Transforming the Church, One Engaged Business Person at a Time

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by Larry Sharp

Over the years I have had various business owners and executives travel with me as I’ve coached and supported companies around the world. On one particular trip, the VP of a Fortune 500 company came with me and some others to a former Soviet Republic country. He had gone on many mission trips, built churches, passed out tracts, and tutored English – all good things! But in Kazakhstan he helped Kazakh believers and expats with business mentoring on topics like making financial projections, contract law, and international marketing. On the trip home he told me that he finally saw how his skills can be used to build the kingdom of God. “Where are we going next?” he asked, after a short time of reflection at home.

I have had many experiences like this, witnessing firsthand the moment business people have felt affirmed and become engaged in using their skills and experience in business as mission. They go from seeing their contribution as limited to PRAY or PAY, and start to realise they can be actively involved – i.e. PLAY! And there are multiple ways for people to get engaged.

For the first time she saw that her business ability and position was a God-given asset.

A young fellow about 30 years old heard me speak in a large mega-church in Pennsylvania. He asked to meet with me and said, “All this is new to me and I don’t think my wife will want to move outside the state, what can I do?” After finding out he was the owner of an SEO company with 14 employees, I said absolutely – and you don’t even have to leave your computer. He has been a wonderful contributor to business startups in unreached areas of the world.

On another occasion, I spoke in a church in the Philadelphia area one Sunday morning. The pastor seemed open to all I spoke about that morning but the real encouragement was talking to several business people afterwards. One woman was a chemical engineer, a former Proctor and Gamble manager who supervised the development of Pampers. She joined our team and helped us with our “product development” when we were just getting going as a BAM consulting group.  Read more

Dream Big and Move Forward! 6 Tips for Impact from a Modern Abolitionist

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by Joyce Ahn

David Batstone is a human rights activist and co-founder of Not For Sale, an organization that provides human trafficking survivors and at-risk individuals with tools for long-term self-sufficiency through work-readiness skills and job placements. David is also the cofounder of REBBL, a health-drink company, and senior managing partner of ‘Just Business,’ an international investment group that incubates social enterprises.  

In his final keynote speech at the BAM Conference 2017, David shared 6 tips for business people who want to make a major impact on society:

  1. Fearlessly Pursue Your Passion

Don’t get stuck asking,“What’s the next step?” or “What does God want me to do?” Instead, start taking steps based off of what you know and the opportunities right in front of you. Reflect on the gifts and calling that God has given you. What’s the burning passion in your heart? Rather than getting stuck pursuing someone else’s dream for your life, take ownership of your vision and do something about it!

  1. Look Back Before You Look Forward

You might find this surprising, but we often can see God’s path for us most clearly not when we look forward, but as we look behind us. As you look at your past, you will start to see how all the seemingly unconnected parts fit together and how even your mistakes played a role in shaping the bigger picture. Read more

Helping Entrepreneurs Turn Ideas Into Startups

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by Stu Minshew

It is such a privilege that the Lord calls His people walk alongside Him as He advances the gospel to the nations. Today, more than ever, business is powerful tool that He is using around the globe. As a Christian entrepreneur, I am extremely excited to see all that He is doing.

As the BAM movement continues to gain momentum, I see two key growth opportunities that I believe will lead to greater impact. First, let’s make it easier for entrepreneurs to turn ideas into successful startups. Second, creating strong communities of support for startup businesses must become a top priority. Let’s see how we can make progress in accomplishing these two tasks.

Stop Giving Entrepreneurial Assessments

Entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes. Jeff Bezos of Amazon has a totally different set of skills than the lady who runs the bakery down the street. Steve Jobs’ personality is completely different from the local IT consultant I work with. But they are all entrepreneurs. It is impossible in 10 to 20 questions to separate all possible types of entrepreneurs. By doing so, we are limiting the number of individuals who can create ideas that can become successful businesses.

In the CO.STARTERS entrepreneurial training program, we have trained an incredibly diverse group of over 7,000 entrepreneurs. They are men and women from a wide range socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, with varying skill sets and personalities. In the first week of our program, we give them a Working-Styles Assessment. We make it clear that this isn’t to determine if they have what it takes or not. It simply helps them figure out their strengths and then begin to build a team around their weaknesses.  Read more

5 Risk Factors Guaranteed to Doom a BAM Business

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by Larry Sharp

 

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Stories from the Frontline

Last year I was leading a seminar in a conference in Arizona, when a local business owner asked the question, “Are there no failed BAM businesses?” While I readily agreed there were, I began to think about the question in a more profound way. What is the “good, the bad and the ugly” of real life BAM business experiences – those that demonstrate that there are BAM failures along with the successes?

Over the past 10 years, I have observed risk factors for BAM enterprises which should stimulate every stakeholder in the BAM community towards better recruitment, better preparation, better deployment and better accountability. Many a sports leader, military hero, or young entrepreneur has demonstrated the oft-quoted statement of Benjamin Franklin, “Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.” And that is true in the Kingdom business endeavors of today.

So what are these factors and where are the stories which help us understand basic principles for launching and landing well in a cross-cultural business? How do we best start companies designed to work out the Great Commandment and the Great Commission? How can we improve so that there will be fewer failures and a greater chance of successful transformational businesses in the areas of the world that need them the most? If these five risk factors don’t actually doom your BAM company, not paying attention to them will seriously endanger it… at the very least!  Read more

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

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AND THE AWARD GOES TO...

Our goal is to provide the BAM Community with the best content and resources available. As we wrap up the spring and head into summer we are highlighting various articles and resources which have stood out above the rest. Below is the “Most Popular Post” for the summer of 2016.

