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Business as Mission
By Frank Decker

The times, they are a-changing, Bob Dylan sings. And in the world of missions much has been written in the past few years about the fact that the epicenter of Christianity has moved from the Northern Hemisphere to the global South. A hundred years ago Europe and the United States were home to 90 percent of the world’s Christians. But it is projected that in a few years 80 percent of those who follow Christ will be inhabitants of the Southern Hemisphere.

While the center of God’s redemptive activity on the planet seems to have moved southward, the control of economic resources, however, has not. The vast majority of wealth remains in the North. It is in light of this portentous contrast that we discover one of the most relevant and innovative approaches to spread God’s kingdom; business as mission, or “BAM.” 

Johnson Sung* served as a cross-cultural worker living in Asia for 17 years, and has worked full-time for the past 10 years using BAM as a strategy. He serves behind the scenes in ways that are largely unheralded and unpublicized, choosing to work in relative obscurity. In fact, his approach to ministry allows him to “fly under the radar,” allowing ministry to occur among the least-reached peoples of the world where conventional approaches to missions are not permitted.

In changing times, innovative approaches must be employed. So, in contrast to the traditional, Western-based model of ministry that depends on the work of professional clergy, BAM’s primary strategy is to enable church planters to support themselves by developing local businesses. This is bearing fruit in many places. In fact, Sung has been involved in the development of about 240 grassroots church planters among eight ethno-linguistic groups, mostly in places where foreign missionaries are not permitted.

One reason BAM is successful is because it’s biblical. In discussing ministry as we know it in the West, Sung points out, “the church has been willing to adhere to the theology and words of [the Apostle] Paul, but not to his methods”—referring specifically to the fact that in many places Paul and his co-laborers for Christ worked secular jobs to support their ministries.

While Paul did not use this method exclusively, he did use it extensively. The book of Acts as well as Paul’s letters contains many references to this practice (e.g. Acts 20:34, I Cor. 9:6).

A major component in the BAM training that Sung employs requires exercises in “unlearning” the precedent of the previous 200 years of western-based missions that has been characterized by a paradigm of ministry based on outside funding. This poses a particular challenge when successful American businesspersons accompany Sung as learners and consultants, because these men and women are taught to “think small, think feasible,” and avoid the temptation to “throw money” at a situation. So, to the American who wants to help, the process of learning appropriate methods in these contexts can be extremely counter-intuitive. But in the long run, they can also be transformative.

Atlanta-based real estate developer William M. Johnson, a member of the board of directors for both The Mission Society as well as Asbury Theological Seminary, summarizes the impact of mission involvement from the perspective of a successful American businessman: “Prioritizing our resources to join God in his mission has taken us places far from our home-culture…resulting in our acquiring more of God’s perspective of the world.” Johnson’s example bears testimony to the fact that those who are willing to “go there and learn” often result in paradigm shifts that enable more strategic involvement in kingdom advancement.

Another reason the quiet revolution of BAM is bearing fruit is because it is a model that is locally reproducible and self-perpetuating. In each place where Sung trains church planters, he encourages them, as God encouraged Moses, to look at what is “in your hand,” (Exodus 4:2)—using the starting point of their God-given talents and gifts to explore business models. “The poor are not poor because they are not entrepreneurial,” Sung states. “In fact, many of them are able to survive because they are very entrepreneurial.” As a result, the training and encouragement that they receive enables them to develop locally-conceived businesses that support fruitful ministries.

As western churches and mission agencies seek to strategically respond to the Great Commission in these changing times, we should recognize that the sending of cross-cultural workers is still greatly needed. However, “More of the same will not be enough to complete the task of Christ’s Great Commission mandate,” reports Rick Roberts, a vice president at The Mission Society. “It is necessary to employ the business acumen of Christian business people, meeting real human needs in contextual opportunities to share the life-changing hope found in Jesus’ gospel message. That’s why BAM is a strategy of choice for the twenty-first century.”

*a pseudonym



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