Tag Archive for: entrepreneur

Business is a Gift from God to Transform the World [Video]

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by Mats Tunehag


Mats Tunehag teaches on what the Bible says about Wealth Creation and Business at the Fourth Lausanne Congress Workplace Track in September 2024.

 

 

Transcript:

I grew up in Sweden, the land of the Vikings. We used to do tough business and we drank out of the skulls of our enemies. Now we sell furniture in flat boxes, through IKEA, and you’re welcome! But that is a proof that people, businesses, and nations can be transformed. And that’s what we’re going to talk about now.

Business—that is a gift from God to transform the world. So I have a question for you. In our lifetime, in our generation, has global poverty increased, stayed the same, or decreased? What do you think?

It has decreased dramatically, from three out of 10 to one out of 10 in the world in a few decades. The biggest lift in the history of mankind out of poverty has happened in our generation, not through aid but through trade. Today this is good news, most people on the planet are better off in terms of longevity health, housing, and food than a generation ago and the essential contributing factor to this transformation is business.

Businesses have an enormous capacity to create different kinds of wealth. The Lausanne and BAM Global Wealth Creation Manifesto says, “Wealth creation through business has proven power to lift people and nations out of poverty.”

But what is wealth what do we mean by wealth?

There are different kinds of wealth. You can be financially rich and wealthy, but socially poor, you have no friends. You can be financially poor but spiritually rich because you know Jesus.

The Bible talks about wealth in three ways, one bad two good. The bad one is hoarding—more for me, myself, and more. The second one, which is good, is the sharing of wealth. To be generous, to give, that is commended in the Bible. But, there is never, ever any wealth of any kind to be shared unless it has been created. Wealth creation (the third one) is both a godly gift and a godly command.

When the people of Israel were about to enter into the promised land, God gave them instructions and it told them get engaged in business (see Deut 8). Two industries are mentioned, agricultural and mining, and [the scripture] says when you get involved in those kinds of businesses, different kinds of wealth will be created—but do not become proud or selfish because, He said, “I am the God who gives you the ability to create wealth.” (Deut 8:18)

And God is the ultimate owner of everything and we are to create and share different kinds of wealth through business to bless all peoples and nations. This is not a “health and wealth gospel”, this is not prosperity teaching, this is about stewardship of talents and resources. And, as the Bible says, to seek the welfare—the shalom, the wholeness, the flourishing—of the city (Jer 29:7). This is about provision and witness.

And this is not a capitalist idea, this is not a Lausanne thing, this has deep Judeo-Christian roots and is part of an ongoing tradition.

Worship is not sanctified entertainment. Work is worship! Avoda—the Hebrew word and the Jewish concept means “work is worship” as we serve God and people; life is an integrated whole to work, worship, and serve. Avoda!

In Judaism, our roots, the highest form of charity is not handouts but creating jobs. There’s another Jewish concept called tikkun olam, which means to co-create with God, to bridge the gap from what is to what it should be—from unemployment to employment, from misery to flourishing.

Tikkun olam means to repair a broken world, bring healing, and the Lord’s prayer is a tikkun olam prayer. May your kingdom come, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven—it is a God invasion of the marketplace towards human flourishing. Tikkun olam!

This is theology, anthropology, and vocation. It is about who God is, the Creator, it is about who we are, created in his image to be creative, create good products and services. And our calling to preach, demonstrate, and extend the kingdom of God as we do business and we influence all spheres of society, among all peoples.

The Wealth Creation Manifesto again, quote, “We are created in God’s image to co-create with him and for him to create products and services for the common good. Wealth creation is a holy calling and a God-given gift which is commanded in the Bible.”

Our views on wealth, wealth creation, and wealth creators are important and they make a difference. This is not a theoretical discussion, this is not just a theological exercise, it has real life implications and consequences.

Compare the health and the wealth of nations like South and North Korea, same culture same language same geography; or West Germany and East Germany. We have witnessed how Zimbabwe went from being the “bread basket of southern Africa to become a basket case” [see here, for example]. Or the oil-rich Venezuela is another tragic example of how disregard for basic wealth creation principles has destroyed a country.

Wealth creation is about flipping the script. We are not asking how can we fight poverty, no! We are rather asking how can we create different kinds of wealth—financial, social, cultural, intellectual, and spiritual—as we do business. Because business is the way that wealth is being created and that’s by God’s design.

So why should we do wealth creation? Why?

God wants it. The world needs it. And we are called to it!

And we are not the first ones to pick up this calling. God called and equipped John Cadbury to just that thing 200 years ago when he started the chocolate factory in Birmingham, England which had a holistic impact on many stakeholders for several generations. Chocolate for Jesus!

Also 200 years ago God called and equipped Hans Nielsen Hauge in Norway. He was instrumental in creating both a church revival movement and an entrepreneurship movement and that transformed the nation of Norway and his legacy is still alive to this day.

So through business, God calls us and equips us to find business solutions to human trafficking, business solutions to growing youth unemployment, business solutions to environmental challenges, business solutions to be able to serve unreached peoples. But, we are never to impose Jesus but rather propose him. Faith is not an imposition, it is a proposition and so is wealth creation through business.

Jesus should be an integral part of our value proposition, alongside our products and services—and the market actually is asking for spiritual health. A global survey done by McKinsey shows clearly that the vast majority of all people around the globe—regardless of faith, culture, ethnicity, age, and socioeconomic status—they consider spiritual health as important as physical mental and social health, the market wants it. That’s why we are, and we should be, engaged in wealth creation.

We believe that businesses can and should address a variety of human needs, with a special concern for the least the lost, and the lowliest.

And this is not about techniques, at the end of the day it is about love. Creating wealth, doing business as mission, honoring God, and seeking the common good is about love. Business as mission (BAM) is about being a channel, a conduit, of God’s love to the world.

As St Augustine says, “What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.”

So remember Christianity is not a self-help program, Christ is for the world! So growing businesses that’s not for our glory, it’s for the glory of God and that can change the world.

St Irenaeus, the great second century theologian, expressed the essence of Christianity as, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.”

Human flourishing requires wealth creation of all types and wealth creation requires business.

May God bless you!

 

Mats Tunehag is the Chairman of BAM Global, and he is a global thought leader on Business as Mission, BAM. Since the 1990’s he has created numerous networks of leaders from business, church, missions and academia from all continents. He has served as an advisor to groups involved in business, investment, freedom businesses, research and partnership development. He is the chief architect of the ‘Business as Mission Manifesto’ and the ‘Wealth Creation Manifesto’, which is a conceptual framework for the global BAM movement. See: matstunehag.com/about/ for more about Mats.

 

 

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

 

 

 

3 Ways Businesses Integrate Faith

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by Min-Dong Paul Lee, Hannah J. Stolze and Denise Daniels

 

Can a for-profit business demonstrate faith? For years, the answer seemed obvious: companies exist to make money, not to practice religion. However, with the rise of business as mission as well as the faith and work movement, more and more Christian entrepreneurs today believe they can integrate faith with their business and work. Then, how does faith manifest in businesses?

At Wheaton College’s Center for Faith and Innovation, we engaged in a multi-year research project to explore this question. With remarkable openness, five Christian entrepreneurs invited us to scrutinize their companies, asking for thorough, unbiased feedback. Our research, encompassing interviews, focus groups, surveys, and site visits, focused on identifying the presence and impact of faith within their organizations. Workplace leaders and employees were asked to describe the ways that they observed or experienced faith expressions in the workplace.

