“BAM is not solely oriented toward evangelism or discipleship; it is holistic – reaching the whole needs of the whole of humanity everywhere.”[1] The 2004 Lausanne Working Group 30 on Business as Mission was composed of sixty-eight BAM activists from twenty-eight countries. In the paper that was written, the result of a week of discussion, they say that BAM originates from the theological premise that Christians are called to love and serve God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, as well as to love and serve their neighbours.[2] “Business as Mission is based on the principle of holistic mission. BAM’s ultimate bottom line is ad majorem Dei gloriam – ‘for the greater glory of God.’”[3]
Business as Mission started when Christians saw that missionaries were getting evicted from closed countries, but business people were welcomed into those nations. Christian business people started to establish real, for-profit businesses in those countries, adding value to the society while building trust and credibility to share the gospel.[4]
"BAM is broadly defined as a for-profit commercial business venture Christ led, intentionally devoted to being used as an instrument of God’s mission (missio Dei) to the world, and is operated in a cross-cultural environment, either domestic or international."[5] While the growing corporate social responsibility (CSR) movement emphasizes a “triple bottom-line” impact of financial, social, and environmental outcomes, BAM affirms all this but includes a 4th bottom line. This bottom line is a spiritual outcome, intentionally honouring Christ and seeing Him transform lives through business. “BAM is CSR+… where the + can be seen as a cross – putting everything under the Lordship of Christ.”[6]
Do you know any Business as Mission ventures?
Do you know any Business as Mission ventures?
[1] Johnson, Neal, Business as Mission. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2010), 22.
[2] Matt 22:34-40; Luke 10:27
[3] Adapted from “Business as Mission,” Lausanne Occasional Paper No.59, Sep29-Oct5, 2004, in The Lausanne Movement, <http://www.businessasmission.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Documents/
Lausanne_Occasional_Paper_on_Business_as_Mission.pdf >.
Lausanne_Occasional_Paper_on_Business_as_Mission.pdf >.
[4] Johnson, Neal, 32.
A good foundation of books and authors, Tim. If you email me at flylikeaneagle123@gmail.com I'll send you a list of resources I've compiled over the past year of research and study.
ReplyDeleteIf you'd like to see an example of BAM in action go to www.affirmglobal.com.
Best,
Steve Miller
I'm getting alot of comments from LinkedIn, and would like to share these with my blog readers as well as they've been very helpful for me.
ReplyDelete(all comments from a discussion I started, based on this blog post, on the Business as Mission Network group on LinkedIn. Join the group if you want to interact with people around the world interested in BAM).
Robert E Kuseski • Tim, very good intro for BAM. Nevertheless, I think another aspect needs to be emphasized. That is, BAM businesses can provide jobs for new converts to Christ. In many cultures (I am thinking India, Egypt and Pakistan) even if it is legal to be a Christian, government and cultural mandates dictate oppression with a real hardship in finding employment. Thanks, Bob
ReplyDeleteJo Plummer • Tim - you've obviously been reading and thinking and trying to engage on this topic. Defining BAM and introducing it's various facets succinctly is not an easy task and you've made a good start. I think in paragraph 3 you have obviously tried to keep it brief, but as a result it's slightly over-simplified, and ends up putting little too much emphasis on the BAM as a 'creative access' strategy... (true but not the whole picture - the section in Neal's book you cite is a bit longer and therefore more rounded!). I'm always wanting to push us to keep thinking broadly about the many ways we can glorify God through business... that's just my 3 pence for what it's worth! You might have already read it but others might find our Intro and FAQs page http://www.businessasmission.com/faqs.html on the businessasmission.com website helpful... from there you can browse the Resources section: that has quite a few BAM stories (see BAM in practice) and also lists of links, articles, books etc.
ReplyDeleteEvan Kubicek • Hi Tim:
ReplyDeleteYou can put your passion and zeal for blogging to work @ http://www.wikibam.com Go for it!
Hi Bob, thanks for your comment! Would BAM businesses give preference to employ new Christians in those countries? Or would they just treat new Christians as fairly as everyone else, and hire them regardless of their faith?
