Business as Mission

A Comprehensive Guide to Theory and Practice

C. Neal Johnson

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780830869473
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Business as mission (BAM) is a mission strategy whose time has come. As global economics become increasingly interconnected, Christian business people and entrepreneurs have unanticipated opportunities to build kingdom-strategic business ventures. But Christian companies and business leaders do not automatically accomplish missional purposes. BAM requires mastery of both the world of business and the world of missions, merging and contextualizing both into something significantly different than either alone. C. Neal Johnson offers the first comprehensive guide to business as mission for practitioners. He provides conceptual foundations for understanding BAM's unique place in global mission and prerequisites for engaging in it. Then he offers practical resources for how to do BAM, including strategic planning and step-by-step operational implementation. Drawing on a wide variety of BAM models, Johnson works through details of both mission and business realities, with an eye to such issues as management, sustainability and accountability. Business as mission is a movement with enormous potential. This book breaks new ground in how faith and work intersect and are lived out in crosscultural contexts, where job creation and community transformation go hand in hand. Come, participate in what may well be one of the most strategic mission paradigms of the 21st century.

Part One

Business as Mission

An Overview

[The] idea is . . . simple: It assumes that the main players in overseas kingdom work are not trained cross-cultural missionaries or NGO professionals, but laypeople who take their current expertise (whether it is teaching, plumbing, electronics, or so forth) and use it to serve people in other nations. . . .

“ I view the church as an army of missionaries sitting in the pews. My job is to mobilize them. . . .

“ Some people talk about ‘business as mission,’ how we’re going to use business to do mission work. That’s an insult to the businessman, because to him business is his mission. His mission is the kingdom of God.”

Bob Roberts Jr., interviewed by Mark Galli

1

What Is Business as Mission?

“The commercial business marketplace may well be the primary mission field of the twenty-first century.”

Charles Van Engen

For a blessing upon all human labor, And for the right use of the riches of creation,That the world may be freed from poverty, famine, and disaster, We pray to you, O Lord. For the poor, the persecuted, the sick, and all who suffer; For refugees, prisoners, and all who are in danger; That they may be relieved and protected, We pray to you, O Lord.

Book of Common Prayer

Today the term Business as Mission (BAM) is bandied about as a new church fad or mission buzzword. It has garnered a great deal of attention but not a great deal of action for three reasons: (1) it is difficult to define exactly what BAM means, (2) many people love the concept of BAM, but few really understand how to do it, and (3) those who do understand and undertake a BAM initiative seldom stop to count the true cost of the undertaking. I will attempt to clarify all three of these difficulties with this text.

A Working Definition

BAM is broadly defined as a for-profit commercial business venture that is Christian led, intentionally devoted to being used as an instrument of God’s mission (missio Dei) to the world, and is operated in a crosscultural environment, either domestic or international. BAM companies are themselves ministries at two levels. First, they minister to all those who are directly in the business’s spheres of influence, such as their workforce and their families, suppliers and vendors, investors and creditors, customers and clients, even competitors. Second, they engage the community they operate in and undertake holistic, people-impacting community-development initiatives. Some might say that BAM is crosscultural business plus community development. BAM is, however, not that easily pigeonholed.

In modern times the idea of business as mission was revived and promoted as a means to gain access to countries that close their borders to traditional missionaries. The reasons that these so-called closed (or creative) access nations (CANs) or restricted access nations (RANs) deny visas to Christian missionaries are varied, but frequently they arise from either the church’s association with the nation’s colonial past or the church and its missionaries posing a threat to the country’s politically dominant religion or other power structures. Not infrequently, the secular or sectarian national government is simply anti-Christian. In practice these nations are frequently in the world’s undeveloped (predeveloped) countries that are usually characterized by rampant corruption, a wide gulf between rich and poor, a small or nonexistent middle class, endemic poverty, economic stagnation and hopelessness, limited actual religious and political freedom, and pervasive abuse of human rights.