We were initially surprised that workers saw expressions of faith in many different forms. We identified three ways faith comes to life in these workplaces through a systematic qualitative and quantitative analysis. The three dimensions of faith expressions are distinct in terms of how readily observable they are as well as how explicitly they are connected with faith.

 

 

1. Embodied Faith

The first dimension required little to no thought for most respondents to identify—this category included such things as the presence of a cross or the practice of corporate prayers. These symbols and practices are easily observable, and their meaning is explicit in that most people would interpret them as faith-based. We call this kind of expression “embodied faith” because it gives tangible and visible form to faith.

For example, one firm displayed a mission statement that included “glorify God” on the wall. Another had a prayer chapel and crosses at headquarters. Embodied faith is also expressed through practice. Prayers, especially, stood out. A sales team member shared, “Whenever we have meetings, sales team or any of the meetings, we start with a prayer.” At another company, spontaneous prayers were routine: “We stop every now and then, get on the floor, and pray with each other. We know each of us has problems at home… We talk about it and pray with one another.”

These symbols and rituals aren’t subtle. They’re what anthropologist Clifford Geertz called concrete embodiments of belief—easily spotted and clearly tied to faith. But employees warned that crosses and prayers alone don’t cut it. As one put it, faith “can’t be hypocritical!” Embodied faith is just the surface; it needs deeper roots.

Read more

Easter: The Anchor for BAM’s Vision

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by Grace Kim

 

As Easter draws near, we find ourselves invited once again into the mystery and beauty of the resurrection story. For many, this season brings familiar traditions—quiet reflection, the retelling of the cross and the empty tomb, songs of hope and victory. We gather in churches and homes to remember that, against all odds, life has overcome death, light broke through the darkness, and love has had the final word.

But in the midst of this sacred story, there’s also a question that lingers: What does resurrection really look like in the world we live in today? A world that’s still full of broken systems, unjust economies, displacement, and despair. A world where businesses can often be sources of exploitation rather than restoration.

This is where the vision of business as mission (BAM) becomes deeply relevant—not as a niche idea, but as a prophetic and practical way to live out the resurrection story in real time.

At the heart of business as mission lies a theological foundation rooted in the message of Easter—a story not just of death and resurrection, but of restoration, transformation, and a renewed purpose for all of creation. Easter is more than a religious holiday; it’s the cornerstone of Christian hope, the decisive turning point in history, and a lens through which BAM practitioners interpret their calling in the marketplace.

Business as mission is not a niche idea, but a prophetic and practical way to live out the resurrection story in real time.

Redemption is Holistic

Easter is God’s declaration that nothing is beyond His power to redeem—not hearts, not relationships, not communities, and certainly not systems like business and economics. The resurrection doesn’t just promise life after death; it offers a pattern of renewal for everything that is broken. In the context of BAM, this holistic view of redemption means: Read more

Raising Up the Next Generation of BAM Leaders

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by Mike Baer

 

We’ve had quite a ride. For over 40 years, the Business as Mission (BAM) movement has been breaking ground (even before it was called that)—taking the Gospel to the marketplace and planting it right in the middle of real life. This idea—that business isn’t second-tier, but rather a high calling from God—has flipped a lot of thinking upside down. From scattered dreamers and explorers in the 1980s to a global movement with countless books, companies, conferences, podcasts, YouTube channels, degrees, and investment funds, BAM has gone from fringe to full-on force. But here’s the big question: is this just the beginning… or the end of a chapter?

It’s possible that we’re at a crossroads. Ronald Reagan once said that freedom is never more than a generation from extinction. I think BAM is the same. If we don’t pass it on with intention and heart, it won’t last. But Paul’s words to Timothy (in 2 Tim. 2:2) give us more hope and a better plan—train up faithful people who will teach others. That’s the long game. That’s how movements survive.

Put those two thoughts together, and you get a bit of a wake-up call. We need to raise up the next generation of BAM leaders—not just to keep the movement alive, but to take it somewhere we’ve never even imagined. This is about legacy, and legacy means people.

Now, I’m not saying we’re old… but let’s be honest, many of us are turning into “OGs.” In hip-hop, that stands for “Original Gangster”—someone who’s been around from the start. In BAM, that’s a bunch of us. We’ve pioneered. We’ve fought the early battles. And now it’s time to pass the baton to the NGs—the New Gangsters. The next wave. The future of BAM.

From where I sit—with my Boomer perspective—I’m actually pretty hopeful. (And I want to call out the Gen Xers and Millennials too, we all need to think about building from generation to generation, no matter our age or stage.) Gen Z (Zoomers) are full of fire. They’re purpose-driven, passionate, and looking for a cause that’s worth their lives. Reminds me a bit of my generation—we protested war, launched campaigns against hunger, reshaped politics, and kicked off the Jesus Movement. There’s power in this next crew. But here’s the issue: most of them don’t know what “missions” even means. They’re globally connected but often spiritually short-sighted. They don’t know the need, the urgency. Most haven’t yet discovered the next step beyond TikTok activism. That’s the first challenge—help them fall in love with Jesus and His mission.

Then comes the second challenge. Once they’re on fire for Jesus, they still face a stale set of choices: either be a good little layperson in the marketplace, or go “pro” and join the ministry as a pastor or missionary. Two tracks. Black and white. But we know better. BAM throws out the old two-track map. We don’t accept the sacred and the secular divide. We preach Jesus as Lord of all, and business is one of His tools to heal and bless this broken world. So let’s show this new generation that there are more than two doors.

Before they choose, we’ve got to reach them. And here are a few ways to start: Read more

God is at Work: How the BAM Movement Has Grown Over 25 Years

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by Mats Tunehag


By God’s grace we have seen an exponential growth of the global business as mission movement in the last 25 years. A movement, per definition, consists of many organizations and initiatives, which are independent but choose to be interdependent. They share mission and values, and they communicate and collaborate.

The nature of a movement means that no-one but God has the exact figures of the growth, but BAM Global has been tracking the direction of growth over the years. The trends are clear, and even the approximate numbers are astonishing.

Please allow us to paint a picture of this encouraging growth—looking at ten variables—and how they have changed in the last 25 years:

1. 25 years ago, we talked about BAM businesses in the dozens, often micro to small size businesses. Today there are thousands, mainly in the SME sector, but also large companies.

2. 25 years ago, churches and denominations had not embraced BAM. Today there are all kinds of churches and whole denominations like in Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, Brazil, USA, Russia, and many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, which are engaged in BAM.

3. 25 years ago, a handful of mission organizations had started to include BAM in their strategies. Today most of the oldest and major Evangelical mission agencies in the world are involved in BAM.

4. 25 years ago, BAM was not a topic in academic institutions. Today many universities and MBA programs teach BAM, and there are dozens of PhD’s and a lot more Master theses on BAM from all over the world.

5. 25 years ago, we talked about investments in BAM companies in thousands of dollars, today in millions of dollars.

6. 25 years ago, there were no BAM incubators or accelerators, but today they exist in about 20 countries.

7. 25 years ago, there were no BAM networks. Today there are 30+ BAM networks—national, regional and international. Most are related to a country or a region, and others are focusing on an issue, industry or constituency.

8. 25 years ago, the conversations about BAM were in English. Today there is BAM material, conversations and work in over 20 languages.