ReplyDeleteHi Jo, thanks for your comments. It seems like BAM has a larger focus on starting business cross-culturally (rather than locally) - do you think this is true? Also, would you say that part of the mission of BAM is "creative access"? Or that this creative access is merely a benefit of the business (but not the motivation to do business)?
ReplyDeleteRobert E Kuseski • Tim,
ReplyDeleteSo many questions, so little time ;-)
Yes, my point is that Christian Business(wo)men need to set up business in places like Pakistan and India that greatly discriminate against Christians specifically so new converts have a place to work. Of course, one has to be careful to NOT set up a situation like the “Rice Christians” of the previous century where people just ‘professed’ becoming a Christian to just get the rice being given out by the missionaries. I know a retired businessman who goes to Pakistan several times a year to help new Christians start business with microloans. Only business people will be able recognize a potential businessperson and be able to evaluate the prospective business plan. As a retired engineer, I would have no clue.
One additional point – I heard this at an ACMC missions conference years ago – there are dozens of places in the world where one can start a business that pays a living wage with just $300 and dozens more countries that can provide that living salary for a capital investment of just $1000. This is orders of magnitude lower than what it takes in the western world.
Brian Albright • Tim,
ReplyDeleteAs part of your understanding of BAM, I would be careful limiting definitions to those that put BAM in the box of "closed", "unreached", "restricted access" countries. As you mention, God's mission is holistic, meaning that He wants all of our humanity (spiritual, relational, psychological, physical, etc...) to be flourishing. If you read Jeff VanDuzer's book "Why Business Matters to God", he explains, "business leaders should manage their businesses (1) to provide the community with goods and services that will enable it to flourish (outward), and (2) to provide opportunities for meaningful work that will allow employees to express their God-given creativity (inward)." Therefore, business as an institution, compared to government or non-profits, are intrinsically functioning at their prime when meeting physical needs and creating jobs.
While BAMers' do go into closed countries to evangelise and plant churches, BAMers also go into "reached" "open" countries to accomplish the other aspects of God's mission through providing goods and services to those in poverty as well as dignity through creative work.
Hope that helps.
Brian
Jo Plummer • Tim, Brian said what I wanted to say, but so much better! Yes BAM is a particular application of business. But we must be careful not to narrow down our thinking about business (even while we are affirming particular strategies). God gave us the ability to innovate, create, generate wealth and do business... the institution of business is for communities to provide for themselves, with dignity and develop their own way of life and also take care of the poor among them. As Christians we can do business and be God's witnesses and think about how we can apply business to intentionally build His Kingdom. We all have different interests, skills, focus and maybe some of us refer to these as our 'calling'... We come with different passions and motivations. For some of us that will be for church planting in creative access nations and that is great and much more is needed. But in describing our strategy, we don't want to reduce down the gift of business to only a means to an end . I've written this elsewhere: 'We don't want to lose sight of how God might work through our business in a broader way, reducing down the sheer potential of what we are doing. Wow, God is so creative, the ability to be creative, to add value, to make money, to create wealth, to come up with new innovations, that provide livelihoods, that help the community develop, that help us live in peace, that closes the door on exploitation, that gives lives meaning, that transforms peoples values.... These are all God’s gifts to us in business! Christians need to be affirmed in all that!" But here is the thing as well... we have a mandate to be His witnesses to the ends of the earth, to share the good news of the Kingdom, to minister to the poor... That is the mission of the whole church. So in Business as Mission, we are emphasizing that God is a missional God, and we are to be a missional people... I like the way it's put here: The Lausanne Occasion Paper #59 expresses the focus of business as mission like this:
ReplyDelete“We recognise the importance of extending God’s kingdom through business in any context. However, we want to highlight the biblical mandate to serve the poor and oppressed, in particular in those areas where the gospel has yet to be received. This will lead us to a focus on cross-cultural activity and should draw our attention to areas of endemic poverty and/or unevangelised communities. We acknowledge that this does not automatically suppose the crossing of international boarders and will be necessary within culturally ‘near’ communities as well.”
