Merge Ahead. Mission Organisations and Business as Mission :: Chris Page
A number of mission organisations have over the past few years started showing an enthusiastic interest in the whole movement of BAM, but many are still very wary, and some still quite opposed. I’m proud of the fact that the organisation I’m working with - Youth With a Mission (YWAM) - is currently one of the leaders in this area. Their website http://www.businessasmission.com/ is full of resources, and their training in Thailand in January 2008 will focus on equipping and releasing new practitioners into BAM projects around the world. This training, which I’m sure will be ongoing, could become an essential tool to business professionals, entrepreneurs, recent university graduates, and missionaries from any organisation who have begun to understand God’s heart for business and want to be a part of what He’s doing during these days.I recently heard the recruitment director of one large mission organisation say that they were aware of many young people in their churches having a desire to do missionary work in a different way to the traditional missionary activities of church-planting, Bible-teaching and relief work; an increasing number of students are wanting to do business-related activities. They decided to start up a business as mission branch within their organisation to meet this need (praise God!), and called it Redemptive Business because they felt it crossed the secular/sacred dichotomy that existed within their mission organisation better, and thought it would be more ‘palatable’ for the church swallow. I personally love the name, but I know God doesn’t mind what we call it, so long as we start putting into practice the intentions he has for business since he put Adam and Eve in the garden.
This dichotomy can be so subtle, and continues to hold subconsciously captive so many of the leaders of our mission organisations, that the first and most important thing we can do as people called to be Kingdom makers is to pray that the Lord would remove these barriers. ‘For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.’ Ephesians 6 vs 12 (NIV). ‘(Therefore)…prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes open. Keep each other’s spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out.’ Ephesians 6 vs 18 (The Message). This is a battle, and one that we must recognise Satan has done very well at blinding us as a church, but the walls are coming down, and God’s purposes are being made known once again. After prayer, and the essential ground preparation that results, will come teaching. This is growing in pace already – when I started being a bussionary five years ago there were hardly any books, websites, network groups or mission organisations focusing on BAM. Now the number of books runs in the hundreds, and just a quick glance at http://www.businessasmissionnetwork.com/ gives an indication of the huge, and growing number of resources, organisations and networks dedicated to this movement. Hallelujah! God’s spirit is on the move, and a kairos moment is in the making.
I’m believing in God for a second enlightenment period for the church. A church that will affirm, equip and send out to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth (geographically, or through influence), their people. A church that prepares resources tailored for politicians, business people, teachers, artists, journalists, health-care practitioners, etc. A church whose voice counts, because their adherents completely integrate their faith with their work. Then, and only then, do I believe we can hope to impact society in the holistic manner of Biblical times, except this time on a global scale.
In the first chapter to her eye-opening book The Old Testament Template, Landa Copes writes about a documentary that she saw, that completely transformed the way she understood the Bible, and the life that we should be living as people committed to God. The documentary, undertaken by an British journalist, wanted to know if Christianity made any difference to society. So he decided to focus his study on the most Christianised city in a highly Christian country, the US, as his place to start researching. He found that Dallas, Texas, consisted of the highest number of church-going people (his definition of Christianised) in the country, and so proceeded to study the social demographics to see how this Christian blessing worked out practically within that community.
He looked at statistics and studies of crime, police enforcement, the justice and penal system, health care, contagious diseases, infant mortality, education, equality of schools, graduation statistics, jobs, and general economics. He studied homelessness and programs for those unable to care for themselves. Was there equality regardless of colour, creed or income? The TV host looked at the kind of information you would be concerned about if you were going to raise your children in a community. Will my children be safe on the streets, and will they have blatant exposure to drugs? Will they get a decent education and be able to get a job after graduating? Can I get legal help and a fair hand from the judicial system? Are the police equally interested in our protection, and is all of this true regardless of my colour, nationality or creed? He looked at all this, and a whole host of other facts and figures.
After reviewing all of this information about Dallas, Landa writes ‘no one would want to live in a city in that condition. The crime, the decrepit social systems, the disease, the economic discrepancies, the racial injustice all disqualified this community from having an adequate quality of life. And this was the “most Christianised” city in America. I wanted to weep.