9. 25 years ago, BAM was not a part of the Lausanne Movement, but it was introduced 2002, which was the start of the first global think tank on business as mission culminating at the Lausanne Forum in Thailand in 2004 and the Lausanne Occasional Paper on BAM. Since then, around 40 global consultations on business as mission topics have been convened, resulting in over 30 white papers on BAM. At the Fourth Lausanne Congress in Korea, September 2024, where 5000 people from about 200 countries participated, around half the attendees had indicated on the registration form that they were interested in faith at work, including business as mission.

10. 25 years ago, we approximate that there were about a dozen BAM resources. Today there are almost 1000 BAM Resource Library entries and Blogs here on the BAM Resource Centre at businessasmission.com alone—articles, papers, videos, books, organizations, and more.

God is good, and he is at work. There is a significant kairos moment in our generation, manifesting itself on all continents. We are in anticipation for what He will continue to do in the next generation.

AMDG—Ad Maoirem Dei Gloriam—for the greater glory of God!

 

Mats Tunehag is the Chairman of BAM Global, and he is a global thought leader on Business as Mission, BAM. Since the 1990’s he has created numerous networks of leaders from business, church, missions and academia from all continents. He has served as an advisor to groups involved in business, investment, freedom businesses, research and partnership development. He is the chief architect of the ‘Business as Mission Manifesto’ and the ‘Wealth Creation Manifesto’, which is a conceptual framework for the global BAM movement. See: matstunehag.com/about/ for more about Mats.

Together, Towards, Tomorrow
Building from Generation to Generation

That’s the theme of the BAM Global Summit this year. Join us and discover what God is doing through business as mission.

 

Discover More About the Summit & Register

 


 

Photo by Imagine Buddy on Unsplash

 

 

BAM: A Game Changer in a World of Trade Wars and Political Chaos

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by Grace Kim


The world feels like it’s on edge. Tariff wars are shaking up global trade, the U.S. is more divided than ever, and businesses everywhere are scrambling to keep up. In times like these, Business as Mission (BAM) isn’t just a nice idea—it’s a necessity. BAM isn’t about just making money; it’s about using business to create real, lasting change—economically, socially, and even spiritually. And right now, that mission is more important than ever.

BAM vs. the Global Trade Wars

Let’s face it—trade wars are messy. The U.S. and China have been locked in a battle of tariffs, leaving businesses caught in the crossfire. Supply chains are disrupted, costs are rising, and small businesses are struggling. BAM, however, offers a different way forward. Instead of relying on fragile international trade deals, BAM businesses focus on local economies, fair trade, and sustainability.

Think about it: when businesses invest in local suppliers and ethical sourcing, they build economic resilience. BAM-driven companies aren’t just chasing the cheapest deal; they’re creating jobs and opportunities where they’re needed most, reducing dependence on unstable global markets. This isn’t just smart business, it’s a way to fight poverty and promote fairness in an unpredictable world.

BAM in the Middle of U.S. Political Turmoil

Meanwhile, in the U.S., things are far from stable. Political unrest, social division, economic uncertainty—businesses are navigating a minefield. But BAM can be a force for unity and stability. Instead of adding to the chaos, BAM businesses focus on ethical leadership, employee care, and community impact.

At a time when people are losing trust in big corporations and political leaders, BAM companies stand out by doing business with integrity and purpose. They create jobs in struggling communities, invest in social entrepreneurship, and promote values that bring people together, not tear them apart. In a polarized world, BAM is proof that business can be a bridge, not a battleground. Read more

Virtue is priceless: For Everything Else, There’s Excellence

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by Phil Hanson & Terry Young

 

As authors, and with a nod to Mastercard (see below), we have been looking at businesses through a kingdom lens. In Part 1, we explored what it might look like for Christian business owners to pursue both excellence and virtue. But what does pursuing virtue mean? What specific virtues are we talking about? And how might we assess how well we are doing in that pursuit? That’s the topic of this post, Part 2.

In our booklet How to Merge Kingdom and Business: The Most Excellent Way we used the template of the Christian virtues of faith, hope and love. This obviously isn’t the only possible template, but it is one that has been used by theologians throughout history. Each of St Paul’s three themes can be unpacked as practical ways of working, albeit with some overlap between them.

What becomes evident is that many things going on in business can be mapped back to the faith, hope and love template, even if they were not morally motivated at the start. Business leaders have striven to do what they believe to be the right thing, without necessarily grounding their actions in a Christian context, or that of another faith. This is indicated by the column showing ‘Secular Motivation and Application’ below—i.e. actions in business that could be mapped back to the virtues of faith, hope or love, but without an intentional faith-driven motivation.

One indicator of what is happening is what businesses say about themselves in their advertising straplines, as the table below illustrates.

 

Virtue
Christian Motivation and Application
Secular Motivation and Application
Company Taglines
Faith
  • Hunger for perfection
  • Depends on God
  • Metamorphosis
  • Supernatural process
  • Wanting to do the right thing
  • Getting the best from people
  • Re-engineering
  • Rational process
Pursuit of Excellence (IBM)
Melts in Your Mouth, Not in Your Hands (M&M)
Does Exactly What It Says on the Tin® (Ronseal)
Hope
  • Hunger for (God’s) glory
  • Constant over time
  • Mysteriously satisfying
  • Eternal
  • Joyful in hope
  • Energising vision
  • Varies with circumstances
  • Always chasing satisfaction
  • The long game
  • Fun & fulfilment
A Diamond is Forever (De Beers)
Think Different. (Apple)
Believe in Better (Sky Group)
Love
  • Hunger for (God’s) heart
  • The greatest… is love
  • Unconditional love
  • Perfectly, wonderfully made
  • Relationships essential
  • All stakeholders matter
  • Subject to performance
  • Respect for the individual
Have it your way (Burger King)
Fly with friends (Austrian Airlines)
Succeed Together (LEGO)

 

While the taglines of companies give us clues about motivation, they are not exhaustive. To dig deeper into the underlying motivations, we bulleted some characteristics of what companies want and then mapped them back to corresponding Christian virtues. In trying to match them up we, surprisingly, noticed some parallels and some differences between the Christian and secular thinking.

For example, in the faith row above, both sides aspire to goodness: on the Christian side, to perfection and on the business side, to doing the right thing. But by the final pair of bullets, we recognise that one side is supernatural and the other, highly rational.  One side demands rebirth, the other re-engineering; one side depends on God, the other on getting the best from people. We have tried to bridge these similarities and differences with the idea of resilient reliability, which the taglines pick up.

In the hope line we connect a hunger for God’s glory on one side with the need for an energising vision in business—a nice alignment. There’s also a sense of joy, fun and fulfilment that matches across the columns. However, the constancy of Christian hope clashes with the way the human hope swivels in the choppy waters of the market, and while Christian hope is mysteriously satisfied in the glory of God, human hopes are always chasing something they can’t quite catch. Meanwhile, ‘the long game’ is the closest we can get in business to the eternal. We’ve tried to bridge this with the idea of realising renewal, wrapping creativity and innovation into that, and mapping it to strategy and purpose.

In the love row, there is obvious alignment around the centrality of relationships, but God takes an unconditional approach to each soul, whereas business must draw the line somewhere and part company with unsuitable partners, employees or customers. Respect can only go so far versus unconditional love.  However, the two sides can shake hands over the idea of rewarding relationships.

People, Purpose & Process

As authors, we gravitated early on in our exploration of ethics and the workplace to the idea that businesses tend to talk faith-ish and hope-ish and love-ish, whatever their starting motivation, as we have seen above. We set out, therefore, to look for operational virtues in commerce, manufacturing and service provision, that might twin with faith, hope and love in some way, but using more familiar business language.