My thoughts for today! Jo
Steve Lanning • Tim, thanks for using your gifts and thank you for the conver that you have started. Please know that I will be praying for you as you seek to use your gifts for the Kingdom. Thanks, too, for Brian and Jo in their responses to you. That helps me build clarity in my own thinking! See, you are already ministering, brother!
ReplyDeleteBrian Albright • Jo, Thank you for your thorough response. I want to affirm that business is a great strategy for being witnesses of the gospel to those who have not heard. My concern comes in how we define gospel and mission. It seems like these terms are most often communicated in a dichotomistic way so that the result of mission being accomplished is a proclamation, a belief, salvation, baptism, discipleship, etc.... If we are to believe in a holistic gospel, then mission is not accomplished unless we are flourishing not only spiritually, but physically, emotionally, psychologically, etc...
ReplyDeleteThe context I'm most familiar with is Kenya, which is 80% Christian, but poverty and disease are rampant. Most missions circles would consider Kenya reached, but my view is that only part of the gospel has come to Kenya, and business as mission is a vital strategy in bringing the rest of the gospel, completing the whole gospel. Your line "we are emphasizing that God is a missional God, and we are to be a missional people..." made me think that being missional is a result of proclamation. While any efforts to do business as mission without proclamation is not missional, neither would business as mission in a place that has already been reached be any less missional.
Please don’t misunderstand my response, I don’t believe that I’m disagreeing with you, and in no way do I want to discourage those called to the unreached. I just wanted to clarify the point regarding the use and understanding of terms.
Blessings,
Brian
Robert, Jo, Brian, Steve - thanks for taking time to write down your comments. They have been very helpful - there is much to learn about BAM and God's intention for business, and I am excited to help business people (especially the younger generation) in Canada catch this vision.
ReplyDeleteBrian, I have read Jeff Van Duzer's book "Why Business Matters" and found it very inspiring.
ReplyDeleteWhat I'm trying to understand is if there is a difference between "Business as Mission" and Van Duzer's model of "Business as Service". The other model I'm very interested in is Christian Social Enterprise, a business model that Regent College in Vancouver is emphasizing.
Would you say that Business as Mission is the overarching umbrella for the other two models? Or would you say that they are separate?
From my reading so far, here's how I am understanding the differences:
1) Business as Mission - ultimate bottom line is ad majorem Dei gloriam (for the greater glory of God). Practically a BAM seeks to do economic, social, and spiritual good in a community
2) Business as Service - mission is to serve customers and employees. Practically this means "enabling creative work (innovation) and producing community-flourishing products (productivity) in a sustainable manner." (quoting Jeff Van Duzer)
3) Christian Social Enterprise - for-profit business that "seeks to set its aims, strategy, ways of operating and relations with others according to the teaching and example of Christ" (quoting Dr. Michael Hodson from Regent College). Primary motivation is to be socially redemptive.
Brian Albright • Tim,
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I can answer that question very well, but hear are a few thoughts. I don't believe there is an umbrella that one term fits under more than another. I think that all of these conversations, BAM, social enterprise, we could even include corporate social responsibility, impact investing, multiple bottom lines, cause related marketing, etc... all fit under the concept of a search for the meaning and purpose behind business. I think that it is coming from many fields, including business, missions, international development, intercultural studies, etc… Some of it comes from discontent with the view that profit maximizing business doesn’t seem to work for all of society, that missions is striving to be more holistic in nature, and that business people want to make a difference in the world as part of their vocation, not solely volunteering on nights and weekends and giving to those in need through charity. I think those are some of the commonalities of these various movements. You should also know that all of these things are still evolving and being defined, so you are going to get a lot of different answers from different places, and that is OK.
Regarding your comparison with Van Duzer’s book, I think we need to remember that as Jo said earlier, BAM is focused more of an international engagement, similar to what we think of as missionary movement. I don’t think Van Duzer was attempting to speak directly to this movement. He was writing mostly to help American businessmen and women understand a theology of business in their context. I think that his points are extremely helpful in understanding what business is good at and how that can help us in accomplishing mission.
