| Relating Business to Missions :: Ken Eldred |
 It is important that Christians, especially those in business, have a framework for connecting business and missions. There are three ways of relating business to missions: business for missions, business and missions, and business as missions.
Business for Missions :: Those who hold the notion that business should serve solely as a source of assistance to missionaries and evangelistic efforts view missionaries and vocational ministry professionals to be uniquely qualified to reach the world, and they believe the role of business is to support them. There are several variations on this notion of business for missions.
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| Markets and Missions :: Tom Sudyk and Bob Lupton |
 Bill Mallory is a long-time friend and businessman. He built a successful marketing company which supplied Pier One-type home furnishings to retail outlets all over the U.S. For years he traveled throughout the Pacific rim negotiating contracts with local manufacturers in the Philippines, Thailand, China and points in between. He eventually decided that he could better control the supply and quality of products if he were to create his own manufacturing operation. He found a suitable location outside Cebu, a port town in one of the outlying Philippine Islands, where materials were accessible and labor was abundant and cheap. For the past six years, Bill and his wife Page have been living in Cebu, growing another successful business.
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| Merge Ahead. Missions Organizations 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. |
| Mission Agencies Moving Forward in Business Based Ministries :: Graeme Kent SIM |
 Using legitimate business and professional activities as platforms for ministry is not a new concept for SIM (Serving in Mission). During its long history as a church planting mission, many people such as school teachers and health care workers, have served with SIM in paid positions. In more recent years, SIM has established commercial businesses as a means of entry into countries with restricted access. |
| 3 Primary Aims of the Introduction to Business as Missions Course in Thailand this Spring |
 The team at YWAM is gearing up for the Business as Mission training course in Thailand in the spring of 2008. They've received several applications and they are planning on accepting 20 students for the course. So if you've been thinking about it, now is the time to dust off that application and send it in!
The three primary aims of the Introduction to Business as Missions Course:
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| Is Business as Mission really the Traditonal Approach :: Ted Esler - Pioneers USA |
 There has been a lot of talk in the past few years about Business as Mission (BAM) and its implication for the "traditional" mission agency. I work for Pioneers and I don't like it when people say we are a traditional agency - probably more because of my pride than anything else. Lately, however, I have begun to wonder about what it means to be traditional. Could it be that BAM really is the "traditional approach?"
As I write this I am sitting in a roomful of BAM practitioners - about 75 of them from around the world of Pioneers - a small representation of the many BAM staff in our movement.
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Seven Things Every Mission Agency Leader Should Know About Business as Mission |
 A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to exchange some emails with a friend who has a passion for business and mission and is affiliated with a mission organization overseas.
While starting off as more of a traditional missionary approach, in his 20 year career as a business consultant he has been apart of developing several businesses. During the past 3 years he has developed a very profitable business that allows him to fuse together faith + business. A few months ago he had the opportunity to speak about some of the invaluable lessons that he learned to some of the key mission agency leaders across the country. I asked him to share some of his thoughts. Here's what he had to say... Read on ... |
| EC Group Consulting Partners with Cornerstone University to Create 25 Business as Mission Companies |
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 EC Group International has partnered with Cornerstone University to develop a replicable program and methodology for equipping local area businesses and university alumni to engage in international commerce with a Christian focus while training up the next generation of business leaders to follow in their footsteps. The two objectives of the program are the creation of twenty-five kingdom companies over the next five years and the adoption of this program by other universities and churches.
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| Getting Down to Business. From Micro-Enterprise to Frontier Missions, Business is Booming in YWAM :: Stacey Jillson |
 Sam Wilson (not his real name) is a YWAM staff member. He's also a businessman who has been in business in India for three years. "We felt called to an affluent business community in India," Sam explains, "and it was important to us to be business people to penetrate that community." Sam started out three years ago with a low-scale business but quickly found out that wouldn't work. "The expectation of our neighbors and peers was that we should do 'real' business."
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| Where There Are No Jobs: Economic Development as Holistic Christian Ministry :: Review by Ralph Winter |
 This man, Befus, is currently head of the Latin America Mission, has spent 25 years in hands-on economic development, and has an MBA plus a PhD. One of his writings published by Indiana University is "From Assistance to Enterprise: the Re-Engineering of World Vision Community Development." He points out that while people need to work to make a living, giving them a living without enabling them to be productively involved themselves is no solution.This is an absolutely fabulous book, based on extensive and in-depth experience. Loaded with insights that are anything but arm-chair, yet perceptive of basic themes and principles. Very knowledgeable about secular approaches, very realistic about human failure.
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