Tag Archive for: integration

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

Greed Isn’t a Business Problem (Here’s What Is)

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by Erik Cooper

 

I heard (another) infuriating story about a corrupt businessman this morning. A friend shared how his brother might lose a ton of money because someone completely misrepresented himself in a massive business deal.

“It’s the dark side of business for sure,” my friend said over coffee.

That made my blood boil—not just for my friend’s brother, but because these kinds of stories are what so many people associate with business: greed, corruption, deception, selfishness, taking from others, and hoarding for yourself.

These broken counterfeits have become synonymous with business in the minds of many. So when we start talking about business as mission (BAM), business as a sacred calling, or leveraging the marketplace for God-honoring Kingdom purposes, it’s no wonder some people can’t break through the dissonance.

But it’s worth wrestling with…

Is business inherently selfish? Is it just some sinful, cutthroat institution man invented to survive in a fallen world? Is business synonymous with greed? Or worse—does business make people greedy?

I’d like to pose a different take. Check this out:

“So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world.” – Colossians 3:5

Greed isn’t a business problem. Greed is a worship problem.

At its core, good business is about adding value to others and the world around us. It’s about seeing a need and meeting it, recognizing a problem and solving it, or creating something the world is missing.

When business is redeemed by the gospel, it actually becomes the antidote to greed—not the cause of it. This paints a beautiful, redemptive picture of what business and the marketplace can be.

Don’t buy into the sin-broken caricature. Business isn’t synonymous with greed; it’s an opportunity to create, serve, and bless. This makes it a perfect tool to make Jesus known to the world.

The real question is, what are you worshipping?

 

First published in The Stone Table weekly newsletter and published on The BAM Review with kind permission from the author.

 

Erik Cooper is the President of The Stone Table. After starting his career in the business world, Erik spent 12 years in full-time ministry, both on staff at a large suburban church and as a church planter in a downtown urban context. In addition to his role at The Stone Table, he also serves in executive leadership of Community Reinvestment Foundation, a nonprofit real estate company that provides high-quality affordable housing all over Indiana while investing its profits into missions through The Stone Table.

 

 

Challenge and Hope: How Business Can Help the Planet and Its People Flourish [Video]

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To celebrate Earth Day 2024, we’re reposting this classic presentation by Mark Polet from a past BAM Global event on how environmental impact intersects with spiritual, economic, and social impacts.

The people we want to reach are facing the greatest environmental, even existential challenges. BAMers are on the ground already in the areas of greatest need. This presentation explores how to meet these challenges with the Hope we share and the technical capabilities we can access.

Respond to the challenge… Join us at the BAM Global Summit on Thursday 9th May!

 

>> Download a free report series on BAM and Creation Care here

 

>>More on Creation Care on The BAM Review blog here

Read more

Why We’re Passionate about Caring for God’s Creation: Photo Journal

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Every BAM company is an environmental company. They are having an impact on the environment and the environment is having an impact on them. – Mark Polet

In December we ran a series on BAM and Creation Care on The BAM Review and on social media we asked readers to share their favourite photos of the environment to show us why creation care is at the heart of BAM!

This is why creation is worth caring for through our business as mission initiatives:

“The Tea garden I photographed means everything to me. It is where I started life as a school-going child, and my salvation experience came through in one such Tea garden. Moreover, I love mountains. I really love nature! I firmly believe they’re the best gift of God’s love and communication to us and to me in particular!! If we as humanity miss out on noticing and especially taking care of the good nature by protecting its habitat, we lose everything. I have done my best to engage in practices that encourage wildlife, for example a peacock, which is our national bird and of great importance roams around our house and we as a family notice them and even allow them the space they need in our premises too!!” – Callistus Read more

Restoring Barren Soils and Barren Hearts: Announcing [Re]Generation

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Every BAM company is an environmental company. They are having an impact on the environment and the environment is having an impact on them. – Mark Polet

This month we are delighted to share a series on BAM and Creation Care on The BAM Review. While COP28 is focused on the crucial issue of climate in UAE right now, we know that creation care is much broader and that it’s God’s idea! As Christians in business, with a missional intention, we have a unique opportunity to be leaders creating positive environmental impact through enterprise. In their final post, Mark and Anugraha challenge us towards restoration and [Re]Generation.

By Mark Polet, with Anugraha Gaikwad

In our work, Challenge and Hope, we have made the link between regions with poor air quality and water stress to those who still need to hear the Good News.

Acute environmental damage and degradation is often to be found in places suffering dire poverty and in places relatively unreached with the gospel. This presents BAM practitioners and investors the challenge and opportunity to respond holistically with environmental solutions at the heart of their business model. Business as Mission companies serve people who face great environmental, even existential, challenges. BAM practitioners are on the ground already in many areas of the greatest need and are positioned to respond. [1]

Since then, Mark’s work in Central Asia has also shown that a similar link exists between barren soils and barren hearts, though, at this point the analysis is still qualitative.

Christ brings back flourishing to creation and to our hearts at the same time. All creation is restored through Him (see Colossians 1:15-20). Our passion is to restore barren lands even as we restore barren hearts.

In 2021, at the BAM Global Congress online, we celebrated those who have used their God-given talents to develop environmental technologies in the BAM space from Canada to Australia, and from Indonesia to India (watch Mark’s presentation from the Congress below). We called this the Environmental Technology Initiative.

