Entries by Staff Writer

The Final Frontier? BAM in Mongolia

Mongolia is seen as the “Final Frontier” for many people. It stirs up images of the horse herds that still run free across her open steppes. From the harsh arid climate of the Gobi Desert in the south, to the pristine lakes in the frozen north that border Russia’s Siberia, the climate has forged a […]

Paying Taxes with a Mountain of Cash: A Taxing Story!

Death and taxes, though often said to be the only sure things in life, are not often a source of amusement. However, here is a funny story from one tourism business in Asia that had to pay their taxes the hard way. Three years after opening their tourism business, the department of tourism finally created […]

After the Tsunami: Business on the Edge

Little did James know just how strategically God had placed him fourteen years prior to the adversity that rocked multiple countries and millions of people when the 2004 tsunami hit Asia. As the ocean bulldozed its way through the coastline, sparing nothing in its path, so came a flood of both urgent and long-term needs. […]

BAM Job Opportunities in Asia and Africa

BAM Company Jobs Project Manager – Software Development Company in Vietnam We are an IT outsourcing company located in SE Asia and are currently looking to hire a Project Manager to join our growing team. This person will help us plan, schedule and control all project activities to ensure project requirements are met, and provide leadership while building positive […]

How They Got Started: 3 Different Routes into Business as Mission

From Dream to Island Reality: Samantha At the tender age of nine, rather than dreaming of make-believe castles and glass slippers, Samantha dreamed about living her life on a certain archipelago in Asia. After college Samantha spent a year in China teaching English then returned to the States to get her Master’s degree in Teaching […]

BAM Job Opportunities in Nepal and China

Job Opportunity in China Executive Director – Service Company in China We are a service company located in Southern China and are currently looking to hire a successor for our current Executive Director. This person will be the senior manager in charge of a small team of specialists that deliver sourcing, product development, project management, quality control […]

Life Encounters Life: The Integration of Business and Mission

We interviewed a ‘practitioner of integration’ who over the last 16 years has tightly integrated business and mission together among an unreached people group in Asia. Can you tell us a bit about how and why you got started with business as mission? We were trained and sent out into the mission field with the vision […]

7 Prayer Habits of Highly Effective People

We asked BAM practitioners what prayer habits, practices or experiences they have found helpful in their business life. We identified some recurring themes that BAMers shared with us: 7 prayer habits for effective business as mission! Prayer does make us more effective in business as mission because of that vital connection and co-working with the […]

BAM Job Opportunities in China and Central Asia

Job Opportunities in China Executive Director – Service Company in China We are a service company located in Southern China and are currently looking to hire a successor for our current Executive Director. This person will be the senior manager in charge of a small team of specialists that deliver sourcing, product development, project management, quality control […]

Creating Jobs for the Exploited: a Vital Need and a Unique Challenge

Employment and Employability Human trafficking feeds on economically depressed and unstable communities. In these communities, the general population is desperately searching for employment (often in another city or country) and economic opportunity is seen as dependent upon an outside force. In such a climate, families can be tricked into selling one or more of their […]

More Fruitful Practices for BAM and Church Planting

Although BAM companies integrating church planting strategies tend to be very diverse, there are some common fruitful practices. Read the first 7 practices in Part 1 here. Part 2, more fruitful practices for BAM and church planting: 8. Prayer Incorporate prayer right from the start. Prayer is one of the cornerstones of church planting and BAM. Some […]

7 Fruitful Practices for BAM and Church Planting

BAM companies are usually very diverse, each business with its own unique features. However, through research into real experiences of BAM and Church Planting, some shared commonalities emerged in the following fruitful practices: 1. Contact Make sure that the business provides regular contact with the focus people. Intentionally create a business that provides regular contact with those with […]

Why Integrate Business and Church Planting?