We concluded that love could be expressed as ‘people’, since business doesn’t work without people. Hope could be expressed as ‘purpose’, and an alternative word for faith is ‘process’.

Diagram 1: Mapping Theological Virtues to Business Values and the 3 RRs

 

It wasn’t difficult to persuade ourselves that the two globally recognised business excellence frameworks we referenced in Part 1 (Baldrige and EFQM) could be condensed nicely under the themes of purpose, people and process. For more details on this, read How to Merge Kingdom and Business: the most excellent way (2024).

Love could be expressed as ‘people’, since business doesn’t work without people. Hope could be expressed as ‘purpose’, and an alternative word for faith is ‘process’.


Pathways Towards Kingdom Business

The table above suggests that there are good ethical intentions in many organisations. However, this observation doesn’t help us to establish how big a gap there is between such an organisation and a ‘kingdom business’—i.e. an enterprise motivated primarily by kingdom of God purposes—and what the pathway might be to get there.

We have previously described the journey towards becoming a kingdom business as having two axes: one axis of improving excellence of practice and performance and the other axis of ever-improving virtue.

Diagram 2: A virtue and excellence matrix

 

These two paths have some parallel with the ideas of faith and works. And as such, both faith (virtue) and works (excellence) are required for a kingdom business. All virtue and no excellence manifests itself in worthy but unsustainable, likely uncompetitive, business; all excellence and no virtue may deliver a booming business but without a moral compass, much less able to make the world a better place.

Another principle for moving towards virtue and excellence together is Voltaire’s idea of perfect versus good. He famously argued that perfect is the enemy of good. Striving for perfection will inhibit important small steps of improvement. Our kingdom businesses must strive for virtue without compromising the day-to-day practical improvement in how the operation performs.

All excellence and no virtue may deliver a booming business but without a moral compass, much less able to make the world a better place.

For almost 30 years, now, Mastercard has been running its Priceless advertisements. They start with emotive scenes: families reuniting in an arrivals lounge for Christmas; or a Mom going in search of her Irish roots. The cost of the arrangements—flights, trains, drinks, etc.— float across the scene. At some point the voiceover explains that the experience you are witnessing is priceless, adding, ‘There are some things money can’t buy; for everything else, there’s Mastercard.’

So what is our framework all about?  Well, to paraphrase, this seminal slogan, ‘Virtue is priceless; for everything else, there’s excellence.’

Application

As authors, we hope that the RR3 Framework that we introduce here and in more detail in our book—that connects the theological virtues of faith, hope and love, to the business-oriented triplet of process, purpose and people—may help to ground discussions around Christian or kingdom business more directly to biblical principles.

In our observation, a lot of what is published is good news stories, i.e. we did this and that and then these good things happened! There is nothing wrong with sharing such stories, but having a framework forces us to ask how good the good things really were and to test for virtue and excellence in all three of our themes.

Even if you aren’t the CEO or company owner, you may still use the RR3 Framework to find a voice in your organisation. You might find managers willing to have a conversation that starts something like this, ‘From our advertising, we want to offer the following. As a Christian, that looks a bit like faith (or love or hope). I was wondering whether you’d be interested in getting your practice closer to your tagline….’

Think about it and then find a way to talk about it.

 

For more on these topics, see our booklet, How to Merge Kingdom and Business: The Most Excellent Way, available from Grove books or on Amazon.  

 

Phil Hanson is a senior chartered engineer with a track record in industry and Christian service. He grew IBM’s Manufacturing Consulting Practice to $50M pa and his contribution was recognized with visiting positions at Newcastle and Cambridge. He has an MBA, a couple of Masters in theology and was ordained in retirement in the Church of England.

 


Terry Young is a missionary kid and active church member who went into R&D and became a professor before founding Datchet Consulting. He has published patents, 100+ academic articles, and books on Bible study and leadership. With a PhD in lasers, he is a member of The Operational Research Society and a Fellow of the British Computer Society.

 

 

Photo by Celpax on Unsplash

Kingdom Business: The Intentional Pursuit of Virtue and Excellence

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by Phil Hanson & Terry Young


When a business offers breakfast to children heading to school on an empty stomach, we applaud. In some parts of the world, we can point to examples all around us of companies making a local difference in ways like this.

However, what is their motivation? It’s worth thinking about the mix of possible motives, from genuine altruism to exploitation for marketing advantage. Adam Smith thought that business had a way of cleansing people’s ethical outlook: no matter how selfish the goals of business leaders, the resultant wealth brought good to the whole society. That’s an idea we explore in our booklet, How to Merge Kingdom and Business: The Most Excellent Way.

A neutral observer today might be inclined to conclude the opposite to Adam Smith, that self-interest is one of the prime reasons that business can do harm.

Diagram 1: Some consider self-interest to be wholly in conflict with doing good

Can a Christian business leader simply trust in Adam’s Smith’s misguided attempt to combine virtue and practice, and the idea that all will necessarily come good? Or do we need to be more intentional?

Combining doing well with doing good is worth deeper consideration. It’s a path that some Christian entrepreneurs have chosen, so how reasonable are their hopes of succeeding?

The Staircase

To help understand this, we created a simple matrix that deals separately with business ethics and business practice. This is a key factor in the discussion: the workplace itself cannot bind virtue and excellence together nor does it automatically set them in opposition to one another.

Diagram 2: A virtue and excellence matrix

 

This staircase model frees us to address ethical virtue and the excellences of business practice separately. (One can walk along a corridor next to the stairs without rising: to get to the next level, you must decide to take the stairs.) However, in doing so, we are not claiming that virtue and excellence are disconnected from each other. Each axis shapes how customers and others view the company and affects the viability of the business. Shoddy products might undermine a strong ethical brand, while dodgy behaviour weakens confidence in a strong bottom line.

A key message from the staircase diagram is that one must be as intentional in the pursuit of virtue as one is in pursuing excellence.

As we note in our book, ethics at work largely come from the people at the top. Even the much-acclaimed Victorian philanthropists had their blind spots, caring passionately for their local employees but not attending to slavery and oppression in their overseas supply chains.

Most businesses are likely to be doing both good and bad at the same time, however well run they are. Products and services that have a noble purpose may weigh on the positive side of the scales while unkind employee relations may tip the balance in the opposite direction. Critically, all business leaders are tipping the scales one way or another, both through action and through neglect—reflecting the theological categories of commission and omission.

A key message from the staircase diagram is that one must be as intentional in the pursuit of virtue as one is in pursuing excellence, if a credible business is to flourish under a business as mission-type banner. For some in the BAM fold, this may mean more attention to the ethical nervous system, to others it may require a sharper focus on business protocols, procedures and practices.

Intentional Excellence

The excellence axis of the diagram is well understood now that a few decades of measurement and dialogue have shaped our understanding of what works in business. Business gurus and prominent leaders still write their books, but an evidence-based consensus has emerged over how to manage, how to set up HR systems, how to run logistics, production lines, and so forth. We cite the Baldrige Excellence Framework and the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) as leading international organisations that gather such knowledge and produce benchmarking tools for businesses.

As authors, we are familiar with best business practice and the maturity models and other tools used to assess performance, but it is not clear how deeply embedded this mindset is in Christian entrepreneurial circles. We shall return to this topic in our second blog in this series, when we address approaches that may be helpful in assessing how well we are doing.