Now, we are pleased to announce [Re]Generation: “Restoring the biome so generations can flourish.”  The flourishing is both spiritual and ecological. This new initiative will likely extend beyond business as mission in order to fulfill the restoration, but BAM is an important component.

Our goal is to integrate ecological restoration with the restoration of the heart. The exciting thing is that there are BAM companies already involved from micro-irrigation to regenerative agriculture, from soil science and ecological design. As well, interested professionals from related fields such as landscape architects and ecologists are ready to help. It is as if the Lord has already laid out the pieces there for us to assemble — to His Glory. Read more

How are We Doing? Integrating BAM and Creation Care

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Every BAM company is an environmental company. They are having an impact on the environment and the environment is having an impact on them. – Mark Polet

This month we are delighted to share a series on BAM and Creation Care on The BAM Review. While COP28 is focused on the crucial issue of climate in UAE right now, we know that creation care is much broader and that it’s God’s idea! As Christians in business, with a missional intention, we have a unique opportunity to be leaders creating positive environmental impact through enterprise. In this second post, Mark and Anugraha explore how we are doing. 

By Anugraha Gaikwad with Mark Polet

It takes courage to start a business, especially in a new land among new people and culture. It takes even more courage to keep going and not pull down the shutter amidst the adversities and challenges. One does not necessarily have to hold a degree in business management or international relationships to start a business when the Lord asks you to. One must simply have a heart of compassion and humility and take the first steps. [1]

How are you doing?

Many of you are already doing that all over God’s good earth. Some of you are in areas prone to flash floods and landslides, while others are in areas stressed with depleting water levels, heavy smog, or poor soils. Some of you may lack the resources, institutions, or facilities to completely process your waste, while some may find it too expensive to change to more environmentally sustainable ways. So, how are you doing? In this blog, we will talk about the BAM journey to care for God’s creation, people and planet. We hope to provide some inspiration for those who are looking for ways to care for the garden God created, for us to work and tend.

In January 2020, BAM practitioners were polled about their environmental practices and the challenges therein. In the poll, 72% BAMers state that environmental stewardship is part of their business. However, a considerable 73% of the respondents have been unable to develop an Environmental Management System (EMS) in their organisation [2]. Where are you in your journey of environmental stewardship and what support do you need? Reach out to us in the comments via email to let us know.

Loving others and caring for creation

The most successful businesses are those that fail a lot, as they keep trying something new that hasn’t been done before. Be the kind of business that does what others won’t and can’t do.  If your neighbours face food and nutritional insecurity or lack clean drinking water, you could be the company to step into the gap. That is exactly what will make your organisation distinguished and sought after in the marketplace! It will not only create opportunities to care for the resources the Lord has blessed you with around your company, but will also make an impact on the people you work with by giving them dignity in the work they do and will be an opportunity to act out the love of our Father for your neighbours. Read more

Flourishing Creation: Our Why for Environmental Impact through BAM

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Every BAM company is an environmental company. They are having an impact on the environment and the environment is having an impact on them. – Mark Polet

This month we are delighted to share a series on BAM and Creation Care on The BAM Review. While COP28 is focused on the crucial issue of climate in UAE right now, we know that creation care is much broader and that it’s God’s idea! As Christians in business, with a missional intention, we have a unique opportunity to be leaders creating positive environmental impact through enterprise. In this first post, Mark and Anugraha share the WHY.

By Mark Polet, with Anugraha Gaikwad

 

He said to them, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. – Mark 16:15

In the busyness of business it is often easy to lose sight of how our salvation is intimately tied with the flourishing of creation. The integration of good environmental discipline into a thriving business is an act of worship.

 

“The heavens proclaim the glory of God.

    The skies display his craftsmanship.

Day after day they continue to speak;

    night after night they make him known.

They speak without a sound or word;

    their voice is never heard.

Yet their message has gone throughout the earth,

    and their words to all the world.” Psalm 19:1-4

 

Praise the Lord from the earth,

You sea monsters and all deeps;

Fire and hail, snow and clouds,

Stormy wind, fulfilling God’s word;

Mountains and all hills,

Fruit trees and all cedars;

Beasts and all cattle;

Creeping things and winged fowl…

Let them praise the name of the Lord,

For God’s name alone is exalted;

God’s glory is above earth and heaven.” Psalm 148: 7–10, 13

 

We worship. Creation worships. We are singing in the same choir!

Every raw material you use in your business comes from that creation. You share that fact with every living being. Read more

The Power of Business to Take Good Care of our Planet

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This month we are exploring different motives a missional entrepreneur may have for pursuing business as mission as their strategy of choice. In this fourth post, we are exploring the power of business to have a positive environmental impact and care for creation.

ALL businesses are environmental businesses and we need the BAM community to be leading the way in recognising this! That was the conclusion of the first published report from the BAM and Creation Care report series and the first major theme of the recent BAM and Creation Care Consultation:

That every BAM entity has the opportunity to grow in their care of creation.

While all BAM companies can become better environmental stewards, there has been a second major theme to the BAM and Creation Care Consultation:

The opportunity for some Christian entrepreneurs and investors to create new BAM companies that address critical environmental problems with innovative business solutions and new technologies.