I’m not familiar with Christian Social Enterprise specifically. My interpretation of social enterprise is entrepreneurs using business/market strategies to solve social problems. For example, creating technology that can bring clean water to rural villages, hiring employees that have challenges getting jobs in the regular marketplace (physically handicapped, ex-cons, former prostitutes, etc…), environmentally helpful innovations such as the green movement, etc… My experience is that most of the social enterprise movement does not proclaim to be Christian in nature. Having said that, many of the social entrepreneurs I know are Christians, and are motivated by the missional aspect of their work, but it is less explicit than the BAM movement. I think social enterprises would say that they are not regular business, that they are doing something different than regular business, such as the different hiring practices or different technology I previously described. BAMers might not be doing anything different in regards to the actual business. They are just in a cross-cultural context and have an explicit missional motive.
Anyhow, I hope that helps, and I know that it is confusing and not so cut and dry. The common thread is the use of business for something more.
Brian
Jo Plummer • Brian, very helpful thoughts. You are right, our language sometimes lets us down and one of the problems with the term BAM is that the terms 'business' and 'mission' are understood in such diverse ways by Christians! I think I am trying to say the same as you, that being 'missional' is broader, that there is a 'whole gospel', that building the Kingdom is not just about spiritual transformation. Although I do think our faith and beliefs and thus people being spiritually transformed is core - like the yeast in the dough - but it's woven and connected every other part of life. Jesus sometimes said 'your sins are forgiven' first and sometimes 'get off your mat and walk'! Maybe we westerners have a harder time with this! Anyway, I digress! Yes, the whole gospel... that's why I included impacting poverty as well as evangelism to the unreached in my last post.
ReplyDeleteI think what I was also trying to say is that we can be missional people wherever we are... however the very fact of being missional should lead us to where there is need. There is of course need everywhere, but some of the greatest global needs will direct our strategies.
Tim, I have given up trying to figure out what term fits under what and what is the umbrella term, in most cases it ends up being unhelpful to someone! Instead I think of these different areas as ideas that have taken root and are spurring practice... and I picture them as overlapping circles, like in a Venn diagram. Some circles overlap more than others (and different people will define that overlap differently!). Many ideas in BAM apply equally in other circles.. and some don't. Sorry if that is still too fuzzy for you. I used to draw the circle around BAM with a much thicker marker, but I have been thinking seriously about BAM and writing about it for 10 years and that's what I have come to - dotted lines and overlapping circles! (: For more of my thoughts about BAM, I can only direct you back to the Intro and FAQs page (see link above) and some of the articles I and others have written (see Resources section of site and http://www.businessasmission.com/sitearticles.html )
Evelien de Gier • Just a thought from someone who has worked in Haiti for 28 years: for 20+ years we've had to explain why we saw our business as mission.
ReplyDeleteIf you raise money and set up a clinic, treating people for free, then add a school and charge no school fees, you're a missionary. When you set up a factory where people can earn a salary, and with that salary have the discretion to send their kids to school and/or doctor, you're all of a sudden NOT a missionary but "just" a business person.
When after the earthquake we started making shelters, we instantly were being called a Blessing by the very missionaries who used to shake their heads about our "real jobs" approach. Since then, a major shift has taken place: many now see that the blessing is not so much in the product you make as Christian business, but in the providing of jobs, upgrading the quality of what you make (in our case furniture for the local market), training and stimulating proper work ethos.
If a missionary does a "project" with, say, making bracelets with single moms or at-risk youth, producing products which people buy only out of compassion for "those poor people", often packed in a church room or the missionary's living room, many see it as a blessing - whereas if you would call it a "company" instead, you would be critisized for your poor quality, but even more for the "sweat shop" working circumstances.
The Grameen Creative Lab is challenging several of these "projects" to grow up and transform into (social) businesses. If more Christian business people would think about "what can Haiti do for us" instead of "what can we do for Haiti", we could create quite a revolution in the positive sense of the word.