Having said this, I am compelled to state that any definition of BAM— including my own working definition on the previous page—is by its nature limiting and therefore inadequate. The 2004 Lausanne Working Group 30 on Business as Mission was composed of sixty-eight BAM activists from twenty-eight countries. After a week of meetings, our group concluded that it was virtually impossible to achieve a universally satisfactory definition of BAM. The best that the group could do was to note the almost infinite variety of connections between business and mission, and to discuss some of BAM’s key characteristics:

• BAM is based on the principle of holistic mission
• BAM has a kingdom perspective, kingdom business
• BAM is different but related to

– workplace ministries (marketplace ministries)

– tentmaking

– business for mission (donation of business profits for mission)

• BAM does not condone nonbusiness and nonmissions (it must be real business and real missions, simultaneously)
• BAM pursues profit
• BAM comes in all shapes and sizes
• BAM is not about jobs and money—per se
• BAM’s ultimate bottom line is ad majorem Dei gloriam, “for the greater glory of God”[1]

Nonetheless, one of the participants, Tom Sudyk, the founder and CEO of a BAM enterprise, the EC Group (Evangelistic Commerce) in Grand Rapids, Michigan, proffered a definition: BAM is “the Strategic use of authentic business activities to create cross-cultural opportunities to minister and evangelize within the business’s spheres of influence with the aim of holistic transformation.”[2] Mats Tunehag, the BAM track facilitator at the 2004 Lausanne Conference in Thailand, takes a more negative line, describing what BAM is not:

BAM is real business, not Christian charity in a business disguise. But it is more than just business. Two approaches to business that do not come within the scope of “business as mission” by any definition are: (1) Fake businesses that are not actually functioning businesses, but exist solely to provide visas for missionaries to enter countries otherwise closed to them. (2) Businesses that purport to have Christian motivations but which operate only for private economic advantage and not for the kingdom of God. Neither do we mean businesses run by Christians with no clear and defined kingdom strategy in place.[3]

Tunehag later gave his own definition of what BAM is: “Business as Mission is about real, viable, sustainable and profitable businesses; with a Kingdom of God purpose, perspective and impact; leading to transformation of people and societies spiritually, economically, socially and environmentally—to the great glory of God.”[4]

Ken Eldred says, “Kingdom businesses [BAMs] are for-profit commercial enterprises in the mission field of the developing world through which Christian business professionals are seeking to meet spiritual, social and economic needs.”[5] Notwithstanding the differences in definition, the essence is the same: crosscultural Christian mission in and through business.

R. Paul Stevens, quoting Sunki Bang of the Business Ministry of Seoul, Korea, offers some additional, useful distinguishing features of BAM:

• business and mission—two isolated activities
• business for mission—using the proceeds of business as a way of financing mission
• business as a platform for mission—work and professional life as means of channeling mission throughout the world (in Korea such people are called businaries)
• mission in business—hiring nonbelievers and offering chaplaincy services with a view to leading them to Christ
• business as mission—business as part of the mission of God in the world[6]

A Historical Perspective

BAM arises from a deep, abiding concern for the impoverished people of the world, especially those in the area that has come to be known as the 10/40 Window, which was coined by Luis Bush in 1990 and describes a geographic rectangle from 10 degrees north to 40 degrees south of the Equator and stretches from West Africa to East Asia. This area contains half of the world population (about 3.2 billion people), 95 percent of whom are unevangelized (in fifty-five of the least evangelized nations), and 85 percent of whom are among the world’s poorest of the poor. The 10/40 Window’s dominant religions are Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.[7]

Historically, God’s people have responded to their concern for these people through traditional church or mission-agency missionaries. Some of these missionaries were supported by their sponsors, but many were not. William Carey, the father of modern missions, was a cobbler who set up a printing business in India to support himself, his family and their ministry. In fact, business has been used for centuries to support missionaries on the field, but it was not until the last two decades that it was approached as a specific mission strategy in and of itself.