Acute environmental damage and degradation is often to be found in places suffering dire poverty and in places relatively unreached with the gospel. This presents BAM practitioners and investors with the challenge and opportunity to respond holistically with environmental solutions at the heart of their business model.

This second theme will be the focus of the soon to be published third paper in the BAM and Creation Care series, ‘Challenge and Hope‘. This blog is an advance excerpt from this new paper, but if you can’t wait to read it, you can watch a video presentation of this content right now – see video below!

A New Perspective on God’s Good Earth

We want to take you on a journey of challenge and hope on God’s good Earth. And to do that we are going to start at the moon…

It has been 52 years since the crew of Apollo 8 circled the moon and took the now famous picture of the Earth rising over the desolate lunar surface. It is estimated a quarter of the earth’s population saw the Apollo 8 broadcasts, and the photo itself was an inspiration for the first Earth Day in 1970.

The Earth from Apollo 8 (Anders & Weigang)

The photo still evokes a sense of wonder. This little blue jewel framed by the lifeless moon and the vastness of space. Our precious, fragile, home.

On Christmas Eve, 1968, as the Apollo 8 astronauts rounded the moon for the ninth time, they read the first ten verses from the Book of Genesis back to Earth. They ended their reading with, “God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”  Read more

The Power of Business to Lift Communities Out of Poverty

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This month we are exploring different motives a missional entrepreneur may have for pursuing business as mission as their strategy of choice. In this fourth post, we are exploring the power of business in lifting individuals and communities out of poverty.

Business is uniquely positioned as an essential and sustainable solution to ending poverty. Current global economic shifts and technological advances are creating a unique opportunity at this point to bring this goal in reach. Business by its nature is a relational activity, and a potentially transformational activity. Business not only creates jobs, it is where networks and relationships are the norm, creating networks and relationships that are essential for community restoration and transformation.

I believe the only long-term solution to world poverty is business.  That is because business produces goods, and businesses produce jobs.  And businesses continue producing goods year after year, and continue providing jobs and paying wages year after year.  Therefore if we are ever going to see long-term solutions to world poverty, I believe it will come through starting and maintaining productive, profitable business. — Wayne Grudem, Business for the Glory of God

 

The role of businesses and job creation in ending poverty

Thriving businesses and job creation are vital for ending poverty. Kaushik Basu, the Chief Economist and Senior Vice President at World Bank states, “Jobs are the best insurance against poverty and vulnerability” (World Bank, 2013). John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, shares from his own business experience, “Business is the greatest creator of value in the world. It’s helped lift humanity out of poverty and into prosperity” (Fox News, 2013).

From the voices of the poor themselves (in a survey of over 60,000), jobs and businesses were cited as major paths out of poverty:

In a large set of qualitative studies in low-income countries, two of the main reasons that people gave for moving out of poverty were finding jobs and starting businesses. (Narayan, Pritchett, and Kapoor, 2009)

The development world has reached a similar conclusion, that aid alone is not the solution to poverty. Renowned books, from Dead Aid, to When Helping Hurts, and Toxic Charity warn us of the destructive tendency of “us to them” aid that wears away at the dignity and productive capacity of people and communities. Read more

7 Creative Ways that Practitioners Integrate Business and Mission

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Read this classic blog from our Archives, first published on The BAM Review blog in June 2015 and republished for the Summer Series 2022.

A defining characteristic of a BAM company is that it intentionally integrates mission with business. But what does that look like in practice? What are some creative ways that practitioners work out their goals for spiritual impact, alongside their commercial, social and environmental goals?

We asked a small group of practitioners to share what they do in the business context that moves them towards their missional goals and spiritual impact. This could be something they did when establishing the company, or practices they do on a regular basis in the day-to-day life of the business. The practitioners shared a diverse range of specific practices, but there were some common themes. These seven ways to integrate business and mission stood out:

Keep Purpose Front and Center

Keeping the purpose, vision and objectives of the company at the forefront emerged as a key principle. This is important all the way through the life of the company, from the planning stages and goal setting, to evaluating those goals and choosing measures, to on-boarding processes for new hires, to daily communication with employees. Read more

How Can We Measure an Organisation’s Kingdom Impact?

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by James Waters

Five years ago, I quit my job to explore whether it was possible to measure the Kingdom of God coming through businesses and non-profits all over the world. My background was researching and helping the largest secular development organisations understand if they were being effective. I had seen how measuring complex aspects of human social and economic well-being, and organisations’ processes could move from seemingly impossible, to practical and standardised. And yet the concept of measuring ‘spiritual impact’ remained elusive.

Five years later, after hundreds of conversations, dozens of metrics reviewed, multiple assessment tools developed and organisations analysed, I am convinced it is not only possible, but critical. 

Several years ago, BAM Global identified three Big Hair Audience Goals (BHAGs) for the BAM movement at large. In order to know if we are making progress according to the first BHAG: ‘Solve global issues with innovative BAM solutions’ — we need to know if BAM organisations within the movement are having an impact! The recent State of the BAM Movement Report we published in partnership with BAM Global indicated that indeed, many companies are tackling social and spiritual issues, but we want to have evidence of that impact.

Likewise, we want to be good stewards of the resources God has entrusted to us. In my opinion, that looks like knowing the impact of our organisations or investments, so that we can a) help address the needs of those we are serving or working alongside more accurately, b) improve the processes of our organisations so we are more effective, and c) celebrate what God is doing with all our stakeholders.

