Tag Archive for: bam introduction

7 Markers for a Kingdom Business: A Framework for Entrepreneurs

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by Courtney Rountree Mills

A quick framework to help entrepreneurs learn how to integrate their faith life with their business life in a practical way.

Let’s face it. Life is hard enough as an entrepreneur. The whole world always seems to be resting on your shoulders. The pressure to succeed is immense. After all, if you don’t, you let down not only yourself and your family, but also your staff and their families! What gets you through the pressure? Mainly prayer and the passion you have for your business. You love the challenge of being an entrepreneur. It energizes you more than almost anything else. Sometimes thinking about your business becomes more like an addiction – you could work on or think through challenges you face all day, every day and never feel like you are completely caught up.

The only thing you care about more than your business is your relationship with Jesus and your family. Still, it seems your business ends up taking over your prayer life and family life, too. You keep hearing about how you should live an integrated life, but you have no practical idea how to achieve this. You hear people around you using the phrases “Kingdom Business” or “Missional Business.” These sound great to you, but you don’t even know what the definition of a Kingdom Business is. Measuring your business’ Key Performance Indicators is easy, but how do you measure your KPIs when it comes to integrating your life as a believer and business owner? This article provides a quick framework to help entrepreneurs live out their faith in their business. This is a topic that resonated most with the 450 entrepreneurs we have accelerated who were asking the same question. Most of this is not material I wrote. Rather, it is a compilation of some of the best material I have found on living out business as mission.

Kingdom Business: The Definition

First, what is a Kingdom business? The best definition I found is one I slightly adapted from Acton School of Business in partnership with Gateway Church:

A kingdom business is an enterprise directed by the Holy Spirit and managed by a godly leader that uses its time, talent, and money to meet the spiritual and/or physical needs of the community around them to advance God’s purpose.

Ok good. We’ve defined it. Sounds pretty simple right? Now, let’s break apart this definition piece by piece to define the characteristics of a Kingdom Business. From this definition, Acton matched 6 characteristics they believe a Kingdom Business should exhibit. Each one has an associated question you can use to evaluate yourself and your business. I have slightly modified this framework to add a seventh dimension (“Reflection of God’s Character”) that I think is quite helpful. Read more

BAM is Global: Around the World in 40 Days

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We are starting a new series on The BAM Review blog: Around the World in 40 Days!

BAM is a global phenomenon. No one network or organisation can claim that they started it or they are leading it. Rather God is on the move around the world, calling men and women from all continents to start businesses for His Kingdom purposes. To highlight just some of what He is doing, and emphasise that business as mission is a global movement, we will take a tour around the BAM world for the next six weeks or so. We hope you enjoy the trip!

To kick off this series, below is a repost of an interview we did with Mats Tunehag, first published in January 2015, taking a look at the global BAM movement.

Business as Mission: The Global Movement Today

An interview with Mats Tunehag

Mats, what have you seen changing in business as mission in the last 15-20 years?

We are seeing a reawakening of what it means to be a Christian in business in our day and age. There has been remarkable growth of people getting engaged in doing business for God and the common good. If we take a 15 year time span, there are things we have today that didn’t exist 15 years ago. Now, we have a greater common understanding globally of this idea that we call ‘business as mission’. There are significant common denominators in our understanding, even though terminology may vary from group to group.

15 years ago when you mentioned business as mission, there were many questions about ‘What is that?’, ‘Is this something we want to get involved in?’ Today you can travel to almost any country and bump into people who have heard of, or are talking about, or practicing, business as mission. That is one of the major changes globally. Read more

BAM in Hard Places: The Challenge of Business in Hostile Environments

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BAM ventures are one of the innovative ways that we are called to do mission in the two-thirds of the world’s countries that are highly corrupt and require risk management skills, sound judgement, discernment, strong leadership and spiritual maturity.

Launching and/or managing a business as mission company within a hostile environment encompasses a set of risks that are unique and varied, in contrast to the more familiar kinds of risk that most businesses encounter. By anticipating, recognising and managing these risks, a BAM team is more likely to achieve business sustainability and spiritual fruitfulness. 

The Risks That Face Us  

We are conceiving risk as falling broadly into three areas:

1. Business

2. Mission

3. Personal (including family)

Risks in these three areas can overlap and vary in intensity from situation to situation.

