Tag Archive for: global

The Business as Mission Ecosystem Map: A New Interactive Tool

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by Jon B, with Jo Plummer

 

Business as mission is a growing movement around the world. It is not our movement but the move of God through His people.

In 2004, the first global consultation on business as mission took place under the auspices of the Lausanne Forum. Around ninety people took part altogether and we estimate that at the time there were around 10 BAM-related books and approximately 20 articles, plus a couple dozen entities in early stages of developing BAM networking or resourcing. Twenty years later, there are almost 1000 resources and blogs here in the latest version of the BAM Resource Centre website. In September 2024, at the fourth Lausanne Congress, 2,400 people (nearly half of the total attendees) reported that they were interested in a workplace track.

Today our opportunities in business as mission include: a growing awareness and acceptance of BAM as a strategy in the global Church, a greater breadth and depth of expertise in the business as mission ecosystem with more specialisation and functionality, and growing communication and collaboration between respective parts.

Yet, there is still a dissonance between the God-given potential of business for His kingdom purposes and the way that many Christians perceive business as inherently evil or corrupt. Businesses and business people remain a relatively untapped resource for intentional mission impact.

Our barriers remain: ongoing scepticism, outstanding resource siloes, lack of resources in critical regions and languages, and lack of easy access to existing resources.

If we are going to leverage the opportunities before us and overcome these barriers to BAM growth, we cannot waste an ounce of energy in pride or division. Christ has called us all as a global body, and He has commissioned us to redeem culture, to free the captives, to bless the nations, and to see the good news of the gospel proclaimed to the ends of the earth (see for example, Colossians 1:19-20, Luke 4:18-19, Genesis 12:2-3, Matthew 28:19-20).

Howard Hendricks once described church ministry as a football game with, “Twenty-two men in need of rest and forty thousand people in the stands in need of exercise.”

We need everyone in the game. We need a diverse range of expertise and experience in the BAM ecosystem and better ways for people to collaborate with one another. There is work to be done to mobilise new people, companies and entities—and to enable them to make their vital contribution and connections. That’s the “why” at the heart of the new BAM Ecosystem Map.

Introducing the BAM Ecosystem Map

We are delighted to announce the launch of a new interactive tool for the business as mission community, the BAM Ecosystem Map. Click the image to explore: Read more

A Decade of Nurturing the BAM Community & A Year in Review

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BAM Global has been celebrating its ten year anniversary in 2024, having been formally founded in 2014 on the foundation of earlier network-building efforts. We look back on this year, within a decade of BAM Global.

by Jo Plummer & João Mordomo

 

As we conclude 2024, we reflect on a decade of God’s faithfulness and the transformative work accomplished through the Business as Mission (BAM) movement. This year has marked BAM Global’s 10th Anniversary, a milestone that has allowed us to evaluate our journey and set our sights on the future. Although the roots of our work resourcing the business as mission movement stretch right back to the late 1990s, we had our formal inception in 2014, after the BAM Think Tank project and the Global Congress of 2013. Read more about our history here.

Our Highlights in 2024

Throughout our history, our intention has remained constant: To build a vibrant community of practitioners dedicated to integrating business with mission, to live out the Great Commandment and fulfil the Great Commission. Our efforts in network building, resource provision, research, and thought-leadership have significantly contributed to the growth and impact of BAM worldwide.



Our vision is for a movement of businesses transforming people and nations for God’s glory!

And we fulfil our mission to accelerate the global business as mission movement through six key initiatives:

Partner Network Initiative

In 2024 we relaunched the initiative that works to nurture and establish BAM networks around the world, renaming it the Partner Network Initiative. Partner Networks focus on regions, issues or industries for business as mission connection and collaboration. In 2024 we launched a new Community of Practice for Partner Network Leaders to support one another and this year, 28 leaders from 24 global networks went through the introduction process. Regular Zoom calls and online forums have been established to help leaders learn from each other and plug into the global BAM community on an ongoing basis. The Partner Network Initiative will serve as an incubator to see the growth of robust, flourishing regional, issue-focused and industry-based networks in the coming decade and beyond.