Intentional Virtue

There are various ways in which organisations can set their sails in the market’s prevailing wind. Regardless of its ethical stance, every business is affected by 3 R’s: regulation, representation and renewal. To continue the sailing metaphor, each offers ethical opportunities and challenges, depending on how the leadership tacks:

Regulation sets standards and provides tools to assess compliance, so that achieving compliance may be heralded as a business virtue.

Representation is a way to spread accountability for business decisions and practices. The result, however, may simply be determined by the strongest voice(s). It is no guarantee of ethical behaviour.

Renewal provides another potentially positive influence when new ways of working are driven by waves of technology, for example. Enlightened ways of working do emerge but not everyone benefits.

None of these three approaches can ensure lasting and deeply rooted change to the scales of business virtue.

Christian bosses may be marked out by their integrity, their good example, their personal witness and a track record of compassionate execution of necessary business changes. They have, however, an opportunity to do much more than simply being good role models. They can do things in their businesses that have a ‘multiplier’ impact so that their business can begin to make the world a better place. This might be described as accelerating God’s kingdom rather than simply advancing it.

Kingdom Business

Management consultants love to explain things using the two-by-two matrix and this emerging idea of ‘kingdom business’ can be explained this way too. There are, for any business, two directions of travel, as shown in our earlier staircase diagram.

The first of these directions is the pursuit of business excellence, the adoption of industry best practice and benchmarking against market leaders and others. The journey is one of continuous and shared improvements with occasional step functions of discontinuous change. It is by this means that customer expectations are exceeded, market share is improved, and financial results maximised.

The second direction of travel is that of increasing virtue. It is when the good the business does in the world exceeds the bad. It too is a journey of both large and small steps.

Business leaders can do things in their businesses that have a “multiplier” impact so that their business can begin to make the world a better place.

This picture of a kingdom business is one in which both directions of travel are taken equally seriously. It is like a flight of stairs, onwards and upwards. It is where, perhaps, the balanced scorecard treats ethical results with the same emphasis as commercial results. God’s kingdom is not an extra to be achieved in good times when the business can afford it or the poor relation of creating shareholder wealth.  Instead, God’s kingdom purposes become the ultimate purpose of the business.

Up and to the Right?

There are different trajectories for businesses in this picture. It is not all about starting in the bottom left and systematically marching up the stairs.

There are many businesses which survive with ad-hoc business processes because they are operating in some sort of protected market. At some point that protection will disappear and they will be forced along the excellence axis. An ad-hoc business isn’t a great foundation for making a kingdom difference.

Then there are well performing businesses that are commercially sound but who have paid little attention to the opportunities they have to make the world a better place and for whom the journey is up the virtue axis.

Some enterprises start out with a significant noble purpose which is unambiguously their reason for existence. Many charities start this way. They typically have two challenges. The first is the professionalisation of everything they do (advancing on the horizontal axis). The second is avoiding mission drift and maintaining their position on the virtue axis against a pressure for creeping secularisation of their purpose.

Whilst there are numerous well-established templates for measuring business excellence, measuring where any business is on the virtue axis is less well understood. We will address the issue of how a business can begin to measure kingdom progress in the next post in this two part series.

These ideas are explained in more detail in the Grove booklet, How to Merge Kingdom and Business: The Most Excellent Way, available from Grove books or on Amazon.

Read Part 2

 

Phil Hanson is a senior chartered engineer with a track record in industry and Christian service. He grew IBM’s Manufacturing Consulting Practice to $50M pa and his contribution was recognized with visiting positions at Newcastle and Cambridge. He has an MBA, a couple of Masters in theology and was ordained in retirement in the Church of England.

 


Terry Young is a missionary kid and active church member who went into R&D and became a professor before founding Datchet Consulting. He has published patents, 100+ academic articles, and books on Bible study and leadership. With a PhD in lasers, he is a member of The Operational Research Society and a Fellow of the British Computer Society.

 

 

Photo by Mohammad Bagher Adib Behrooz on Unsplash

Nationals or Expatriates? The Key to Lasting Impact in BAM

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by Mike Baer


As the global Business as Mission (BAM) movement has evolved into a truly global (all nations) effort, a strategic question surfaces more and more often—should we focus on sending more expatriates to lead BAM initiatives in other countries, or is the greater impact found in equipping and supporting local nationals to build BAM businesses in their own regions?

And, as we explore this question, let’s go back to the foundational principles of the modern BAM movement (and, indeed, BAM through the ages). First, business, like all of life, is created by God for His glory and the good of humanity. That means God is has used it and is using it and calling many into it. Second, God’s heart is for the nations, the ethnoi, the people groups of the entire earth. The Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) and its companion verse in Acts (Acts 1:8) make it clear that all peoples and, especially, the unreached peoples should remain at the center of today’s BAM efforts. If we use these two principles as harbor lights, we can arrive at a strategic and biblical answer to the question.

At first glance, the straight forward answer is “both.” Indeed, God is calling His whole church to reach all peoples: Acts 1:8 tells us that the power of the Holy Spirit was given so that we, God’s people, can be His “witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Many communities around the world have no local believers, no way of knowing who Jesus is. For the Good News to reach those people, cultural and geographical boundaries will likely need to be crossed. I want to say right at the start, if God has been clearly stirring you for BAM in a particular place, to reach a particular underserved people, the intention here is not to discourage you. We need more, not less, individuals willing to plant businesses cross-culturally, or in near cultures. There are plenty of resources here on the BAM Blog and in the Resource Library to help you do that effectively—and the principles below on partnering with those who know the cultural context well will stand you in good stead.

Yet, as we dig deeper and zoom out to consider our strategic focus as a movement, I believe the scales begin to tip. If the goal is lasting transformation—socially, spiritually, environmentally, and economically—the weight rests on empowering nationals. This isn’t to dismiss the critical role of expatriates, but to recognize that the future of BAM depends on a strategic shift toward greater mobilization and equipping of those already embedded in the culture and context.

So, what does this look like in practice? Let’s unpack the rationale, the roles, and the blueprint for moving forward.

The Biblical Case for Multiplication through Locals

The Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20) sets the tone. Jesus didn’t stay in one place to oversee the growth of the early Church—He raised up local leaders. Paul followed the same model, planting churches but quickly transitioning leadership to local believers (Titus 1:5). The principle is simple: outsiders may initiate, but insiders multiply.

In the same way, expatriates can spark the BAM movement in new regions, but true cultural transformation takes root when nationals catch the vision, take ownership, and drive it forward.

Why the focus on nationals? I see four key reasons:

1. Cultural Fluency and Trust

Nationals possess an innate understanding of the language, customs, and social dynamics of their regions. These factors are essential in building relationships, establishing trust, and leading businesses that are culturally relevant.

Expatriates may take years to develop a basic level of insight—if they ever do. In contrast, nationals already hold many of these keys, allowing them to navigate business and discipleship opportunities with greater ease and fluidity. Read more

What Kind of Entrepreneur was Paul the Apostle?

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by Min-Dong Paul Lee and Dave Pederson, Wheaton College

Read Part 1  |  Read Part 2

On the road to Damascus, Paul’s life was transformed from a self-promoter to a steward of the gospel to the gentiles. A curious fact is that Paul never quit his job as a tentmaker. Why did Paul remain a leather-worker artisan throughout his missionary career? Could it be that this daily business was an integral part of his ministry? We use the lens of a modern entrepreneurship theory called entrepreneurial effectuation theory to unlock Paul’s combining of business and ministry.