Understanding and managing risk in any environment is usually challenging for most business owners, but navigating unfamiliar risks within a hostile environment is part of the learning process that successful BAM entrepreneurs must navigate. Successful management of these risks requires the entrepreneur to exercise a high degree of discernment and good judgment.  Read more

Business Planning: Developing Your Product, Identifying Your Market

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We are starting a new series this month on Business Planning: Product and Market. Figuring out your product or service offering is obviously at the very heart of any new business. However, it is at this crucial, early stage that many would-be BAMers go wrong by failing to properly consider whether there is a real market need – and therefore customers – for the product or service they want to sell. There is no business without a customer.

A recent blog for The Institute for Faith Work and Economics on starting a social business puts it this way: [It] is imperative to have the customer in front of your mind when starting a social business… To start a social business, you have to know what will be marketable to your target customers.

The first thing you have to do is figure out what sells – don’t start with the cause. The cause is what moves us… but, you can’t start a business around a cause. – Jimmy Quach, via TIFWE

Many BAMers get the ‘cart before the horse’ – they start with a cause, or they start with the potential employees they are hoping to empower, or they think of a ‘great’ idea for a product or service that feels doable to them. However, if that idea doesn’t have a market – if there are no customers – then there will be no sales, no cash, no empowered employees, no credible business and the cause will be lost. You need both the ‘cart’ and the ‘horse’ to move forward. There is nothing wrong with having a cause, or trying to empower a certain group of employees or pursue a particular product; however you better make sure that there are customers and sales to drive that business forward towards making the impact you hope to make. 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

Launching Out and Landing Well: Getting Started in Business as Mission

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A to B diagramHow do people get from A to B? What propels them towards BAM? What factors help launch them out into stable, successful business as mission enterprises – wherever that might be?

We will address these questions, and others, on The BAM Review Blog this month as we delve into the topic of ‘Launching Out and Landing Well’. Here’s a preview of some of the issues we’ll cover:

Launching Well

How do we most effectively recruit and mobilise for business as mission? What are some of the challenges and opportunities we face? What are the skills and characteristics that BAM companies are looking for as they recruit? Are we recruiting in the right places and what could we do better? How do potential BAMers best develop themselves and prepare for doing business as mission? What is holding them back? Read more

Business as Mission: What Do I Have to Offer?

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by Larry Sharp

Post first published on the IBEC Ventures Blog, reposted with kind permission.

This question is sometimes asked me by North American kingdom business persons who own or manage businesses: “What can I offer as consultant, advisor, mentor or coach?”  It is a natural question for business persons living and working in a very different context from a business startup in Asia, Africa or the Middle East.

What is business anyway? Is it not something like this: an organization with appropriate management that provides a good or service and is created to earn a profit, serve customers and create jobs, community value and increase wealth? That is universal. Followers of Jesus have an integrated kingdom perspective in all they do (1 Corinthians 10:31) so they operate businesses for the glory of God. Faith is integrated into daily work.

A person who has owned a small or medium-sized business (or has worked in the management of such) has likely learned a great deal about one or more of the following. The things that have been learned can be passed on in a consulting, coaching, teaching or mentoring venue. Read more

10 Critical Human Resource Challenges in Business as Mission

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We asked 25 BAM Practitioners one simple question:

What have been the most important HR issues in your BAM business experience?

Here are the Top 10 issues that they mentioned the most:

 

1. Finding the complete package
Recruiting and hiring people with the right mix of business skills, character formation and mission-motivation.

 

2. Cultural differences
Dealing with different cultural norms between expat staff or business owners and national staff, that significantly impacts the business Read more

Business as Mission and the End of Poverty

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Adapted and excerpted from the BAM Global Think Tank report on BAM at the Base of the Pyramid.

The Call to Poverty Alleviation Through Business

Business has a role in alleviating poverty. Christians in business have a unique opportunity, and responsibility, to address the suffering and injustice of the 2.5 billion people who live on less than US$2.50 per day. 

The call to bring poverty-alleviation back as a central focus and purpose of business as mission (BAM) is built on several foundational understandings:

1. We are all created in God’s image: equal, creative, and imaging God in our work

Every person on this Earth is created in God’s image, from those our world defines as the most humble to the greatest, we are equals. This foundational Christian understanding of who we are has profound implications for our understanding of work, of business, and unemployment. Timothy Keller in his new book, Every Good Endeavor: Connecting your Work to God’s Work, provides a fresh perspective on work, starting with Genesis and God’s work in Creation, to Christ’s humble role as a carpenter, and each of our own unique vocational callings in this world. On the definition of calling in his book, Keller states, “Our daily work can be a calling only if it is reconceived as God’s assignment to serve others.” (Keller, 2012 p66) Read more

5 Funding Models for Your Kingdom Startup

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by Mike Baer

Post first published on the Third Path Blog, reposted with kind permission.