But how can this be done? How can a Kingdom business leader move from anecdote about their spiritual and social impact, to actual evidence? And how can we become leaders who truly understand our Kingdom impact?[1]

The ‘How’ of Kingdom Impact Measurement

There are many ways to measure Kingdom Impact, but there are three key principles that I have learned from approaching this challenge to date:  Read more

Three Things the State of the BAM Movement Report Tells Us About BAM

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by James Waters & Jo Plummer

As part of the lead-in to the BAM Global Congress last year, BAM Global, in partnership with Eido Research, conducted the State of the BAM Movement Survey to get a snapshot of the global business as mission movement. Watch James’ Video Introduction here.

In response to the Survey, Eido Research have produced a State of the BAM Movement Report. Here are three things it tells us:

1. The BAM Movement is Still Young, but Truly Global

Enough people responded to make a representative sample of our global list, and it revealed that it is still quite a young movement. The majority of companies are less than ten years old, and a good additional number (12% of surveyed) looking to start a business soon. However, the BAM Movement is truly global! Although there are a handful of countries where there is a concentration of BAM businesses, there is a diverse global spread.

 

The global map above shows the distribution of active BAM businesses,
according to their turnover. Each dot represents a country, the size of the
dot represents the number of businesses in that country, and the colour represents the average turnover.

 

As João Mordomo writes for the Foreword for Neal Johnson’s new book on BAM, “Business as mission is not a new concept. It has, however, taken on new meaning for the church and her mission in the 21st Century. The modern BAM Movement started about 25 years ago and, like other great movements of God — being God-ordained, God-ignited, God-led, and God-blessed — it began to take shape simultaneously in different places around the global by way of different and diverse groups of people.”

Read more

The State of the BAM Movement Report Overview [Video]

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Video Presentation by James Waters

 

 James Waters of Eido Research shares some preliminary findings from the results of the State of the BAM Movement Survey – recorded at the BAM Global Congress in April 2021.

>>Download State of the Movement Report Here

Read more

Waste Not: Environmental Stewardship for BAM Practitioners

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by Mark Polet

“And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!” John 6:12-14

I want to focus on the text above of ‘so that nothing may be lost, (wasted)’. Jesus is following a tradition in central and west Asia of not wasting any food. To throw away food here in central Asia, even today, is a singularly bad thing.

Terri making Samanak

Terri and I just returned from working for a like-minded cleaning company that employs almost 150 people; the cleaning staff is mostly women. Lately in this capital city, shopping centres have opened up, bringing a western norm into contact with an Eurasian sensibility. These centres include food courts of which some of you are familiar. The company we serve has the contract to clean the shopping centre, which includes cleaning up the food court and the wasted food left on the plates.

Some of the cleaning women just cannot throw away this food; they break down in tears when they see it wasted. They are following Jesus’ command to the letter. Even when our colleague Enova tells them it is not their fault, that it is the customer that has to answer to God, the cleaning women just cannot dispose of the food. In some cases, they have had to be moved to other duties.

This waste, so new to this culture, is even more offensive when you consider the challenge it is to make a living here, now exacerbated by: poor wheat harvests in Eurasia last year; the inability to plant wheat in the midst of a war in Eurasia’s bread basket, the Ukraine; the lower value of the ruble, which has dragged down the local currency as well; and the loss of remittances sent home by the local men working in Russia and the Ukraine.

Perhaps we can learn from our central Asian colleagues in applying the principle of “Waste Not” to our BAM enterprises as part of our environmental commitment. The first step is to quantify you inputs and your outputs (including those outputs currently classified as waste).  Read more

Challenge and Hope: How Business Can Help the Planet and Its People Flourish [Video]

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Video Presentation by Mark Polet

The people we want to reach are facing the greatest environmental, even existential challenges. BAMers are on the ground already in the areas of greatest need. This presentation explores how to meet these challenges with the Hope we share and the technical capabilities we can access.

>>More on Creation Care on The BAM Review blog here

Read more

Colonising Earth with the Life of Heaven: Creation Care & Mission

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by Caroline Pomeroy

Last month I visited a lively Anglican church in my local town. It was ‘Mission Sunday’ and to illustrate this to the children, the leader stuck post-it notes onto a giant inflatable globe, each yellow note signifying one of the church’s mission partners. He then asked people to remind him what Mark 16:15 says. ‘Go and evangelise all the people in the world’ was the first response…

These few minutes highlighted two things for me – first, a popular misconception about what the Good News means; and secondly the challenges of doing global mission in a climate crisis.

Good News to All Creation

At the end of Mark’s gospel, Jesus calls the first disciples to ‘… go and preach the good news to all creation.’ Although opinions differ on the exact interpretation of this phrase, a reading of other versions of the Great Commission – and indeed the whole of the bible – implies that there is more to the Good News than just saving human souls. In Matthew 28:19 the disciples are told to ‘… go and make disciples…’. A disciple is someone who loves God and loves their neighbour. So the process of disciple-making must include the practical outworking of loving God and neighbour. But how can we say we love our neighbours if, as a result of the way we live and do business, our global neighbours’ crops are failing due to climate change; our future neighbours’ homes will be under water by the end of the century; and our non-human neighbours’ habitat is disappearing due our demand for palm oil or coffee?