Effectuation theory offers a unique perspective explaining the entrepreneurial process. Most entrepreneurship theory assumes that entrepreneurs start with a goal (i.e., creating products or enterprise) in mind and mobilize resources to achieve the end. Effectuation theory offers a very different perspective. It argues that entrepreneurs begin with assessing their available resources and determining the next best step given the resources, allowing them to adapt their goals and strategies as circumstances change. This approach emphasizes flexibility and improvisation over rigid planning, creating a more dynamic model for understanding the entrepreneurial process.

While some may distill effectuation theory into ‘going with the flow,’ there is a clear strategic emphasis that entrepreneurs exercise, especially when following a goal that is impressed upon them rather than manufactured by themselves. As a steward of God’s mission, Paul had a specific goal that was given to him. Yet, he seems to adapt his methods at nearly every turn to find the best approach to launching and building churches. Paul combined his tentmaking work with ministry to find and create opportunities and solve problems. Let us use the lens of four principles of effectuation theory to examine Paul’s unique ministry.

Bird-in-Hand Principle (Start with What You Have)

The Bird-in-Hand principle asserts that successful entrepreneurs create solutions with immediately available resources, such as their skills, knowledge, and networks.

When Christ confronted Paul on the Damascus road, he sent him on a mission to the gentiles. Paul immediately had to make a resourcing decision. According to a Roman Stoic philosopher, Musonius Rufus, an itinerant teacher like Paul could provide for themselves in four ways: (1) Paul could find a wealthy gentile patron; (2) he could collect tuition from his students; (3) he could beg for a living; (4) he could work with his hands. Paul learned leather-working skills from his youth. So, he chose to apply his skills in supplying for his needs and worked in the trade throughout his life. In fact, even when he was under house arrest in Rome at the end of his life, he worked to pay for the rent (Acts 28:30). Read more

The Mindset of a BAMer: Lessons from Paul the Apostle

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by Min-Dong Paul Lee and Dave Pederson, Wheaton College

Read Part 1

 

BAMers have two integrated identities: Missional and entrepreneurial identities. We know that our missional identity is grounded in our conviction as stewards of God’s mission. Then, what is part of our entrepreneurial identity? What distinguishes entrepreneurs from everyone else?

In their influential study, The Entrepreneurial Mindset, McGrath and MacMillan define five critical characteristics of entrepreneurs as (1) opportunity-seeking, (2) disciplined, (3) focused, (4) adaptive, and (5) collaborative. Are these characteristics relevant for BAM entrepreneurs? Through examples from the work and life of Apostle Paul, we show Paul’s entrepreneurial mindset, firmly anchored in stewardship identity, was an essential driving force for his mission.

Opportunity-Seeking

The first characteristic of an entrepreneurial mindset is opportunity-seeking. Like good chess players, entrepreneurs are not just focused on what is happening on the board. Instead, their mind is racing ahead to predict the moves ahead. Entrepreneurs stay alert and constantly scan the environment to look for new opportunities.

The Book of Acts paints a fascinating portrait of the Apostle Paul, a man whose defining characteristic was his relentless pursuit of opportunity. While he sought opportunities to advance his career and crush the nascent Christian movement before the Damascus experience, after conversion, his opportunity-seeking mindset was redirected towards spreading the Gospel in Damascus and Jerusalem. Yet, Paul’s initial zeal did not always yield positive results. His attempt to preach to the Hellenistic Jews in Jerusalem backfired, forcing him to retreat to his hometown of Tarsus (Acts 9:28-30).

This experience may have been another critical turning point for Paul. What he thought was an opportunity was only a distraction when it was not God’s timing. Nonetheless, Paul had the humility to listen to others and went back home to Tarsus and the surrounding regions.

When God’s timing arrived, in contrast to his earlier self-directed pursuit of opportunity, Paul sought opportunities in God’s will and timing. This shift led him to unexpected and fruitful places. For instance, in the Philippi prison, Paul shared the gospel with the jailer’s family. His commitment to spreading the gospel extended even to encounters with powerful rulers. When engaging with King Agrippa, Paul’s passionate proclamation left a lasting impression. Agrippa, taken aback, remarked, “In a short time, would you persuade me to be a Christian?” (Acts 26:28). Paul’s reliance on divine guidance allowed him to discover opportunities he did not anticipate.

The Spirit-guided insight for spotting fruitful opportunities is an essential quality of a BAMer.

Discipline and Focus

Discipline and focus are intricately connected like the two sides of the same coin. Once entrepreneurs spot opportunities, they pursue them with enormous discipline and focus. They have a bias toward action and are disciplined to turn ideas into products and services that meet real needs. Focus demands an unrelenting prioritization of the best opportunity. The entrepreneurs first select the most fertile battleground – the industry or arena with the most promise. Then, within this chosen domain, they focus on the most attractive opportunity. This inevitably necessitates trade-offs. Other potentially alluring opportunities are cast aside. They understand they must give up something to focus on the best possible opportunity. Read more

The Apostle Paul: An Entrepreneurial Steward

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by Min-Dong Paul Lee and Dave Pederson, Wheaton College

The Apostle Paul is one of the most extensively studied biblical characters. However, much of the research focused on his theology, leaving Paul’s human side – his behaviors and motivations – underexplored. With the advancement of modern behavioral sciences, new conceptual tools are available to analyze his ministry from fresh perspectives. For example, what would we learn if we examined Paul’s ministry through the lens of modern entrepreneurial research?

Paul: The Accidental Theologian and Natural Entrepreneur

Paul was a theologian by accident. He didn’t see himself as a writer of long treatises. Rather, he saw himself as God’s servant and practitioner carrying out the pastoral and missionary work of the emerging movement of Jesus’ followers. If we focus on his actions and decisions, we see a unique figure that was highly proactive and entrepreneurial. He planted over a dozen churches, coached many leaders, wrote almost half of the New Testament books, and engaged in trades in multiple cities.

Paul’s life is an apt example of what modern organizational scholars describe as an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs have the uncanny ability to see the unmet needs in the market. They are willing to take the risk to create something that exploits the opportunity to add value to society. Modern entrepreneurship research suggests that entrepreneurs possess a distinct mindset characterized by five key features:

1. Opportunity-Seeking: They stay alert and actively scan the environment for new opportunities

2. Disciplined: They are determined and persistent in pursuing their goals

3. Focused: They prioritize specific goals and are willing to make strategic tradeoffs

4. Adaptable: They adjust their strategies to the changing environment

5. Collaborative: They recognize the power of working together with others

Interestingly, Paul had all the marks of an entrepreneur even before his conversion. Paul was a Hellenistic Jew from Tarsus in the province of Cilicia. Yet, he moved to Jerusalem to become a student of Gamaliel, a leading figure among the Pharisees in Jerusalem, eager to climb the religious ladder. When the Jesus sect emerged, Paul saw it as a heretical threat and began to persecute them with discipline and focus. He often adapted his strategies of persecution, growing ever more violent. He was willing to collaborate with even the Sadducees to achieve his objective. Paul was an ambitious entrepreneur driven by his religious zeal and personal success.

