club and buy us all the candy. It was 10 cents a piece, but we would sell it to our friends for 25 cents each. Of course, our parents didn’t make us pay them back, so we thought there is no cost, this is great. Then we got put in detention because we’re not allowed to be doing that.”
Babcock recovered from this setback and went on to follow a very unique and interesting path on his way to starting NuCurrent.
It’s evident that there is no one standard method to building a business. As long as you keep an open mind and a curious spirit, you can accomplish anything you want to.
“We took some leaps of faith, but also made some good judgments talking with partners in our industry about what they were doing and where they were making investments,” Babcock says. “That way, we would know if we wanted to put our eggs in that basket.” ●