In Genesis chapters 1 and 2, Adam and Eve, made in God’s likeness, are given authority to ‘rule over’ creation on God’s behalf.  But just as Jesus, the Servant King, exercises loving dominion over His kingdom, this first Great Commission in Genesis 1-2 is about dominion, not domination. Humankind is called to serve and preserve the earth and all its creatures, not to dominate and exploit them.  Read more

Why Should We Care About Creation Care?

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by Mats Tunehag

We know we are to be good stewards of creation. Those are God’s instructions to humans in Genesis 1 & 2 – especially Gen.1:28, often known as the ‘creation mandate’ (also ‘cultural mandate).

In the Business as Mission (BAM) movement we typically talk about the quadruple bottom line of social, spiritual, environmental and economic impact:

In and through business we want to:

  • serve people,
  • align with God’s purposes,
  • be good stewards of the planet,
  • and make a profit.

But how are we doing in the BAM community with stewardship of the planet? How are BAM companies leading the way in positive environmental change?

We know from our work in the BAM Global Network that creation care and environmental stewardship is a relatively weak area for BAM companies, and and that BAM practitioners feel under-resourced and overwhelmed by this challenge. Creation care is a topic in much need of further exploration in the BAM movement, which is why we are focusing on BAM and Creation Care again on The BAM Review this month. Read more

The Task Still Ahead and Plugging the Resource Gaps

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The business as mission community is contributing to a wider ‘listening process’ in the global evangelical mission community as part of our connection the Lausanne Movement. Lausanne asked us:

What are the most significant gaps or remaining opportunities toward the fulfillment of the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18-20)?

We in turn received input from 25 global leaders on this question especially as it relates to business as mission. Four main themes emerged as leaders answered this question, which we will share in four blog posts through November.

The fourth and final theme focused on major resource gaps. Of course, the sacred-secular divide and lack of affirmation for the vocation of business (the theme of the first post in this series) is a major barrier to the mobilisation of people and other kinds of resources. However, this post builds on that and identifies specific kinds of human resources needed, plus initiatives such as prayer, funding, training, replicable business models that require focused attention if we are to continue to effectively respond to the Great Commission through the business sphere.

Theme 4: The Task Still Ahead and Plugging the Resource Gaps

In thinking in terms of BAM, we need more business builders. There are many BAM companies that need help growing and expanding their companies. More business builders will allow a greater reach into areas where people are living and dying without the Gospel being lived out among them.
MK

To see greater impact for the Great Commission, we need to see more franchisable models for BAM which have a high-enough barrier to entry for competitors in local 10/40 locations. We also need to mobilise ever greater numbers of entrepreneurs that specifically have as one of their goals to enable a minimum of 5-10 other Great Commission focused people, providing a means for other business leaders and professions for long-term in-country incarnational presence in least reached nations.
DN

If we are going to make disciples of all the nations, then we need to have a reason to be there. We know that the creation of a job, for many, can be the impetus behind their pathway to salvation. Bottom line is “People Need Jobs”. Gaining access to these individuals is a significant gap in our ecosystem. Finding the practitioners who can, in fact, transform lives through job creation is a major challenge. Once we are able to tell the story of Business as Mission, the response is almost always extremely positive. However, getting to these individuals can be difficult. One of the greatest opportunities is to work closely with churches and agencies already in-country and to find a way to integrate BAM where appropriate. In order for this to happen, there has to be someone in a leadership position within the church or agency who is willing to change. BAM needs to be looked at as a complement to their current strategy and not a threat. There has to be a sense of urgency that, at an aggregate level, doesn’t exist today.
BB

Read more

A Holistic Gospel and the Kingdom Coming in the Marketplace

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The business as mission community is contributing to a wider ‘listening process’ in the global evangelical mission community as part of our connection the Lausanne Movement. Lausanne asked us:

What are the most significant gaps or remaining opportunities toward the fulfillment of the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18-20)?

We in turn received input from 25 global leaders on this question especially as it relates to business as mission. Four main themes emerged as leaders answered this question, which we will share in four blog posts through November.

The third theme was the need to present a more holistic gospel, with an emphasis on the great commandment to love our neighbour and the cultural mandate to steward creation and help humankind flourish. God’s kingdom rule and reign is for all spheres of life, and we long to see His kingdom coming in the marketplace. Business as mission is a powerful means to bring an integrated expression of the gospel, meeting people’s spiritual, relational and physical needs. For more on how business as mission impacts profits, people and planet and aligns with God’s purposes, read this short introduction to the quadruple bottom lines of BAM.