There are some good reasons to combine business and church planting. Indeed, combining the two did not just begin when missionaries could not find visas to live in closed countries. Instead, there has been a natural merging of business, church planting and the presentation of the gospel throughout church history. The apostle Paul himself was […]

BAM Job Opportunities in the Middle East and South East Asia

Job Opportunities IT Manager – Web Essentials in Cambodia Passionate about developing software and developing people? We are looking for an experienced Systems Engineer to fill the role of IT Manager in our Phnom Penh based team. You will play an integral role in designing, optimizing, and building the systems, processes, and standards for the […]

Making Sense of the World of Metrics

Measurement and metrics can be deceptively simple. We pick an aspect of our business and ask some basic questions about it, for example: How many tables did each of the servers take care of each day? How many sales calls did each of the sales staff make each day? What is the company’s net profit […]

Measuring the Impact and Performance of BAM: Intro to Metrics

Business as mission is hard. Very hard! Missionaries with little business experience but plenty of vision start businesses and struggle. Experienced business people start businesses in new countries or cultures and struggle. Too many business as mission (BAM) companies wander in the desert aimlessly. They need a compass to guide them—something to remind them of […]

Do Economic Incentives Matter? A Nosey Economist on BAM Financing

Interview with Dr. Steve Rundle Steve, I know you have been doing some interesting research on BAM in the last few years, can you briefly describe what you have been looking at? As an economist, I’ve always been interested in the relationship between the structure and governance of a company and its performance. Since the […]

7 Creative Ways Practitioners Integrate Business and Mission

We are launching a new series on the topic of ‘Integration of Mission and Business’. A defining characteristic of a BAM company is that it intentionally integrates mission with business. But what does that look like in practice? What are some creative ways that practitioners work out their goals for spiritual impact, alongside their commercial, […]

BAM Job Opportunities in the Middle East and Asia

Job Opportunity Managing Director – Training Company in the Middle East We offer a unique kind of vocational training in one of the leading commercial centers of the Middle East. The Managing Director – preferably female – will drive the process of repositioning the company in the local market, as the two business units: academy and corporate seminars take center stage […]

Friday Links: Posts and Resources from the Business World

Every Friday we connect you with some of our recent favourite links. This week: Posts and resources from mainstream business publications 5 Steps You Must Take Before Becoming an Entrepreneur – Entrepreneur Starting your own business can reap deep personal and professional rewards, but if you take the leap, your days of punching the clock on a […]

Friday Links: Posts and Resources from the BAM Community

Every Friday we connect you with some of our recent favourite links. This week: Posts and resources from the wider BAM community The All Important Power of Accountability – Third Path This last post in the Value to Vision series deals with how to create a culture of accountability because even the very executable plan you […]

Friday Links: Posts and Resources on Faith at Work

Every Friday we connect you with some of our recent favourite links. This week: Posts and resources from the marketplace ministries movement. We hope you have a joyous Easter celebration! What Christ’s Resurrection Means for How we Live and Work – Institute for Faith, Work and Economics Does our earthly work matter to God? Yes it does, replies […]

Friday Links: Posts and Resources on Social Enterprise

Every Friday we connect you with some of our recent favourite links. This week: Posts and resources from the social enterprise movement C is for Customers: Don’t neglect the frontline – Pioneer Post When you’re steering a business from the top it is sometimes easy to assume things about your vital customers – what they want […]

Friday Links: Posts and Resources from the Business World

Every Friday we connect you with some of our recent favourite links. This week with a focus on our current topic, Human Resources: Posts and resources from mainstream business publications 12 Ways Successful People Handle Toxic People – Entrepreneur Recent research from the Department of Biological and Clinical Psychology at Friedrich Schiller University in Germany found that […]

Friday Links: Posts and Resources from the BAM Community

Every Friday we connect you with some of our recent favourite links. This week: Posts and resources from the wider BAM community 10 Questions for How to Run Your Business – Third Path This post is about the way we are and the way we are going to be. It’s the fourth part of the Values to […]

When Helping Hurts: Book Review

When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert is a comprehensive guide on effective approaches to missions and poverty alleviation. It is a must read for present and future missionaries and BAM practitioners hoping to fight poverty. Corbett and Fikkert are both part of the Chalmers Center for Economic Development at Covenant College, USA. […]

Friday Links: Posts and Resources on Faith at Work

Every Friday we connect you with some of our recent favourite links. This week: Posts and resources from the marketplace ministries movement. Economic Freedom is Not Enough for Human Flourishing – Institute for Faith, Work and Economics Economic freedom may be our world’s more powerful poverty relief system, but it’s not enough for human flourishing. It is the […]