Why do we need plane loads of relief workers, if we could have plane loads of tourists visiting our pristine beaches?
Why would christian successful business people, who became wealthy by doing business, change to doing "projects" if it concerns poor people??
The Bible is very clear about working our talents. If your talent and skill is in business, then it may very well be that you mission in life would be using/teaching/transferring these skills in countries lees fortunate than yours. Not only as "cover up" for evangelists trying to get into countries where you cannot preach openly, but just for doing business: using your God-given business talents is indeed a Biblical mission.
I can't wait to see Christian businesses booming in Haiti!
Buck Jacobs • I'm kind of late to this discussion but I would like to offer the thought that we really need to emphasize that life IS mission. For those that God gifts and equips to start and lead businesses their business is mission whether the fact is realized or not.All believers give testimony 24/7 as to who Jesus is to them. God does not have a separate set of values or commandments for the different spheres of life that He calls us to. Business is a vehicle that God gives us to reach people in relationship. Business is all about building healthy relationships. There is no better guide to building healthy relationships than God's Word. If believers strive to live under the authority of the Word it will illuminate their lives and the expression of the gospel is coherent in every part including the business. God calls some to start businesses in other countries, reached and unreached, but every business that is led by a believer is intended to be missional where it is. Trying to tie it to the separate definitions clouds the basic issue. For a believer life is mission. It is not intended to be an option.
ReplyDeleteBrett Johnson • Well said, Buck! The Hebrew word AVODAH means two things: business, and ministry. The psalmist says, "The earth is the Lord's and everything in it." I like some of the BAM sentiments, but (like many) I am not a fan of the labels. Business is God's. All are ministers. All we do should be ministry. How that pans out will probably vary on a case by case basis. I love to see the creative things businesspeople do when the assimilate the principles and produce a creative expression of kingdom business. Good roots lead to good fruits. I would be less inclined to worry about the shape, size, spread, or format of the tree. What should the fruit of a kingdom-intentional business me in various settings?
ReplyDeleteHi Evelien, Buck, and Brett. Thanks for your comments.
ReplyDeleteBuck/Brett, I totally agree with your statements that life IS mission. But I would have to disagree with you about having separate definitions, because I have found it very helpful. From a young person's perspective, it is important to see that there IS a difference in doing business that is missional, and doing business that is not. Having separate definitions helps me see tangibly what that difference is.
Many of the young professionals and entrepreneurs I interact with do not see that their work and business is part of their ministry or mission. What helps them is gaining an understand about what it means that work/business is mission, and what that might look like.
Steve Lanning • Thank you, Evelien. I just had a conversation last week with one of our church's longtime elders on 'when is a ministry not a ministry' and that my 'ministry' to elders is a non-profit doing good for elders, but 'not' a ministry because 'there was no evangelical work being done..." Incredulous, I responded "If you take a crusty 80-somethng who doesn't know the Lord and hasn't been favorable to spiritual matters all their live and one who has suddenly been defrauded of all or a good part of their financial security in their estate, you don't think their heart would be more open to Christ as personal Saviour?" Silence.
ReplyDelete@Buck: Thanks for your good word. The Word is our plumbline--some of us sow, some water, but God gives the increase. Business is indeed about building relationships.
@Brett: Great points; all believers in Christ are in ministry until eternity. We went through that in the 1970s and 80s with the Gideons. That was a great time for individual Gideons I knew who were leading pastors to the Lord before and after they spoke to their congregations. And many conversations started with the pastor commenting on the Gideon slogan, "Ministers All". Thanks, too Brett for the definition to AVODAH!
I'm just catching on, but God used a business (and my love for the industry) to call me out and then call me into ministry. The company I work with is 5LINX and I absolutely hands down would consider this company to be BAM (Business as Mission). I've been saying for some time that this company is a ministry in disguise of business...but BAM is a lot easier to say! Thanks for the info.
ReplyDeleteShould anyone want more information on 5LINX and how you can participate, please connect with me on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/denise.kohr
For King and Kingdom!