The still famous line from the movie Jerry McGuire is “Show me the money!” Some of you have been thinking that as you’ve read the rest of this series. How do I get money to launch my startup? I’m going to outline several “programs” you can consider:

The “Missionary for a Moment” Model

I have to tell you upfront that I have rejected this model for years. However, recently a close brother whom I respect greatly challenged my thinking and got me a little closer to acceptance than I was before.

The Momentary Missionary Model essentially uses raised donations or support to cover living, travel and certain startup expenses just like a normal missionary would raise support to cover living, travel and ministry expenses. What makes this work is that you are committing to your “donor-investors” to be off their giving roles within a specified period of time, to have your business profitable and to live off it.

Your donor audience in this scenario is sympathetic although they may not be the most investment savvy. Be careful to not take unintentional advantage of that sympathy. This is business. Read more

The Challenge of Corruption

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Corruption is defined as the misuse of power by someone to whom it has been entrusted, for their own private gain. The most common form of corruption is bribery, which is defined as the giving or receiving of money, a gift or other advantage as an inducement to do something that is dishonest, illegal or a breach of trust in the course of doing business.1

Corruption is one of the biggest issues that business people face globally today, and is a highly relevant topic for business as mission practitioners – Joseph Vijayam, Director of Olive Tech, a BAM company in India and the USA.

Bribery and corruption not only represent a significant risk for your company, but keep millions in poverty.

“[Corruption] constitutes a major obstacle to reducing poverty, inequality and infant mortality in emerging economies” according to Daniel Kaufmann, the World Bank Institute’s director for Governance.2 According to World Bank Institute (WBI) research, more than $1 trillion dollars (US$1,000 billion) is paid in bribes each year. This US$1 trillion figure is an estimate of actual bribes paid worldwide in both rich and developing countries and does not include embezzlement of public funds or theft of public assets. WBI research also shows that countries that tackle corruption and improve their rule of law can increase their national incomes by as much as four times in the long term, and child mortality can fall as much as 75 percent.2

Christian Aid predicted in 2008 that illegal, trade-related tax evasion alone will be responsible for some 5.6 million deaths of young children in the developing world between 2000 and 2015. That is almost 1,000 a day.3 However, corruption is not just happening in the developing world. Read more

Business as Mission: Where social impact and profit, and much more, converge

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Post first published on the IBEC Ventures Blog, reposted with kind permission.

Some people find it confusing to read about socially conscious business, social entrepreneurship or values-driven business. Isn’t business just business – driven by profit margins acceptable to shareholders? What’s all this talk of values, social impact and community development?

For the past decade or so it has become increasingly popular to talk about social purposes, meaning that some entrepreneurs have a motive beyond profitability. They want to solve social problems and bring a positive return to society. Big corporations sometimes address this through the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR); and business startups sometimes call themselves social entrepreneurs meaning they start businesses which inherently provide for maximum job growth in their area, or they hire the marginalized in the community, or they take gigantic steps to benefit the community by helping solve problems that exist in the community, or all of the above. Some entrepreneurs are driven by a cause, like a software developer eager to provide a better way for people to connect.
Read more

Business as Mission: The Global Movement Today

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Mats Tunehag has been speaking, writing and convening on business as mission for nearly 20 years. When he visited The BAM Review office recently, we asked him a few questions about the business as mission movement.

Mats, what have you seen changing in business as mission in the last 15-20 years?

We are seeing a reawakening of what it means to be a Christian in business in our day and age. There has been remarkable growth of people getting engaged in doing business for God and the common good. If we take a 15 year time span, there are things we have today that didn’t exist 15 years ago. Now, we have a greater common understanding globally of this idea that we call ‘business as mission’. There are significant common denominators in our understanding, even though terminology may vary from group to group.

15 years ago when you mentioned business as mission, there were many questions about ‘What is that?’, ‘Is this something we want to get involved in?’. Today you can travel to almost any country and bump into people who have heard of, or are talking about, or practicing, business as mission. That is one of the major changes globally. Read more

10 Guiding Principles for Business as Mission

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A good business as mission business will, by definition, have many of the characteristics of any well-run business. A kingdom business must be profitable and sustainable just as any other business. Integrity, fairness and excellent customer service are characteristics of any good business, not just a business as mission venture. As such, while important, those characteristics will not by themselves necessarily point people to Christ. A kingdom business begins with the foundation of any good business, but takes its stewardship responsibilities even further.

What follows is a list of principles that should underpin a business as mission business. First we list the basic foundational principles that must exist in any good business. Following that are the principles that distinguish a good business as mission business.