BAM’s Rebirth: From the Ashes of Colonialism

The shift in perception and practice primarily resulted from the collapse of colonialism. During that era the church was often a useful and complicit tool in the colonial powers’ foreign policies. In most situations the colonialist state and the church worked hand in glove to subdue, occupy, govern and convert conquered peoples and nations. As such, the church incurred the enmity that was directed at the colonial powers themselves. When independence came, the colonials left almost overnight. Amid the reactionary responses, the newly independent states passed laws and policies that restricted the church’s activities and forbade missionaries from entering their countries. That is where the term restricted access nations (RANs) originated.

The church noted that these new nations were eager, even desperate, to initiate economic reforms and to grow their business sectors. While they would not allow Christian church workers or missionaries into their countries, they welcomed Western businessmen, Christian or not, with open arms. The church saw this as an opening and began sending missionaries into these countries under the guise of business. They lied on their visa applications, entered the countries, set up shell businesses and then proceeded to use those businesses as covers to initiate mission activities. That creativity led to the term creative (or closed) access nations (CANs).

People of those nations may have been poor and underdeveloped, but they were not stupid. They saw through the ruse and realized that these missionaries had not only lied but were adding nothing of value to the country’s economic growth. Accordingly, many missionaries were forced to leave their assignments and return home. This was tragic in several ways, but in particular it shut down the mission outreach within those countries and conveyed the wrong message to their officials and people. It told them in unequivocal terms that Christianity is a foreign, Western religion that uses lies, deception and trickery to get its way. Further, its God, this Jesus and its emissaries are not people of honesty and integrity and are not to be trusted or associated with.

BAM Is Real Business

BAM arose from this hotbed of controversy. Christian businessmen and women saw that while missionaries were excluded or even evicted, businesspeople were welcomed into these nations. They witnessed, often with dismay and disdain, the church’s counterproductive strategies. Being businesspeople who understood adding value to a society and—being moved by God—they purposed to use their business skills to succeed where the church had failed. That required creating (or purchasing) and operating real, legitimate, profit-oriented businesses in those countries and using them not simply for evangelism but also for holistic ministry to the people they targeted. They realized that establishing a real, for-profit business in the country was an ideal way to find legitimacy within the society; to add value to that society through the creation of jobs, products and services that benefit the people; and to develop credibility and trust for the gospel.

This is not to say that BAM businesses were not faced with real, substantial barriers to their entry into the market. On close inspection it became apparent to these Christian businesspeople that the host countries were doing all they could to develop their nations economically, but that their businesses were in a primitive, often embryonic state. This was especially true for businesses producing exportable products; there were few that could compete on the global market. And many of these nations lacked the infrastructure so useful (essential) to rapid business growth and economic progress.

Further, most businesses were being crippled by rampant corruption at every level of government and society. The reasons for the corruption were legion, from simple survival strategies by individuals in minipower positions to well-organized, brutal gangs and mafia, to despotic rulers at the highest levels of government. In each instance, justice, righteousness and fairness were subverted, leaving an unhealthy society in serious need of political reform, economic growth, jobs and Jesus. But such conditions—while imposing for BAM companies—ironically embody the essence of why BAM is needed. These countries are fertile, uncultivated soil that is ripe for the seeds of the gospel—seeds coming not merely from words but from seeing Christ in action through Christian businesspersons and their activities.

BAM Is for Job-Makers

In fall 2002, Tetsunao (Ted) Yamamori, who served for seventeen years as president of Food for the Hungry, and businessman Kenneth Eldred, founder of Kingdom Business Forums (KBF), convened a Consultation for Holistic Entrepreneurs. The purpose was to explore the BAM theme. The consultation unequivocally concluded that a BAM business is about job creation, value enhancement, wealth generation and product/service distribution at both the business and spiritual levels. To accomplish this, BAM must be about job making, never about job taking. In that sense BAM distinguishes itself from the classical concept of tentmaking. As Yamamori wrote in the preface to a compilation of the consultation’s BAM papers:

Most tentmakers are “job-takers.” . . . In contrast to regular tentmakers, kingdom entrepreneurs [i.e., BAM practitioners] are job makers, starting small to large for-profit businesses. These businesses are not fronts to get into closed countries (with the attendant ethical problems), but real enter...