The program was not finished. The host took this devastating picture of a broken community to the Christian leaders and asked for their observations. He chose leaders of status and integrity….One by one, each pastor viewed the same facts that I had just seen about the condition of his city. With simplicity, the narrator asked each minister, “As a Christian leader, what is your response to the condition of your community?” Without exception, in various ways, they all said the same thing, “This is not my concern…..I’m a spiritual leader.” ’
Landa concludes that it’s only because this sacred-secular dichotomy which permeates the mindset of most Christians, that can explain why we’re simply not seeing Biblical values applied by those who claim to believe in them, and thus we’re not influencing society towards good, and being a blessing to others in our sphere of influence today, as we’ve seen in the past time and time again. Because the truth is that IT SHOULD BE OUR CONCERN!
As Michael Baer so eloquently writes in his book Business as Mission – The Power of Business in the Kingdom of God – ‘A Kingdom business…is specifically, consciously, clearly and intentionally connected to the establishment of Christ’s Kingdom in this world.’ If mission organisations, and the missionaries within them, truly understand the Church’s God-given mandate to bring about His Kingdom in every area of society (including making disciples within the economies of all the nations on the earth), then they will embrace wholeheartedly movements such as Business as Mission which have that very purpose. They will affirm the business-related gifts that God has imparted to many believers, and seek to see them utilised within the realm of business. They will teach them to expand their geographical or influential area to maximise Kingdom growth. They will not view business as cash-cows, but as Kingdom-cows (!) – reaping a harvest that others can not reap. And in remembering the poor, the very thing Peter, James and John to the Jews and Paul to the Gentiles were united in doing (Galatians 2 vs 10), what better tool exists to put deeds to our faith and meeting their needs (James 2) than the transformational power of business, and the jobs, services and products that businesses provide?
My sincere hope and prayer is that mission organisations will become increasingly more enthusiastic and passionate about BAM. Only then will they have the desire to work through some of the challenges and differences that will naturally occur with pioneering movements like ours, compared to other established means of communicating the Gospel. Only then will they want to learn important lessons to avoid fingers being burnt, and indeed being sued, as several mission organisations have recently experienced because of being quick to jump into business. My hope is also that mission organisations will share with each other what they learn about BAM through resources like this Business as Mission Network webiste, share ideas for guidelines and policies, and encourage each other with awesome testimonies of lives being transformed and God’s glory manifested because of what He’s doing through Kingdom businesses. Only then will we see God’s Kingdom come in this crucial sphere of society that exists in every country on earth.
Chris Page is the founder of Cards from Africa (http://www.cardsfromafrica.com/), a kingdom company based in Rwanda and is actively involved with the mission organization YWAM. He is a regular contributor to this website and he welcomes your emails at bussionary@gmail.com.
Labels: Cards from Africa, Chris Page, Editorials, Traditional Mission Agencies and BAM, YWAM
2 Comments:
commented by 
thepeacechild, 8:35 PM
thepeacechild, 8:35 PM
Thanks Steve. I think Landa's point was a very valid one indeed which is why I quoted it. It would be great to view the footage, or at least to ask Landa herself to find out which Pastors were interviewed (if she can remember), and what they meant/whether they were mis-quoted/interpreted, for the record. Furthermore, I think it is dangerous for us to dismiss the research of others without first doing our own comparitive research, in at least as much detail as he supposedly undertook. To dismiss his findings as possible anti-evangelical propaganda is extreme and highly irresponsible without first providing evidence to the contrary. Doesn't it evoke any sense of concern at all?
I live in a country that has been almost completely evangelised, with a very high church-attendance (much higher than in the US) but the lack of discipleship, i.e. the lack of application of faith in one's everyday lives, led to the fastest, most 'efficient' slaughter of human life ever witnessed on this planet (1 million people in 100 days), with the exception of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan, with at least 500,000 people (about 7% of the population) involved directly themselves in the picking up of machetes and hacking people to death. I personally don't know about Dallas - but the real point was that there seems to be a lack of application of personal faith into people's every day lives, and I believe this dichotomy is a huge part of that.
Perhaps (and most probably) Dallas would be even worse without such a large number of Christians present. I'm quite sure Landa was not saying Christians make communities worse, or that where Christians are things will be utopic. But whichever communities he surveyed, isn't it a cause for concern - surely the salt and light should be at least tangible not just to the immediate community there in (safe holy huddles), but also in their surrounding communities on their immediate doorstep?
I got into a great discussion recently with some friends regarding the difference between a secular business, a Christian-owned business, and a Kingdom business, and I believe it's the difference between the latter two that is the point I was making. Having a business whereby integrity is practiced is good (and better of course than one that isn't) but having a business that's intentional about bringing about God's Kingdom, as well as operating with integrity is even better.