Events

We continue to support regional and network-based events around the world, promoting them in the wider BAM ecosystem and providing content and speakers. If you have an in-person BAM event in your region, we want to encourage you to get to it! However, one of our unique functions is convening online BAM Events that enable the global business as mission community to come together. In 2024 we hosted two main virtual events, attracting around 550 attendees: the BAM Global Summit and the BAM Global Connect. The Summit in May 2024 was a full day program billed as the annual global connecting point for business as mission. With the theme of ‘Accelerate’ we offered 12 hours of BAM content, including main stage keynotes, case studies, panels, workshops and roundtables. In November, we hosted our annual free networking event, which is always a great opportunity for new people to find out more about BAM and veterans to come and connect on the topics that interest them.

BGlobal Community

We now have over 800 members through organic growth in the BGlobal Community, a secure online platform for the international BAM community to connect and collaborate. The platform already has an active Members Directory, Live Feed, Jobs Board and direct messaging. We are planning a rebrand for BGlobal early in 2025, with new features and communities of practice coming soon.

Think Tank

BAM Global initiates working consultations under its BAM Global Think Tank initiative where there are identified gaps in the BAM ecosystem. BAM Global Consultations open up an unprecedented opportunity for discussion, collaboration and networking with the results captured in a published BAM Global Report and outworked in new projects and communities of practice. In 2024, a major new report in BAM and Mission Agencies was published after a multi-year consultation process, and a new BAM Global Consultation on BAM Practitioner Care and Well-being was launched. This new Consultation group will collaborate throughout 2025 and is currently seeking input from the preliminary survey that will help shape its agenda and direction.

Media & Communications

Our long-established social media accounts, websites and mailing lists have been serving the BAM community for over a decade, both aggregating and creating new business as mission resources. In 2024 we refreshed our logo and branding for BAM Global and and relaunched our two main websites. Our BAM Global organisation website at bamglobal.org hosts over 30 published BAM Global Reports and the landing pages for our events and other initiatives. This BAM Resource Center website hosted at businessasmission.com is one of our communications initiatives and is home to the online BAM Resource Library and The BAM Review Blog, with over 650 short articles on business as mission related topics.

Prayer

In 2024, we celebrated 5 years of monthly prayer for the business as mission movement. Since May 2019, BAM Global has hosted a monthly Zoom prayer call, sent a monthly Prayer Update email (now to around 150 subscribers) and shared prayer concerns in a BAM-focused WhatsApp Prayer Group. We have a mechanism for subscribers to our BAM Review email news to submit BAM-related prayer requests and have intercessors engaged with praying for concerns in our community.

Help us Continue to Accelerate in 2025

Since our formal inception in 2014, BAM Global has been instrumental in building a vibrant community of practitioners dedicated to integrating business with mission in order to live out the Great Commandment and fulfill the Great Commission. Our efforts in network building, resource provision, research, and thought-leadership have significantly contributed to the growth and impact of BAM worldwide. As the movement continues to evolve, we remain committed to catalysing new initiatives, addressing global challenges, and envisioning the next generation of BAM leaders.

As we prepare for 2025, we invite you to partner with us in accelerating the global BAM movement. We are grateful that generous donors have offered $15,000 in matching funds for our year-end giving campaign. This means your contribution will be doubled, amplifying and accelerating our efforts globally.

Give Now

U.S. Donors: We encourage you to make your donation by December 31st! International Donors: Donations will be matched through January 31st 2025

Thank you!

 

 Jo Plummer is the Creative Director & Co-Founder of BAM Global and the co-editor of the Lausanne Occasional Paper on Business as Mission. She has been developing resources for BAM since 2001 and currently serves as Editor of the Business as Mission website and The BAM Review Blog. 


Dr. João Mordomo loves to help start and lead anything — mission agencies, churches, businesses, networks — that helps fulfill the Great Commission. He is a founding board member and Executive Director of BAM Global, and Catalyst for Business as Mission at the Lausanne Movement. João serves variously as owner, managing director and board member of several BAM companies, and designs and teaches BAM and other courses at several universities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is Business as Mission? A Short Introduction

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by Jo Plummer

Business as mission, simply put, is the seamless integration of excellent business with intentional mission. It is doing business for God’s glory, the gospel, and the common good.

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 strategic today because it is often best placed to meet a wide range of needs in communities around the world.

