Tag Archive for: Business Seeker Short Reads

10 Quotes to Inspire You for Business as Mission

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BAM Global is celebrating its ten year anniversary in 2024, having been formally founded in 2014 on the foundation of earlier network-building efforts. To celebrate, we are posting a new 10 x Series this month; sharing some of our top 10 favourite BAM-related resources and inspirations.

10 of our favourite BAM-related quotes:

 

1. Ralph Winter’s editorial endorsement

Really big and sudden changes in the world of missions don’t come often. But now one is upon us. It’s the major optimism and thrill of business people who are devout believers starting or extending ‘Kingdom Businesses’ around the world. – Ralph Winter

Ralph Winter identified business as a major force in world mission in his Editorial for an issue of Mission Frontiers magazine in 2007. This bold statement from an elder statesman of evangelical missions in the first decade of the contemporary BAM movement was a great boost.

2. Dallas Willard’s panel gem

Business is a primary arrangement on God’s part for people to love one another and serve one another… Business is a primary moving force of the love of God in human history. – Dallas Willard

This is Jo’s favourite quote on business and she almost always shares it whenever she speaks. Originally made in a panel response, Dallas expands on the question ‘What is business for?’ and comes out with some gems. This quote is echoed in the title of the booklet Called to Business: God’s way of loving people through business and the professions published posthumously by Dallas Willard Ministries.

3. Mats Tunehag’s keynote bombshell

If God has called you to business, don’t lower yourself to be a pastor. – Mats Tunehag

We’ve included this quote by our very own Mats Tunehag from his presentation at the Lausanne Congress in Cape Town 2010. That’s because out of the many, many things Mats has said about business and BAM, this is the one that most often gets quoted back to him. Provocative, but true!

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4 Things You Need to Know About Business as Mission

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by Jo Plummer

Read this classic blog from our Archives, first published on The BAM Review blog in February 2022 and republished for the Summer Series 2022.

1. We can’t talk about ‘business as mission’ until we talk about ‘business’

Business is part of God’s good plan for human flourishing and has a God-designed power and role in human society. Business as mission takes this intrinsic God-given power and role of business and intentionally uses it as an instrument for mission. Just as water or wind power can be intentionally harnessed to do more good (or harm), business as mission is harnessing the power of business for God’s glory, the gospel, and the common good.

It is therefore vitally important that we have a good grasp of what the Bible says about business – and indeed, economics, human flourishing and God’s mission to the world – before we then apply those fundamental truths about God’s purposes to doing business as mission. Let us build on solid biblical foundations!

What we don’t want to do is create a new ‘sacred-secular divide’ while trying to break down the old one. Business does not need to be sanctified by being engaged as an instrument for mission, it is already part of God’s good design. Just as one vocation is not more spiritual or sacred than another, the same goes for different kinds of business. We can glorify God through work and our vocations, wherever we are.

For more on this idea read here and for a biblical foundation for BAM read here.

 

2. Business as mission is part of a broader movement, but also has a unique and distinctive response to the world’s most pressing issues

For example, business as mission is part of the wider shift in the global church towards more integral (or holistic) models of mission that break down the dichotomy between evangelism and social responsibility. But it is also distinctive in that it emphasises for-profit solutions to mission challenges, rather than charitable or donor-driven mission models.

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8 BAMers Share Their Stories: What Propelled You Towards BAM?

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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 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Part 1: What helped propel you towards business as mission?

We were working professionals for a long time and felt we reached a certain level of accomplishment in our career and knew it was time for a change. When we decided we wanted to move abroad, we looked at ways on how we could have the greatest impact and found that running a business can hugely benefit a community on many different levels, as well as give ministry opportunities we otherwise would not be presented with. Also, starting a business felt the most authentic way for us to truly become “immigrants” in our new home country and displayed our commitment to the locals that we were serious and in this for the long haul. – 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

Am I a Business Builder or Entrepreneur? Identifying Your Place in a BAM Team

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by Peter Shaukat

Business as mission is communitarian and team-oriented, not individualistic. Beyond considering the individual characteristics that BAMers need, I would then ask, “What does the business team need to have in their overall profile?”

I think of the business team in a matrix model. One axis maps character, competence and charisma. Along the other axis is the type of person or skill needed. Those types would range right from the entrepreneur, along to managers and business professionals, and then those professionals with technical or specialist skills that the business needs.

Entrepreneurs and business builders

When you start out in business you are doing everything. Theoretically that is flawed, but it’s the reality in a brand new startup. You are not going to have perfection in your team and all the right people in the various roles from day one. But you want to move along a dynamic pathway, to break out those functions into different roles as quickly as possible.

If you are going to do business as mission well, the business needs more than one person with a good idea. You can’t start a BAM company without an entrepreneur, but likewise, you can’t continue a BAM company with only an entrepreneur! Almost as soon as the company starts you are going to need other kinds of people, ‘business builders’. Read more

A Business Man’s Journey

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Tensions Between Faith and Work

One of the great privileges of traveling and working internationally is the frequent opportunity provided by long journeys for prayerful reflection on the goodness of God and the adventure of a life walking with Him.  A few years ago, on one such long trip, I took some time to reflect on my life in the previous 7 years since becoming a Christian, in particular, on my journey towards integrating faith and work, mission and business.

I came to faith in my late twenties in the midst of the busiest time in my working life.  I worked as a strategist and management consultant in one of the leading financial services companies in the UK.  I was being stretched like never before in a senior management role, responsible for leading and implementing major organisational change in my department and at the same time completing a part-time MBA.  That God chose this time to stir my heart still amazes me.

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