Foundational Business Principles

1.  Strives to be profitable and sustainable in the long term

Profit is an indication that resources are being used wisely. It indicates that the product or service being produced and sold does so at a price that covers the cost of the resources, including the cost of capital. For most businesses, profits are fleeting, and never a sure thing. It is common for businesses to experience periods of low profit, and even negative profit. Thus it is important to take a long-term view of profitability. Occasional windfalls are often what will sustain a company through periods of financial losses. For that reason a well-managed business will use extreme care when considering whether and when to distribute profits. Profit, and its retention, is not necessarily an indication of greed. Read more

What is Business as Mission?

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Read our short introduction to business as mission:

Business is a God-given vocation and institution in society, with the potential to bring multiple benefits to people, communities and nations. Business as mission intentionally leverages this intrinsic power of business to address spiritual needs, hand in hand with social, economic and environmental needs.

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.

There is a growing consensus around this idea, although other terms are also used for the same concept. Many prefer alternative terms such as: Kingdom business, missional entrepreneurship, transformational business, missional business or business for transformation (B4T), among others. Business as mission, or BAM, is just one widely used term in the English language, other terms have developed in other languages. Read more

Four Pillars of BAM Preparation

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Living in Thailand, we are surrounded by houses built on pillars. This picture hangs in our house, a constant reminder of the importance of strong foundations. I think of a BAM business being like a house built on pillars. No matter what shape the house is, what it looks like on the outside, the pillars (or foundations) must be strong to support the structure.

Each individual launching into BAM will have different experiences and a different journey of preparation. BAM models and strategies will naturally be diverse. God is creative and He has made each of us to be creative. There is no single BAM model that will work for everyone, everywhere. However, there are at least four common areas that need to be intentionally built to form a strong foundation for any BAM business. Like the pillars supporting a house, if one of these areas is weak or missing the whole structure will be unstable. If you are getting ready for business as mission, be intentional about building up these four pillars of BAM preparation:

Read more

Five Tips for Starting a BAM Journey

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Getting stirred up for business as mission? Wondering how to get started, here are our top five tips:

1. Seek the Lord

Take time to pray. If God is calling you to serve Him in business, ask where, when, how, with who? What path of preparation is He leading you on?

2. Connect with BAM stories

Read about real business as mission experiences, or go to an event where you will hear practitioners share their stories. Stories bring ideas alive for us by literally lighting up more areas of our brain!

Read more

Business as Mission: A Three-fold Mandate

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by Mats Tunehag

Business is more than making money, at least it should be. According to the “father of capitalism” Adam Smith, businesses exist to serve the general welfare.

The computer pioneer Dave Packard said: ”Many people assume, wrongly, that a company exists simply to make money. While this is an important result of a company’s existence, we have to go deeper and find the real reasons for our being. People get together and exist as a company so that they are able to accomplish something collectively that they could not accomplish separately – they make a contribution to society.”

In the last few years we have been able to witness the effects of a global economic crisis. Mahatma Gandhi’s list of seven deadly social sins seems to be an accurate diagnosis for some of the causes of this crisis. It has been too much…

  • politics without principle
  • wealth without work
  • commerce without morality
  • pleasure without conscience
  • education without character
  • science without humanity
  • worship without sacrifice

Read more

The Hottest Issues in Business as Mission

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We surveyed 200 people engaged with business as mission in some way and asked them the question: ‘What is the hottest topic in the BAM movement today?’ Or in other words, what is the one question they would most like to see answered in business as mission. The wide variety of responses were grouped into these major themes to give an overview of some of the most important issues in the business as mission movement.

Here are the Top 10 ‘hottest topics’, in reverse order:

10. How do we mobilise more business people? How will business people embrace their calling and get involved?

9. How do we practice biblical, ethical business in the face of the face of hostile realities in the world? How do we maintain our values in the face of corruption and greed? Read more

What the Bible Says about Work, Economics and Business

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We’ve put together some selected ideas and scriptures for digging deeper into what the Bible says about work, business and the economic sphere.

Ideas and scriptures for further study:

We are to be stewards of God’s creation: Genesis 1:28, Genesis 2:15, 19-20, Leviticus 25:2-7, Psalm 8:6.

Provision for human society and multiplication of resources is designed by God to come primarily through dignified work. God is creative and pleased with his work and we are made to be creative in His image: Genesis 2:1-3, Deuteronomy 28:1-13, Joshua 5: 11-12, Psalm 128:1‒2.

