Hitched Together Versus Pushed Together: BAM Integration
Business as mission is all about the two I’s: Intention and Integration. In BAM we take the innate God-given potential of business to produce innovation, resource multiplication, job creation, community development, and so on, and intentionally leverage that power for ‘missional’ goals.
Business as mission is demonstrating what the Kingdom of God is like in the context of business – and as we do so, engaging with the world’s more pressing social, economic, environmental and spiritual issues.
A hallmark of a BAM company is the intentional layering business operations and mission together into an integrated whole. However, just because something is intentional, it doesn’t mean it is without tension. Practitioners share that when mission and business are layered together, there will inevitably be tensions of one sort of another. But what kind of tensions and how can they be resolved?
Not All Tension is Bad
Tension is not necessarily a bad thing. Forces that tear apart can also, when managed correctly, support great loads. BAM Mentor and, Peter Shaukat, neatly illustrates this point with a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge. Suspension bridges use the forces of tension to support the weight of the bridge across wide spans. Shaukat argues that because success in BAM is measured along multiple dimensions – including commercial returns, spiritual impact, expanding reach and long-term influence – that success in BAM is therefore is dependent on being able to effectively manage tension. Read more