Theme 3: A Holistic Gospel and the Kingdom Coming in the Marketplace

Stewarding God’s creation should be a major focus for us. The natural disasters and the pandemic of the past year has also shone light on another gap in our work so far on the Great Commission. We have failed to adequately care for God’s Creation, to care for the resources God entrusted us to steward. As Christian leaders in the marketplace we have often failed to listen and respond to the voices within and outside of the Church to better understand the impact of our actions on our environments. Now the results of our actions are clear as the increased threat of natural disasters, extreme weather and the pandemic and its economic devastation are tied to our lack of care of natural resources. And this devastation often rests most heavily on the marginalized – those with the least resources and networks that create the resiliency to pivot, survive and thrive. So, we must actively respond to God’s call to be stewards ourselves and to listen to and raise-up voices of the marginalized in the marketplace who can help shape and lead a new vision of how we can be better stewards in the marketplace.
RAD

Demonstrating what the Kingdom of God is like holistically should be the focus of the coming years. A mixture of the gospel preached in deeds and the gospel preached in words. Relationships are key. And BAM is a key that fits to open doors. Be more “Salt and Light” in the world. But start where you are now.
BD

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Scaling BAM Companies for Impact: Models of Partnership and Ecosystem Building

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During our November Webinars last week for the BAM Global Congress Pre-Series, Mats Tunehag had the privilege of interviewing eight BAM leaders in a series of three Fireside Chats, on the theme of building ecosystems and networks that will help BAM companies launch and thrive.

As part of this series, Mats interviewed Tom, Dwight and Joanna, here are some excerpts from their Fireside Chat Interview:

Mats: Joanna, in your experience, through starting a BAM accelerator and running your own business, what are some key lessons you’ve learned when it comes to building an ecosystem or support system for growing a BAM business?

Joanna: First of all, do not discourage someone from being part of your ecosystem, even if you don’t think it’s what you need right now. It’s about building relationships with different parts of this ecosystem for the long term. Secondly, learn and teach. We have to learn from others, and we also have to pass on what we know with the relationships and partnerships we are developing.

Mats: Dwight you’ve been doing BAM for several decades now, tell us about the nature of your companies?

Dwight: We are committed to establishing businesses, typically technology based businesses with 50-500 employees, in unreached cities in Asia. We are committed to seeing strategic, but reasonable, great commission results in unreached cities of more than a million people and less than 2% Christian. Typically we see house bible studies started and growing beyond that, but each location is different… If we don’t see both the financial returns and the great commission stuff happening, we will exit from a business.

Read more

From Idea to Impact: Accelerating Communities of Kingdom-Minded Entrepreneurs

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During our October Webinars this week Mats Tunehag had the privilege of interviewing six BAM leaders in a series of three Fireside Chats, on the themes of each day: Start-up BAM, Fruitful BAM and Long BAM.

On day two, on the theme of Fruitful BAM, Mats interviewed Matthew Rohrs and Yvonne Otieno. Yvonne is an award winning entrepreneur and CEO of Miyonga Fresh Greens in Kenya. Matthew is the CEO of Sinapis Group, a Kingdom-minded business accelerator and entrepreneur academy operating in eight countries.

Here are some excerpts from their Fireside Chat Interview:

Mats: Matthew, Sinapis is 10 years old this year, congratulations. So tell us, how do you integrate faith into your programs?

Matthew: Sinapis is an entrepreneurship training and acceleration organization. We have a variety of programs to help entrepreneurs build capacity. Then over time we build vibrant long-term alumni communities where entrepreneurs can do business with one another, solve problems together, grow in their faith, and grow in their application of what it means to lead a Kingdom business.

The name Sinapis is the Latin word for mustard seed. So when we think about that gospel story of how the smallest seed in the garden grows to become one of the largest plants and the birds of the air come and perch in the branches, we think that is an interesting picture of the kind of impact that a gifted Kingdom-minded entrepreneur can have. They start out with a small seed of an idea, and that company then grows and grows. As that company begins to have more influence, this image of the birds perching in the branches is a beautiful picture of what happens with their employees. The impact that a company can have on the employees and then their dependents and others in the community…

On the question of how we integrate faith into what we do. At the programmatic level, we gently, respectfully, but very intentionally integrate God’s truth into our programs. We’re very open to share with people that there’s biblical content and we want to talk to you if you are not a follower of Christ, what would it mean to consider following Him? And if you are a follower of Christ, how do you step in, with passion, to this beautiful calling to the marketplace?

We think our alumni communities are actually the greatest opportunity for long-term spiritual investment, to walk with entrepreneurs over time, just like Yvonne. We help them and support them in the integration of their faith into the business, but also the continued growth of the company as their challenges become more complex.

Mats: Yvonne, you are one of those mustard seeds! How did going through the program change you and the impact on your various stakeholders?

Read more

How We Integrate Business and Mission: In Planning and Daily Operations

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During our October Webinars this week, Mats Tunehag had the privilege of interviewing six BAM leaders in a series of three Fireside Chats, on the themes of each day: Start-up BAM, Fruitful BAM and Long BAM.

On day one, on the theme of Start-Up BAM, Mats interviewed Annie and Peter.* Annie is the CEO of a manufacturing business in Southeast Asia and Peter is the CEO and Co-Founder of a BAM Investment Company, with experience mentoring and investing in scores of BAM businesses over 20+ years.

Here are some excerpts from their Fireside Chat Interview:

Mats: Peter, in Business as Mission we talk about having a positive impact on multiple bottom lines, for multiple stakeholders. When should you start planning for impact on the four bottom lines, financial, social, environmental and spiritual?

Peter: Think of a number line with negative numbers to the left and zero in the middle, which marks that day, the fateful day when you open your doors for business. Then the positive numbers are to the right that mark the years as time passes. I would say that you start planning for this quadruple bottom line impact at minus 3 or minus 2 years on that number line. In other words you have to start doing that, before you start trading. Once you start trading, all sorts of pressures will overtake everything else in the business.