Let's indeed praise God for the small differences that believers make. I do think though that believers should continue to aim higher as the Lord allows - to quote one well-known individual - 'Expect great things from God, attempt great things for God'. Have we as Christians started to grow complacent, comfortable with our way of life, reluctant to sacrifice, being intentional about our faith in business, and believing some activities are holy and others secular - absolutely! Let's identify what's holding us back from forcefully advancing his Kingdom in the sphere of business and move on.
I say let's fill the pothole, not ignore it!
Blessings,
Chris Page
I live in a country that has been almost completely evangelised, with a very high church-attendance (much higher than in the US) but the lack of discipleship, i.e. the lack of application of faith in one's everyday lives, led to the fastest, most 'efficient' slaughter of human life ever witnessed on this planet (1 million people in 100 days), with the exception of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan, with at least 500,000 people (about 7% of the population) involved directly themselves in the picking up of machetes and hacking people to death. I personally don't know about Dallas - but the real point was that there seems to be a lack of application of personal faith into people's every day lives, and I believe this dichotomy is a huge part of that.
Perhaps (and most probably) Dallas would be even worse without such a large number of Christians present. I'm quite sure Landa was not saying Christians make communities worse, or that where Christians are things will be utopic. But whichever communities he surveyed, isn't it a cause for concern - surely the salt and light should be at least tangible not just to the immediate community there in (safe holy huddles), but also in their surrounding communities on their immediate doorstep?
I got into a great discussion recently with some friends regarding the difference between a secular business, a Christian-owned business, and a Kingdom business, and I believe it's the difference between the latter two that is the point I was making. Having a business whereby integrity is practiced is good (and better of course than one that isn't) but having a business that's intentional about bringing about God's Kingdom, as well as operating with integrity is even better.
Let's indeed praise God for the small differences that believers make. I do think though that believers should continue to aim higher as the Lord allows - to quote one well-known individual - 'Expect great things from God, attempt great things for God'. Have we as Christians started to grow complacent, comfortable with our way of life, reluctant to sacrifice, being intentional about our faith in business, and believing some activities are holy and others secular - absolutely! Let's identify what's holding us back from forcefully advancing his Kingdom in the sphere of business and move on.
I say let's fill the pothole, not ignore it!
Blessings,
Chris Page
I do wonder, however, about the logic of Landa Cope's underlying thesis, cited extensively here (and I do have her book). What would Dallas be like if there were no Christians in that city? Perhaps far worse. Or maybe the enemy focuses his attention where the battle rages, rather than in the quiet backwaters of his fortified domain? And is the idea of a Christian utopia on earth a biblical notion?
Jesus assured us, "The poor you will always have with you." He also pointed out that two kinds of seed, the good and the bad, will be sown simultaneously (Mt. 13:38-39) until the end of the age. To expect that the good seed will completely overwhelm the bad may be setting oneself up for disappointment or even disillusionment.
Of Dallas, Landa apparently writes, "no one would want to live in a city in that condition." I have many friends who live in Dallas. They keep trying to convince me to move there. They keep talking about the schools, family friendly environment, low cost of living. For some reason, Dallas is attracting people by the hundreds of thousands.
I believe the Gospel is making a huge difference wherever it is freely proclaimed. I've traveled for years between "Christian" regions or communities and non-Christian or anti-Christian areas. The difference can be stark. Take Dallas itself, and observe the contrast between communities where believers abound, and those where the Gospel is seldom heard. (These are probably the communities where Landa's reporter spent most of his time. It only strengthens my contention that believers do make a huge difference in society).
A final point. Landa Cope's British documentarian reportedly presented his devastating picture of Dallas to the local Christian leaders and asked for their response. One by one, these leaders "of status and integrity" disavowed any sense of responsibility for the needs around them: “This is not my concern ... I’m a spiritual leader.” I don't know about you, but this sounds suspicious to me. I know dozens of pastors, and can't imagine any of them shrugging off the social and moral needs of their cities in such a manner. I can't imagine, for example, Dallas pastor Chuck Swindoll dismissing the crime and poverty of Dallas as "not my concern - I only deal in the spiritual realm."
Let's be open to the possibility that we're dealing with an unbiblical assertion at best, and a clever piece of anti evangelical propaganda at worst. Let's step over the pothole, not into it.
We live as faithful pilgrims in a fallen world. Praise God for the "small" but eternal difference that believers make every day, from Dallas to Delhi.
Steve Richardson
Orlando, Florida