Let’s start with business

Dallas Willard once said, “Business is a primary moving force of the love of God in human history.” Business, done well, is glorifying to God. Period. We see in the Bible and throughout history that business is able to create dignified jobs,  multiply resources, provide for families and communities, push forward innovation, and, in short, do good in society. A company does not need a business as mission strategy to justify its purpose or to somehow make it more ‘holy’. Business professionals following Jesus in the marketplace already have a sacred vocation. Business is a good idea that comes from God.

Yet, God has called us, His Church, to partner with him in the work of mission. To love our neighbour as ourselves, to care for the poor and vulnerable, and to share the gospel and make disciples in every part of the world. And business people, along with their skills and experiences, are some of the most needed in the work of global mission today. Alongside more traditional forms of mission, the world is crying out for for-profit, business solutions to some of its most pressing issues. These issues include job scarcity, human trafficking, economic exploitation, corruption, environmental degradation, dire poverty, and the challenge of sharing the love of God and His good news with those who haven’t yet heard it.

Business as Mission

In the global marketplace today, we have an opportunity to harness the God-given power of business to address these pressing spiritual, social, environmental, and economic issues. Business as mission is a movement of business professionals, mission leaders, church leaders and academics who are doing just that. They are taking the instrument of business, with its innate, God-given ability and power, and intentionally using that power in the work of mission. They are using their professional know-how and the gifts of entrepreneurship and good management to bring creative and long-term, sustainable solutions to local and global challenges. They are making a positive impact through for-profit business, along the ‘four bottom lines’: social, environmental, financial and spiritual. We sometimes refer to these as the 4Ps: people, planet, profit, and eternal purpose.

Defining BAM

There is no one universally agreed definition of business as mission, but there are some key common denominators in the global BAM movement. And while there is growing consensus around the concept, many other terms are also used for the same, or similar, idea. Many prefer terms such as: 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.

This is the working definition of business as mission used by BAM Global:

Business as Mission is:

  • Profitable and sustainable businesses;
  • Intentional about Kingdom of God purpose and impact on people and nations;
  • Focused on holistic transformation and the multiple bottom lines of economic, social, environmental and spiritual outcomes;
  • Concerned about the world’s poorest and least evangelized peoples.

Intentional and Integrated

Business as mission is not a new idea! Business and mission have been combined in different ways, at different times throughout Church history. However, the contemporary business as mission movement represents a growing intentionality in the global Church to fully integrate business goals with the call to the whole church to take the whole gospel to the whole world. It is an answer to the prayer, ‘May Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven’, as people and communities are positively transformed through for-profit business activities. BAM is the intentional integration of business and mission.

The idea of integration is important. This is not ‘ministry’ tacked onto business for convenience or business tacked onto ministry. Instead the mission is worked out in and through the business, through its activities, through the products and services and through relationships built in daily business life—with employees, customers, suppliers, officials, business networks, and the wider community.

As already stated, business is designed by God to provide livelihoods, multiply resources, and enable communities to flourish through a combination of creativity, hard work and risk. A profitable and sustainable business is able to create new jobs, drive innovation, provide needed goods and services, and help societies develop. Through business as mission we can intentionally tackle poverty, bring positive social and environmental change, and carry with us the message of eternal life.

Business as mission is a concept that can and should be applied everywhere, but the business as mission movement has a special concern for people and places where there are dire economic, social, environmental and spiritual needs – Mats Tunehag

We invite you to be inspired and equipped by the stories and resources that we’ve created and curated on this Business as Mission Resource website.

Download this article as a PDF.

Watch the 3 Minute What is BAM? Explainer Video

The first version of What is BAM? was published on The BAM Review in 2015, this version was updated in 2024.

Want to find out more about BAM?

Join us at the BAM Global Connect on the 13th November

 

 

More About Event

 

 Jo Plummer is the Creative Director & Co-Founder of BAM Global and the co-editor of the Lausanne Occasional Paper on Business as Mission. She has been developing resources for BAM since 2001 and currently serves as Editor of the Business as Mission website and The BAM Review Blog. 

 

 

 

 

Photo by M. Cooper on Unsplash

 

 

 

BAM Community: How We Stay Mission True and Continue to Bear Fruit in the Next 10 Years

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BAM Global is celebrating its ten year anniversary in 2024, having been formally founded in 2014 on the foundation of earlier network-building efforts. This month BAM Global leaders are looking back, taking stock, and then looking forward – exploring how the worldwide business as mission community has been flourishing and continues to grow. Read Part 1 and Part 2.

by Jo Plummer

 

BAM Community,

Look what God has done! Look what He is doing!