Now planning for that doesn’t mean it will play out the way you thought it would. Being able to adjust and pivot is the reality of BAM, so you are going to need to modify those quadruple bottom line impacts, but start early.

Mats: And, how do you monitor progress towards that integrated impact?

Peter: How do you measure it? Realise that not everything can be measured quantifiably or numerically. A lot of measurement in BAM companies is qualitative, especially the relational side of things. I know many might think in terms of hard numbers when it comes to things like numbers of people that have come to know the Lord, or various other spiritual impact metrics. However, that’s very hard to do, and runs the risk of taking things into your hands and out of the hands of the Holy Spirit. It doesn’t mean you don’t focus on those things. You can plan for and document activities that may lead to that impact. But in terms of the progress of the Kingdom in people’s lives from a spiritual point of view, largely that is out of our hands. The other thing I think you can measure is what I call redemptive impacts, on things like poverty and justice issues… We advise people to develop a very rigorous commercial plan, and also a very rigorous spiritual impact plan.  Read more

Ask a BAM Mentor: Tensions in Integrating Business and Mission?

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Three experienced BAM mentors answer a common question: how do you deal with seeming tensions in integrating business and mission?

 

Dear BAM Mentor,

I am feeling some tensions as I begin to integrate mission and business goals together in my business operations. What tensions have you felt and how have you overcome them? What practical tips or principles have you found helpful?

~ Tense in Tashkent

Dear Tense,

This is a great question and a common one. You are in good company!

First, let’s think through where the tensions may be coming from. For example, if your business partners or key managers are not believers or do not understand Kingdom Business that creates one set of tensions. Or, if you are burdened with the hangover of the “sacred-secular divide” that creates an entirely different set of tensions. Another source of tension is simply not being sure how to do solid business planning with a missions or kingdom purpose

Second, let’s think through each option.

My Partners/Managers Don’t Get Kingdom Business
If there isn’t alignment on this foundational part of your business at this time don’t despair. Take a discipling approach – patient education and demonstration can go a long way to helping your team see the eternal picture. Perhaps some reading and discussion meetings. Perhaps video training. And lots of prayer. Lots of prayer.

I’m Not Comfortable with Integration… Not Totally
We all struggle with the remains of the destructive illusion of sacred vs. secular. The good news, though is that since it’s an illusion it only exists in the mind. Soaking your mind in the truth of Scripture and some excellent writing/teaching is the answer. Books like Every Good Endeavor by Tim Keller and Business for the Glory of God by Wayne Grudem are great places to start.

Read more

The Seamless Integration of Business as Mission: The Nucleus of BAM

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by Mike Baer

In the early to mid 1990’s, as BAM was beginning to be rediscovered in Scripture and the world of missions activity, there was a phrase floating around to describe what we were thinking and doing. Our company, The Jholdas Group, for example, actually built it into our mission statement. “Our purpose,” we wrote, “is to support church planting among the unreached people groups of the 10/40 Window through the seamless integration of Business as Mission.” I believe that this phrase, the seamless integration of Business as Mission, was and still is at the core of the modern BAM movements, it is the nucleus around which all other particles orbit.

Let’s quickly parse the phrase in reverse. There is not an “s.” in mission, It’s not “business as missions.” That would limit it to missionary activity. It’s bigger and more encompassing. The word mission refers to the purpose of God in the world. It’s much more than saving souls, although that is vital. The purpose of God, His mission, is to glorify Himself and His grace In Jesus Christ in this broken world by redeeming, restoring, and transforming people, communities, societies, institutions, and the environment affected by the fall. In the words of Isaac Watts, “He comes to make His blessings flow, far as the curse is found…”

What Business as Mission does in the term “seamless integration” is to simply ask every Christian to bring every aspect of his or her existence and constantly ask, “Lord Jesus, how might this glorify you?”

Business is God’s institution for producing wealth through the profitable exchange of ideas, labor, products, services, etc. It is His engine of wealth creation from before the fall and now after the fall; I, for one, believe that work and business will exist in the fully manifested Kingdom of God. Wealth creation is God’s means of blessing humanity, providing our daily bread, and enabling us to improve our lives and the lives of our neighbors.

Seamless integration means perfected unity. It is recognizing that when God created all things they worked together perfectly, they were aligned, they were integrated. Sin brought disintegration and fractured living. Grace brings wholeness, reintegration, and holism. Life under the Lordship of Christ knows no boundaries, no compartments, no hierarchies. Life and the life of the Body is a unified, free-flowing experience and expression of the glory of God.  Read more

Turn Off the Lights to Share the Light: Why Good Environmental Practice is Great Business Practice

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by Mark Polet

There is a misconception that good environmental management always costs money. Well, sometimes it does seem to cost when externalities are not costed fully (waste management, air and water pollution control) or when the company is not managed properly (contamination). 

Turn Off the Lights so You can Share the Light

However, there is another area of sound business management where good environmental management saves money. It’s called efficiency.

In short, turn off the lights.

It is easy for all of us to fall into complacency or just get too busy to really manage our costs, especially in the challenging places where you work. That is why we are looking for quick wins. The first quick win my colleagues and I have noted in working for Kingdom Companies is energy efficiency.

Turn off the lights when you leave! I find it remarkable how many times energy is wasted in companies, even where energy availability is inconsistent. We have seen whole factories lit up with not a soul in them.