Please enjoy and thanks for following!

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 English as a Foreign Language. Upon graduating, she taught English for several years at high school level. Then one day God began stirring that dream from her childhood of living in Asia. After months of seeking wise counsel and pushing on doors, a plan began to take shape. True to His word, God did “more than she could ask or imagine”, doors opened for her to join an organisation that fit her youthfulness and passion. She raised long-term support, and took a survey trip. Within a short time Samantha had moved and begun studying the local language on a main island of the archipelago. She was open to God’s provision, setting no expectations on how long she would remain long-term in the country.

Three months into her language studies Samantha received a phone call from a certain small business ministering out in the islands asking if she would join them in their endeavor. Samantha had connected with this business months prior during her survey trip, hoping that God would open the door for her to join their business since their vision was the same as hers for the islands. With her teaching skills and a passion for the Islands, she immediately said, “Yes!” – believing she could do anything God called her to, including small business. Read more

9 Keys for Successful BAM Deployment

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Here are 9 Keys for Successful BAM Deployment that have been themes shared over and over by experienced BAM practitioners and mentors. These are principles and practices observed over years of listening to BAM pioneers, writing BAM stories and collecting information about how to do BAM. Many of these Keys have been shared by BAMers and BAM leaders over the last few weeks as we have explored the topic ‘Launching Out and Landing Well’ – they come out in the stories, snippets, and teaching we’ve shared, as well as in the BAM Think Tank research we’ve been drawing on.

1. Walk with God

Abide in Christ. It’s essential to be connected to the Vine, a growing disciple of Jesus, if we are to bear fruit! That means spending time listening and talking to God in prayer and being attentive to His calling and direction for your life. It means growing in Godly character as you are rooted in His word, and opening up to spiritual input from others. Prayer is mentioned over and over by BAMers as a foundation stone for BAM in practice, at all stages: preparation, launch and continued growth. Having a sense of call and leading from God is another often cited core driver for BAMers. Spiritual formation through discipleship and teaching is a life-long pursuit – whether through books, sermons, devotional materials, courses, retreats or intentional relationships. Making yourself accountable to peers or elders that will challenge you to grow in Christ-like character is another way to keep soft and open to the refining work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Read more

2IC: Business as Mission for the Rest of Us [Book Excerpt]

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by Mike Baer

God graciously invaded my life in early 1974. Actually He had been battering at the gate of my self-centered fortress for some time prior but it was in February of that year that, like Lydia, the Lord opened my heart and I believed. My conversion was dramatic. Not emotional. No fireworks. Yet one man knelt down to meet Christ and another, entirely new person got up to live for Him.

Within a week I had connected with 3 other new believers on the campus of the University of Tennessee. We all faced a common dilemma. What do Christians do on Friday night? We were expert in what pagans do. But what about the followers of Jesus? Not knowing any better we decided to get together to read the Bible, to pray together and to play cards. That first evening there were 4 of us. The next week there were 8. Then 16 and so on until soon over 150 students and young people began to gather to study the Word, to pray, and eventually to exercise baptism, the Lord’s Supper and Church Discipline. Without our knowing it God had used us to plant a New Testament church. I, along with a couple of others became the “elders” and “pastors” of this congregation and from that point I spent the next 15 years in a pastoral role for several different churches around the U.S. I jokingly refer to myself as the “accidental church planter” because only God could have engineered such a path. Read more

8 BAMers Share Their Stories: Where Were the Gaps?

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We asked eight people who have got involved in BAM in the last 5 years to share how they got launched and how well they landed. We asked them:

We’ll be posting what they shared in four short blogs: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Part 4: Did any gaps in your know-how or preparation come to light as you landed?

On the business side, there’s always a lot that needs to be figured out on how to setup and manage a company as a foreigner. A benefit for us is that we had some operational and strategic experience in business before starting our own here. For BAM, we are continually working on how to best integrate ministry within business. Speaking with other BAM workers and hearing their experiences and how they do it has been crucial and insightful.  – Ben and Yumi, Vietnam [have been operating a software development company for 18 months, before that they spent 10 months intentionally preparing to do BAM, 4 months in their home country and 6 months in Vietnam] Read more

8 BAMers Share Their Stories: How Did You Prepare to Launch?

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We asked eight people who have got involved in BAM in the last 5 years to share how they got launched and how well they landed. We asked them:

We’ll be posting what they shared in four short blogs: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 4

Part 3: What were some of the most important things you did to prepare to launch?

We researched and read books on BAM, as well as spending time talking to experienced workers particularly through the Open Network Expo. – Ben and Yumi, Vietnam [have been operating a software development company for 18 months, before that they spent 10 months intentionally preparing to do BAM, 4 months in their home country and 6 months in Vietnam] Read more

8 BAMers Share Their Stories: What Held You Back?

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We asked eight people who have got involved in BAM in the last 5 years to share how they got launched and how well they landed. We asked them:

We’ll be posting what they shared in four short blogs: Part 1 | Part 3 | Part 4

Part 2: Was there anything that held you back that you had to overcome?

We didn’t feel anything holding us back because we were at a point in our lives where we felt called to go and God had already blessed us with the the means and desire. The only thing that we had to work out as a family was to be unified on where to go. If you have a desire to go, just go! Be diligent in laying down a strong foundation, work hard everyday and be intentional about building relationships. In all this, never forget why you are doing it and who you are doing it for. – Ben and Yumi, Vietnam [have been operating a software development company for 18 months, before that they spent 10 months intentionally preparing to do BAM, 4 months in their home country and 6 months in Vietnam] Read more