About 25 years ago the term business as mission was coined to try and capture something that God had already been stirring among His people – business people, mission agency people, church people, educators and others. Small clusters of those people began talking to each other about what they were seeing: the potential of business to help solve the pressing mission issues they were working on. The intention to leverage the intrinsic God-designed power of business to do good in the world and bring glory to Him has only increased from there. Those clusters have become a global movement.

My friends and co-leaders, João and Mats, started this series of posts by looking back (part 1) and looking at what we are doing now, and why (part 2). My message to you in part 3 is forward-looking. How can we continue to grow and bear fruit as a movement? How do we avoid mission drift and stay mission-true?

Staying Mission True

In my view, one of the most important things we can do to stay mission true is to intentionally and vocally keep the Great Commission central to our messaging and engagement in business as mission.

Let me unpack what I mean by that.

Mission is central to God’s identity. As God’s image-bearers and co-creators, it is also central to the identity of His Church and every Christ-follower in it. Whatever our vocation, we are all participants (ministers) in God’s missio Dei (the mission of God). [1]

The implication is that we who follow Jesus are all ‘on mission’ every day in all our vocations – family, work, and stewarding creation. In an article for Missio Nexus, Greg Wilton calls this ‘missionhood’ which describes the centrality of mission in Christian identity:

Missionhood – all Christians must know and be convinced of their identity in God’s universal call to his missio Dei.

Within that, business people should know God’s design for business, and therefore be convinced of their unique identity and role as business people in the mission of God.

Commissionaries

When Jesus said, ‘Go and make disciples…’, many scholars agree that he did not mean primarily ‘go elsewhere and make disciples’, but instead ‘as you are going, make disciples’.

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” – Matthew 28: 18-20

‘Go’ is not the operative word in the Great Commission, ‘making disciples’ is. We are all disciples of Jesus and we make disciples in all our daily contexts. Or, as Greg Wilton goes on to say, we are all ‘commissionaries’.

Commissionary – all Christians must know, understand, and practice the Great Commission in their daily life.

The first reason we need to keep the Great Commission central is because it reminds entrepreneurs and business professionals who follow Jesus that they too are ‘commissionaries’.

Read more

How to Catalyze and Accelerate a Global BAM Movement

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BAM Global is celebrating its ten year anniversary in 2024, having been formally founded in 2014 on the foundation of earlier network-building efforts. This month BAM Global leaders are looking back, taking stock, and then looking forward – exploring how the worldwide business as mission community has been flourishing and continues to grow. Read Part 1.

by Mats Tunehag

A movement is different from an organization. The latter is registered, has a board, a budget and they hire (and fire) staff. It is defined and operates under some kind of legal and management control. A movement, on the other hand, consists of many independent initiatives and organizations. The movement flourishes as these independent entities choose to be interdependent; they share a common vision and are aligned in mission and values. Examples are the abolitionist movement, the civil rights movement, and the BAM movement.

Hallmarks of a Movement

Historically movements start small, are in a minority and face big challenges. As groups connect and work together, they gradually gain critical mass towards a tipping point, and transformation can take place.

Nobody has an executive control or power over a movement, but it is held together by a common cause. Movements grow through collaboration built on trusted relationships.

Today BAM is a global movement, with numerous initiatives on all continents; in business, missions, church and academia. The glue is our common vision, our aligned mission and values, as briefly expressed in the two manifestos: the BAM Manifesto and the Wealth Creation Manifesto.

These manifestos help form a common conceptual language, which enables meaningful communication and impactful collaboration.

Social Movement Organizations

A movement can be served by an ‘SMO’, a social movement organization. BAM Global is such an entity. An SMO facilitates communication and collaborations within and outside a movement, and it catalyzes new initiatives.

BAM Global exists to accelerate, serve, and equip the global BAM movement. We do that by creating and sharing intellectual and social capital in the global business as mission community through our three core activities:

  • Nurturing Partner Networks
  • Creating Global Forums
  • Delivering Essential Resources

In other words, we develop BAM concepts and create resources, sharing them broadly, and we connect people and initiatives with each other.