Manage your air conditioning.  25°C (77°F) is often recommended, no cooler. If  you have your suit jacket on while you work at your desk, something may be wrong.

BAM is in the relationship business, and enrolling staff in Creation Care is one more step in discipleship.

Watch for phantom power costs. Turn off appliances when not in use. 

Many electronic appliances (i.e. monitor screens) are still drawing power even when ‘off’. If at all possible, shut off at the main plug.

Read more

Messy Site, Messy Company: Aiming for Environmental Excellence

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by Mark Polet

When it comes to running a good business, cleanliness really is next to godliness.

I want to explore with you why you who are pursuing excellence in business need to weave good environmental practice into your operations.

Messy Site, Messy Company

Good environmental practice is not a stand alone activity. Good environmental practice is woven into all aspects of the company. Because poor environmental practice is often quite visible in a disorderly site and disorganized operations, it is often the most evident warning bell to any investor or customer that something is wrong with this firm.

Why do I stay that? After over forty years of assessing companies for environmental excellence, including Kingdom-Oriented firms, there is one correlation in my experience that always holds.

If the site is a mess, the accounting is a mess.

Good environmental practice is not a stand alone activity. Good environmental practice is woven into all aspects of the company.

A messy site means messed up books. I have reviewed firms across a score of industry groups. At times I will come across a  company that has an unkempt site. Sometimes it is debris lying around; other times it is  far worse, with spills contaminating the soil. In all cases, I find as I continue my audit that their financial records are equally messy, and their regulatory compliance is spotty at best. The management of their supply chain was poor. The amount of waste they generate, both in lost productivity and actual, physical waste, is evident.  Read more

How Business as Mission Can Help End Poverty for Good: Best of BAM Blog

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AND THE AWARD GOES TO...

Our goal is to provide the BAM Community with great content and resources. Each year we do a summer roundup of articles which have stood out in the past 6 months.

Below is our first “Staff Pick” for January to June 2019.

Please enjoy and thanks for following!

by Doug Seebeck

The Business as Mission movement has made remarkable advances over the past 20 years. It is a powerful movement that affirms God’s call to business and the central role of business in missions and insists that business is critical to the redemptive work of God in the world and the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

While there is much to celebrate, now is the time for a rallying cry for what can and must be done in the 20 years ahead of us. Indeed, the health of our planet, the flourishing of our neighbors, and the integrity of the Gospel itself depend upon our concerted focus and action. And that focus is the end of extreme global poverty as we know it today. To this end, we need the Business as Mission movement to serve those at the bottom of the pyramid who are scraping by on less than $2 per day.

Our vision at Partners Worldwide is to see the end of poverty so that all may have life, and have it abundantly. This is a grand, audacious goal we know we can’t accomplish alone. And yet, for the first time in human history, the number of our fellow human beings who face extreme poverty has fallen to under 10 percent. The latest figures from World Bank suggest the extreme poverty rate fell to 8.6 percent last year—a rapid decrease from 36 percent in 1990. It is truly amazing!  Read more

How Business as Mission Can Help End Poverty for Good

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by Doug Seebeck

The Business as Mission movement has made remarkable advances over the past 20 years. It is a powerful movement that affirms God’s call to business and the central role of business in missions and insists that business is critical to the redemptive work of God in the world and the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

While there is much to celebrate, now is the time for a rallying cry for what can and must be done in the 20 years ahead of us. Indeed, the health of our planet, the flourishing of our neighbors, and the integrity of the Gospel itself depend upon our concerted focus and action. And that focus is the end of extreme global poverty as we know it today. To this end, we need the Business as Mission movement to serve those at the bottom of the pyramid who are scraping by on less than $2 per day.

Our vision at Partners Worldwide is to see the end of poverty so that all may have life, and have it abundantly. This is a grand, audacious goal we know we can’t accomplish alone. And yet, for the first time in human history, the number of our fellow human beings who face extreme poverty has fallen to under 10 percent. The latest figures from World Bank suggest the extreme poverty rate fell to 8.6 percent last year—a rapid decrease from 36 percent in 1990. It is truly amazing!  Read more

Grand Openings and Grand Opportunities: A BAM Story

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We’re so excited to be open! After 3 years of planning, preparation, cutting through swathes or red tape, remodelling, investment-raising and long days of hard work, the day of our café grand opening was nearly perfect. Lots of customers showed up, neighbors congratulated and welcomed us, and we received lots of positive feedback.

Everyone who walks in says nearly the same thing; some version of, “Wow, this place is beautiful, and so comfortable and relaxing. I might not leave!”

It is gratifying to see people come in and enjoy our products and our service, and then come back again. We have already noticed how this business is giving us greater inroads to be able to share Jesus with people.

New Connections

The most encouraging thing about the opening of our café is the greater openness and acceptance from people that it has provided. The next door neighbor to our shop, who we’ve waved at and attempted to engage with over the past three years, has become our most frequent customer. He brought his family over and introduced them, and has begun having client meetings at our cafe. And, new people are coming around as well. We recently met Lek who was walking buy, decided to stop in, and then asked if I could talk for a minute. We talked about the business and then about him for over an hour. In a couple of weeks, we’re going to meet at another coffee shop in town to work on his English and my Thai.  Read more