Transformation as an Entrepreneurial Steward

Everything changes on the road to Damascus. The encounter with the risen Christ shook Paul to the core and fundamentally transformed his identity, purpose, and practice. It is not that he lost his entrepreneurial edge. Instead, God redirected his natural disposition toward a whole new mission (Acts 9:15). Paul continued applying an entrepreneurial mindset in his missionary work. However, instead of being self-driven and opportunistic, he submitted himself entirely to the leading of his master and committed to the new mission. To describe this unique blend of entrepreneurial mindset with a servant’s heart, we introduce the term entrepreneurial steward. Entrepreneurial stewards are people whose identity is firmly anchored in the stewardship commitment to serve their master’s interest while leveraging their entrepreneurial talents. Read more

Starting Lean: Soft Launches Help Avoid Hard Landings

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by Mike Baer

Adapted from material developed for a Third Path Initiative training module.

A very common story among highly excited entrepreneurs goes something like this: get a great idea, build the product, go whole hog to market, wait and lose a lot of money. It’s equivalent to the leadership anti-mantra “ready, fire, aim.” I call this the “emotional/entrepreneur syndrome” where any action is preferred to analysis and patience.

Contrast that with a less common but much wiser approach. Get an idea, test the idea, check out the landscape, build a sufficient product to try out, go lightly to market, listen, and adjust. Boring? Not at all…unless you just get off on failure.

This approach has been called many things over the years. It’s not new. Soft opening. Soft launch. Lean startup. Trial and error. Jesus put it this way:

For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him… – Luke 14:28-29, ESV

Out of context, I admit but true nonetheless. Take your time and do it right.

Here are the steps I’d use if I was doing another startup. After my initial ideation, testing the market, and market research, I’d:

Develop a Minimal Viable Product

This is a concept not created but made popular by Eric Ries in The Lean Startup. A “minimal viable product” or MVP is defined as:

…that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.” – Wikipedia

… a development technique in which a new product or website is developed with sufficient features to satisfy early adopters. The final, complete set of features is only designed and developed after considering feedback from the product’s initial users. – Techopedia

In other words, don’t try to create the perfect website, application, food, widget. Instead, build just enough, barely enough, the minimum to actually go to market. You will improve and update and complete your product later but for now I just want my car on the track.  Read more

Helping Entrepreneurs Thrive: The Power of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems

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If you have been in the entrepreneurial world for very long, you have likely heard the words “Entrepreneurial Ecosystems” pop up more and more in the last few years. And for good reason! Ecosystem theory has begun to change the way we think about entrepreneurship in general with the Kauffman Foundation, CoStarters, InBia, and others leading the way in the US. Ecosystem thinking is also transforming the way we do BAM, in that the development of entrepreneurial ecosystems is understood more and more as a powerful way to foster local business ownership, impact economic development, and expand the influence of the Kingdom in the marketplace of local communities around the world.

So, what is an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem?

Generally an ecosystem is an interconnected, interdependent network of elements, living and nonliving, that make up a supportive environment for a particular type of creature or entity. The word “ecosystem” is a biological term, originally used to describe the environment of a type of animal (or group of animals) that enables it to thrive. So a prairie could be an ecosystem for foxes because it provides other foxes, prey like mice, food for the prey like seeds, water, predators that inspire defensive behaviors, a favorable temperature, sunlight, a place to live, etc..

Outside of biology, the word ecosystem has been very fluid in its meaning. It can apply to a lot of different kinds of networks, such as networks of similar organizations, political environments, or ministry connections. Even the term “entrepreneurial ecosystems” is sometimes used to describe global networks across particular industries, networks of BAM practitioners, or networks of entrepreneurs in a local context.

For our purposes, and the purposes of this discussion, we will use the term “entrepreneurial ecosystem” to refer to the local networks of entrepreneurs, business leaders, local investors, and mentors in a single community or local area. For most entrepreneurs, most of the emotional support, resources, and customers come from such a local environment. It is the elements in that local environment that, when interconnected and supportive of entrepreneurs, allow entrepreneurs to thrive. Elements of that ecosystem can include resources like knowledge capital, other entrepreneurs, established businesses, places to operate like co-working spaces, markets, and even cultural attitudes.

“Building” an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

So if entrepreneurial ecosystems are our focus, we may rightly ask how one “builds” an ecosystem? In reality, ecosystems are never really created. Every community has some kind of environment or “ecosystem” for entrepreneurs, just not always one that is conducive for thriving. Debilitating competition from big business, resistance from banks and other lenders to lend, lack of knowledge resources on how to start a business, and a culture against risk-taking or profit-making can all conspire to make entrepreneurship difficult. As a result, a potential entrepreneur, even if he/she had a great idea, may never attempt to start a business, not because they lack ideas, but because they don’t know how, don’t know how to find resources, and (perhaps worst of all) feel all alone. When conditions fail to support entrepreneurs in an area, great ideas die untried, and solvable problems remain unsolved.  Read more

Business Response Plan: From Intensive Care to Recovery

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In Part 1 of this blog, we identified four stages you can take to proactively lead your organization through the uncertainty and down the road to recovery.

Once you have taken care of the most urgent tasks in the “Emergency Room” phase, it is time to start treating your business to lead it towards longer term stabilization, recovery and repositioning.

2. Moving through Intensive Care

Main Priority: Address the unhealthy areas in your organization and enlist the larger organization in your response.

Establish stakeholder communication plan

During times of uncertainty, increased communication is vital.

•Who are your key stakeholders?

•How often should you be in contact?

•What is the best media and approach?

Implement employee care & development plan

During times of crisis, more care and attention is needed, and development challenges are available.

•What current needs are your employees facing?

•Who can you give development challenges to?

•How can you build your culture during this time?  Read more

Business Response & Recovery Plan to COVID-19

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A process to lead your organization through uncertainty and down the road to recovery

If your business has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, we recommend taking immediate action. Don’t “wait and see” what might transpire.

We have identified four stages you can take to proactively lead your organization through the uncertainty and down the road to recovery.

Our Core Assumptions

  • The spread of this pandemic will lead to major disruptions in almost every industry.
  • A “wait and see” approach could be destructive –prepare for the worst and hope for the best
  • No one can predict the future. A systematic and agile approach is needed.
  • Every customer and employee is experiencing some level of stress, anxiety, or fear. Strong values-based leadership is needed
  • No business will remain the same. The disruption will create opportunities for retooling or repositioning for those that are proactive.

 

1. Getting Started in the Emergency Room

Main Priority: Help your leaders and organization recognize the urgency of the times, align to secure the safety of stakeholders and stop the financial bleeding.   

Here are some activities for the “Emergency Room” stage of a crisis:

Rally Key Leaders

 Rally key leaders with a wake-up call and clear sense of urgency

 Avoid inaction and a “wait and see” approach

Key Questions to Answer:

What is a realistic picture that recognizes there is no certainty on when things will improve?

What will need to change with your communication and meeting cadence?

Set a Baseline

 Determine clear financial picture around cash flow, profit/loss, etc

 Identify cost cutting measures

 Determine worst case scenario for supply chain, project schedules, and other operational critical areas

Key Question to Answer:

How deep can your cuts go without inhibiting your ability to recover once stable?  Read more

What Advice Would You Give to BAMers Going Through Covid-19?

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by Sam Cho

What advice would you give to BAM entrepreneurs going through the Covid-19 crisis?

I asked this question to various experts in business and mission in my network (mainly in the Korean BAM network). Twenty people responded with advice, including several BAM practitioners, several entrepreneurs, four business professors, a missiology professor, and two top-level executives at global companies. 

What follows is a summary of their opinions and advice. We hope it is helpful for BAM practitioners in the current situation.