Our manifestos form a common conceptual language, which enables meaningful communication and impactful collaboration.

Nurturing Partner Networks

BAM Global catalyzes and helps grow BAM related networks around the globe, today about 40 of them. Most are geographical, and others are related to a particular group like church leaders or academics. There are also groups working on particular issues, like business solutions to human trafficking, and creation care. Others are related to industries. We have regular meetings with leaders of existing and emerging networks, to learn, support, strategize and create a community of practice – all to grow the movement. We are currently piloting a new initiative, the BAM Global Partner Networks Initiative that will acceleration the growth of business as mission networks globally. Read more

How BAM Global is Nurturing the BAM Community: A 10-Year Retrospective

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BAM Global is celebrating its ten year anniversary in 2024, having been formally founded in 2014 on the foundation of earlier network-building efforts. This month BAM Global leaders are looking back, taking stock, and then looking forward – exploring how the worldwide business as mission community has been flourishing and continues to grow.

by João Mordomo

Over the past decade, Business as Mission (BAM) has evolved into a vibrant global movement, playing a pivotal role in the integration of business with mission to address spiritual, economic, social, and environmental challenges. BAM Global, at the heart of this movement, has been instrumental in fostering a community that is not only committed to business excellence but also deeply rooted in Christian missions. Let’s explore how BAM Global has built and strengthened the BAM community over the last ten years, reflecting on key milestones, challenges, and future directions.

The Foundations of BAM Global

BAM Global’s origins are closely tied to the Lausanne Movement, which has significantly influenced modern Christian mission strategies for 50 years. Since its inception, BAM Global has focused on leveraging business as a powerful tool for holistic transformation, guided by the belief that business activities, when conducted ethically and missionally, can serve as a conduit for the Gospel. This approach, which integrates faithful ministry with good business, seeks to fulfill the Great Commission through sustainable and scalable models.

One of the foundational moments for BAM Global was the 2004 Lausanne Forum in Pattaya, Thailand, where the concept of BAM was formally recognized and endorsed. This event produced the Lausanne Occasional Paper on Business as Mission (LOP 5) and the BAM Manifesto, both of which have become cornerstone texts for BAM practitioners. These documents have articulated the theological and missiological foundations of BAM, providing a framework for how business can be used to advance the Kingdom of God.

The Lausanne Forum in 2004 brought together over 70 people from all continents at the conclusion of a year-long virtual consultation process. This first truly international, collaborative effort also marked the beginning of BAM’s journey as a global movement and set the stage for the later creation of BAM Global as an organization dedicated to advancing this mission-focused approach to business.

Building a Global BAM Ecosystem

Over the past decade, BAM Global has played a crucial role in building a global ecosystem that supports and nurtures BAM initiatives, mobilizes involvement, and deepens understanding in business as mission. This ecosystem includes a diverse network of businesses, churches, mission agencies, educational institutions, BAM networks, and other organizations that share a commitment to integrating business with mission. BAM Global has facilitated this through many key activities, including creating and connecting networks, hosting global forums and events, and creating and curating BAM resources.  Read more

The Global Impact of the Wealth Creation Manifesto

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It is now three years since the Global Consultation on The Role of Wealth Creation for Holistic Transformation and subsequent publications. During August and September 2020, we’ve published a series of articles on wealth creation, reflecting on the eleven affirmations in the Wealth Creation Manifesto, which now exists in 17 languages.

One shouldn’t underestimate the importance of wealth creation. It is both a command and a gift from God. Moreover, it is a historically proven path to lift people and nations out of poverty. Different kinds of wealth can and should be created in and through business, to contribute to human flourishing.

The global consultation on this issue produced seven papers on various aspects of wealth creation. Our deliberations and these papers were summarized in the Wealth Creation Manifesto. We produced an educational video series with 13 short episodes, following the format and content of the Manifesto.

Today the Manifesto exists in 17 different languages. It shows that there is a need to clarify and convey the role of wealth creation for holistic transformation, of people and societies around the world. Furthermore, the message of the Manifesto resonates with people in many countries and cultures, and it is being read and applied.

So, it is a joy to present these encouraging and helpful endorsements from significant leaders around the world.  Read more