Missions Textbook 31 Business as Mission (BAM)

We Never Saw It Coming: An Introduction to Christian Missions (textbook)

  • Business as Mission (BAM)
  • Business for Transformation (B4T)
  • Business4Blessing (B4B)

Business as Mission (BAM)[1] is a for-profit business run by followers of Jesus for the purpose of evangelizing and planting churches in cultures that do not allow traditional mission work. This ministry requires a team of business and ministry people who work together to make the business succeed, while reaching out with the Gospel to that culture at the same time. They do not label themselves as missionaries, but as normal people running a business in a foreign country/culture.

Raising the money to go to the mission field has always been a huge hurdle for many prospective missionaries. Once in their country of choice, money can continue to be one of the biggest stressors. Business as Mission can be a great option in some countries, especially those closed to traditional missionaries.

This idea was once called Tentmaking and was inspired by the apostle Paul who moved to Corinth and found a job there – making tents with Priscilla and Aquila – to support his missionary team (Acts 18:1-5). Paul also wrote in First Thessalonians 2:9 that while he was in that city, “. . . how working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, we proclaimed to you the gospel of God.” This approach to missions has been around a long time. The Moravians reached dozens of countries with this approach.[2]

The current BAM movement began in the mid-20th century with Ruth Seimens, J. Christy Wilson and Ken Crowell. One of the best articles written to describe the BAM movement is from Dr. Steve Rundle. If you are interested in this approach, you must read his extensive article.[3] The movement has developed into a full-blown approach to missions worldwide with hundreds of opportunities.

This method requires lots of preparation and is being widely used around the world today. It requires a team capable of navigating the business world in a foreign language and foreign culture, while remembering their main motivation and goal is evangelism and church planting, not just making money. One huge advantage is that the business will probably provide much-needed jobs for nationals as well.

BAM isn’t about getting a job with a big corporation or with the state department. Those jobs require too much work time, and the believer has little time left over for evangelism, church planting and teaching. Paul had the freedom to give up his tentmaking work to spend more time in direct ministry (Acts 18:5).

Let us tell you a couple stories.

I have taught church planting classes for a number of years, and I have always included BAM as one of the alternatives. In one of my first classes, I set up six teams of two students each to set up a mock business and business plan for starting a Business as Mission in a foreign country. Each team had to do extensive research on their country and proposed business, and then present their idea to the class for initial evaluation before writing up a complete project to present to the class at the end of the semester.

One of the things I had to explain to them was the concept of investment capital, money given by a lender (bank or private person) who believed that the business would make enough money over a short period of time for the investor to get a decent return on his initial investment. When the six teams submitted their projects, I asked a group of business friends (lawyers, realtors, etc.) to evaluate those projects for me. They were delighted. One week later they gave me and my students their evaluations. Four teams would have needed to do a lot more research to discover that their plans were not that seriously feasible. The fifth team was informed that with some serious tweaking, those businessmen were willing to find the investment capital for that business plan. One of the businessmen informed the sixth team that he had already reached out to an investment source and received approval for the investment loan if the students wanted to carry through with their proposed business! They didn’t. They stayed in college.

In another class, one team had decided to start a touring drama group in Spain. They were deflated when they were asked if a touring drama group would go over well in Spain. They had no idea. I told them to look for something that the Spanish people would easily recognize and understand as a business. The next week they returned, elated. On the internet they had found a coffee shop business for sale on the Mediterranean coast of Spain. The entire business, including the building and equipment and work permits were all included for a price of $35,000. I advised them to drop out of college and go for it. They didn’t. Two got married, and the others stayed in school.

Normally such an endeavor requires a team, but years ago I heard of an individual who set up his own business, that of searching for and procuring rare books for professors in universities, especially in European universities. The searching took a lot of time, and therefore he charged a lot of money for each book, sometimes four figures for one book. He chose to live in Morocco. He had studied enough Arabic and French to run his business properly. He received a business license and witnessed to his friends and business acquaintances without causing any fervor. One day he “hired” an assistant to help him, but a few months later the assistant was arrested for talking about Jesus in public, which was against the law in Morocco. They both were taken to court. The assistant was deported immediately, but the judge apparently said that the Moroccan constitution did not allow the deportation of anyone who held a business visa. The judge asked the businessman to restrict expressing his views about Jesus in a way that was not publicly visible and dismissed the case. This approach requires a large amount of ingenuity and personal ability. Most people work in teams in BAM ministries.

Take a look at these two testimonies: one from a national who was helped by a BAM endeavor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf85d9weIx8 and one from the founder of that business: https://youtu.be/fhS8TBqsRZc.

[1] https://businessasmission.com

[2] https://www.moravian.org/2018/07/a-brief-history-of-the-moravian-church/

[3] https://businessasmission.com/emergence-bam-movement/

We Never Saw It Coming: An Introduction to Christian Missions (textbook)

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