Survive and Learn

  • Increasing liquidity is critical. Survival can rightfully be the main theme during this period. Discounting the price of services and products only to cover overhead cost is just fine. You do not have to make profit during this period but just to make money enough to float. Discount accounts receivable is an option too in order to attain cash. Negotiate your accounts payable with your suppliers to cut down the amount owed for better liquidity.   
  • It may pay off to make an extra effort to search for government support packages like long-term loans, subsidies for foreign ventures or extensions of payback periods. Don’t overlook this possible opportunity. If your loan is on a variable-interest rate, try to renew the loan on better terms. 
  • If you survive this time, you need to earn a lesson about risk management. Many companies usually have a one-month cash reserve in the case of no sales coming in. Running a BAM business abroad means relative lack of available financial resources in difficult times. Remember that often when it rains, it pours – and not just during crisis like Covid-19. Building up a three-month cash reserve is a must; you may need more depending on the volatility in the area and industry you are in. 
  • Many BAM missionaries and tentmakers working under a mission agency often do not have (enough) donation-based support and rely on their living from business or job income, which is positive. However, for times when business is difficult, it might be advisable for Mission Agencies to build a common contingency fund or encourage more fundraising for these workers.

Renew Intimacy with God and Family

  • We could lose our daily devotional routines and sense of intimacy with the Lord from the daily busy-ness of business life. Crises such as this can lead us to return our heart back to the Lord and open a door to be near to our Lord again. The Lord always responds to our prayer in trouble, even when that does not mean the survival or prosperity of our business. 
  • You can ask your friends to pray together. If you do not have a prayer group, you may start one so that you can have a group of people you can talk to and pray with. Times of trouble are really a good chance to ignite passion in the group. Like-minded businessmen or women or financial supporters from your mission or sending church members could be good candidates for the prayer group. 
  • If your business is slow or has a temporary shutdown, you can spend that time with your family. Many BAMers often lose rest and time with close ones like the spouse or children. God may want you to slow down and to come back to your loved ones. True rest can give you energy and creativity, and true rest comes from intimate relationships with the Lord and family.  

Read more

Practicing Jubilee Through Entrepreneurship

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by Stu Minshew

Last week, I shared how Michael Rhodes and Robby Holt’s new book, Practicing the King’s Economy: Honoring Jesus in How We Work, Earn, Spend, Save, and Give, challenges readers to consider ways to provide employment opportunities for those on the margins of society. Throughout the world, we are surrounded by those in need. Many individuals, and even entire groups of people, live on the margins of our society, including racial or ethnic minorities, low-income communities, single moms, the elderly, and those who have served time in jail.

As Christians in business, we are called to provide opportunities for those on the margins to build equity and take part in Christ’s abundant provision for His people.

My last post discussed shifting from a soup kitchen mentality to a potluck mentality, equipping us to more effectively walk alongside those on the margins.

Today, I want to explore another concept from Practicing the King’s Economy, unpacking what the Bible says about equity and the concept of Jubilee. As Christians in business, we are called to provide opportunities for those on the margins to build equity and take part in Christ’s abundant provision for His people. I’ll also discuss specific ways that entrepreneurship can create pathways to equity for those on the margins.

Jubilee and Restoration

To show God’s plan for everyone to have an equity stake in His economy, Rhodes and Holt go to the Book of Exodus. When the Israelites disobey and are sent to wander the desert for forty years, God uses this time, not only to discipline them, but also to show them what His economy should look like. As He provides manna, God shows them that He is a God of abundance and provides enough for everyone. At the same time, those who try to store up more than they need find it rotten and full of maggots the following day.  Read more

7 Prayer Habits of Highly Effective People

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We asked 15 business people leading Kingdom-building companies around the world what prayer habits, practices or experiences they have found helpful in their business life. We identified 7 reoccurring themes: Prayer habits for effective business people!

1. Weave prayer throughout company life

Prayer is something to be ‘threaded’ through the fabric of the business, not compartmentalised or sidelined.

We try and avoid only “book end prayer” – at the beginning and end of an activity – or “pear shape prayers” – praying only when things have gone wrong or “pear shaped”. We seek to integrate prayer as a natural part of our activity, whenever we are interacting with staff, clients, stockholders, supporters etc. – Liam, Australia

2. Commit to pray regularly with others

Having a regular time for prayer with a particular group of people has been helpful for many, keeping them on track with prayer over long seasons of business life.

Every week for the past 11 years, an employee and I have prayed together for our company, our leadership and our individual needs. We have seen conversions, kingdom outcomes. healings, etc. and a very large company ($3.2 billion turnover) moving into alignment with God’s purposes. – Mike, USA Read more

The Marketing Value Proposition: The ‘Golden Rule’ in Action

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by Bill Westwood

Ever since I left school in 1974 and joined the marketing department of a major (unfortunately now defunct) motor manufacturer, I have loved marketing. It was the genesis of a lifelong passion for the business world and happened to broadly coincide with the start of my faith journey too. Not that faith and business are separate journeys; it’s a partnership made in heaven. Unfortunately the business and ecclesiastical worlds that we inhabit today all too often collide in conflict and misunderstanding. For that, they are both the poorer.

I will never know whether or not I would have been a force to be reckoned with in marketing (although I suspect not) because somewhere along the way I got lost and became an accountant instead! But finance did teach me how companies worked, and when I finally got to manage a business, it was a big help having a ‘numbers’ background because it’s the numbers that tell the story of the value that a business delivers to its clients. Value fascinates me, and if you are in a frontline commercial function one of the things you learn pretty quickly is that ‘everyone understands cost, but not many understand value’. I believe that value is not only at the heart of business; I shall show how it’s also at the heart of the fundamental biblical narratives of creation and redemption too. In fact it’s at the heart of life itself. Read more

Why BAM Training is Important: Adding Value to the Entrepreneur

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by Mark Plummer

Making a business work is incredibly satisfying and exciting. Even when a business fails, a resilient entrepreneur gets up and goes at it again having learned from their first experience. Business is an incredible process where creativity, tenacity, risk and hard work can bring financial fruit and a broad impact.

God instructs man in Genesis 1 and 2 to be fruitful and multiply, to work the land, to create and essentially to ‘add value’. I believe business falls under this ‘creation mandate’ – and what an amazing process to be involved in!

I am also quite passionate about training. I believe that preparation and training can be the difference between failure and success, and I am all about hedging towards success. This is particularly true for the entrepreneur starting a business in an emerging economy of the world where there is so much to learn and so much to consider. Read more

Starting Lean: Soft Launches Help Avoid Hard Landings

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by Mike Baer

Adapted from material developed for a Third Path Initiative training module.

A very common story among highly excited entrepreneurs goes something like this: get a great idea, build the product, go whole hog to market, wait and lose a lot of money. It’s equivalent to the leadership anti-mantra “ready, fire, aim.” I call this the “emotional/entrepreneur syndrome” where any action is preferred to analysis and patience.

Contrast that with a less common but much wiser approach. Get an idea, test the idea, check out the landscape, build a sufficient product to try out, go lightly to market, listen, and adjust. Boring? Not at all…unless you just get off on failure.

This approach has been called many things over the years. It’s not new. Soft opening. Soft launch. Lean startup. Trial and error. Jesus put it this way:

For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him… – Luke 14:28-29, ESV

Out of context, I admit but true nonetheless. Take your time and do it right.

Here are the steps I’d use if I was doing another startup. After my initial ideation, testing the market, and market research, I’d: Read more

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