Material provisions are good and important for our daily life and the healthy functioning of communities, however they are not sufficient to fully satisfy us as humans: Deuteronomy 8, 1 Kings 4:25, Psalms 62:10, Proverbs 23:4-5, Ecclesiastes 5:10-20, Zechariah 3:10, Matthew 4:4, Matthew 6:33, Mark 8:36.

Business creates opportunities for meaningful work and creativity that is essential for human dignity and a peaceful society: Genesis 2:2-3, Ephesians 6:5-9, 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12, 2 Thessalonians 3:10–12.

Read more

Building the Kingdom Through Business

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by Bridget Adams and Manoj Raithatha

In his book Screw Business as Usual, Sir Richard Branson outlines his vision for nothing less than global transformation. He asks, ‘Can we bring more meaning to our lives and help change the world at the same time… a whole new way of doing things, solving major problems and turning our working into something we both love and are proud of?” His proposed solution is a new way of doing business. ‘It is time to …shift our values, to switch from a profit focus to caring for people, communities and the planet.’ Sometimes God uses prophets from outside the Church!

The world, it seems, wants business to change. The voices, powerful voices, are being heard out there. The Church, who you might think would be driving this new found hunger for ethics and transformative business, is in danger of being left behind. Branson knows that business can change the world for good, but we believe it can also change the world for God. Business can help build the Kingdom.

Read more

The Emergence of the BAM Movement

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by Steve Rundle

Not long ago the Wall Street Journal noted a significant change in the attitudes of university business students1. Compared to other incoming classes in recent memory, today’s young people are more interested in using their business skills to make a positive difference in society. Undoubtedly, many have been inspired by social enterprises like Tom’s Shoes, Kiva, and Chipotle’s Mexican Grill, as well as turned off by stories of corporate excess on Wall Street.

In Christian circles we are seeing something very similar. “Business as Mission,” as the name suggests, involves businesses that have a missionary impulse.  Neither motivated by money, nor embarrassed about making it, these enterprises and the entrepreneurs who start them defy easy classification. Like Social Enterprises they are hybrids in their purpose, and in many cases, their organizational structures. The main distinctive is that “Business as Mission” extends beyond addressing the physical needs of the poor (or the ethical treatment of pigs and chickens, as in Chipotle’s case), and includes a desire to make Christ known and see people freed from spiritual bondage.  While social entrepreneurs want to do good for their fellow man, so-called “BAMers” in addition, are motivated by a desire to serve God and draw people’s attention to Him. The Christ-centered nature of BAM is a significant difference that gives rise to different questions and requires a more interdisciplinary approach to the subject.

Read more

Interview with BAM Author Neal Johnson

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Neal — you have done all sorts of things in your life, including banking, business, diplomacy and practicing law internationally and in the US, but now you are an academic — what motivates you?

Clearly the thing that motivates me now and has for the past 20 years is my passion for Christ in the marketplace, especially business as mission.  Looking back on my earlier life, I would have given anything if someone had taken me aside and said ‘Neal, have you heard about business as mission? Do you know you can do both business and mission—you don’t have to choose between them—that God is actually calling you to do both?’  So many people of my generation didn’t find that out until they were already well into their careers or toward the end of them.

I have a passion for working with business students now because of the students who say ‘I love business, I love mission, but can I do both?’  I really want them to be able to understand at the start of their career that they can in fact do both and also to show them how they can do that.

Your book “Business as Mission” is a unique BAM book, what made you feel this particular book was needed?

There are a lot of great books on business as mission and many more on faith at work. They are excellent books, but there are not many that really address ‘how to do it’.  As I have presented the concept of business as mission at conferences, people get excited and ask ‘What do I do now? I love the concept, I want to do it, but how do I do it?’ This book attempts to address that. Read more

My Hope for BAM by 2020

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by Mats Tunehag

I hope very few people will talk about Business as Mission (BAM) in 2020. The term is like scaffolding: it is needed for a season as we build the real thing, businesses that glorify God and bring about holistic transformation of people and societies.

The term BAM has its merits in clarification of the concept. The term has been helpful in the affirmation of business people and the mobilization of other resources. But the term is not important, the concept and the applications are.

Some people dislike the term or question its usefulness. That is fine with me. Other phrases are also used like business for transformation, Kingdom companies or business as integral calling. These kinds of discussions can be constructive as we pursue a better understanding of the theological, missiological and strategic underpinnings of the concept. But they can also cloud the issue and divert from the task at hand. We also need to remember that even this article highlights a limitation regarding terminology: it is in English.

Thus the term is of secondary or tertiary importance, also acknowledging the above terms may not translate at all or very well into other languages. But my hope for the term Business as Mission to fall into disuse by 2020 goes beyond terminology. Read more

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