Tag Archive for: creative access

Getting Out, Getting In, Staying In, Sinking In: Church Planting and Business Today

by João Mordomo

Last week in Part 1 I looked at Paul’s exploits as a maker of tents and concluded that business and church planting were made for each other! Properly configured, church planting teams and business startup teams can be one and the same. There are many good reasons that we ought to consider seriously the benefits of this model in missions today. Here are just four of them.

Getting Out

Many conventional church planting missionaries simply cannot get out of the starting blocks and to the field due to a lack of financial resources. This is especially true right now in Brazil, where I am based. “Difficult” is often an understatement when it comes to raising and maintaining a donor base. The overall economic situation in many countries is characterized by some combination of various ills such as poverty, corruption, inflation and weak currencies. But should potential missionaries be disqualified from serving the Lord cross-culturally simply because their churches either donʼt have, or don’t think they have, the resources to send them? The obvious answer is no. BAM is a model that can creatively access and utilize the numerous resources that can be found – and not just money, but talent and people, especially the so-called and often undervalued “laypeople” – for Godʼs global glory.

But the financial benefit is only the first of four, and the traditional missionary model – even when the missionary manages to raise all of his or her support – does not usually provide the next three benefits for cross-cultural church planting among unreached peoples in restricted access nations. Read more