Barrington is an amazing Kingdom company based out of Dallas with a manufacturing facility in China. I was blessed to get to know them last year and help a little bit as the worked through some organizational development challenges. Here’s how the Dallas News describes Barrington:

The plant is a Chinese anomaly. Barrington pays above-market wages with health insurance and maternity leave. Workers receive financial planning, continuing education and summertime camps for their kids. In a society that shuns the disabled, Barrington hires the physically challenged and invests in orphanages that minister to children with special needs.

“Gil and I run the company based on Christian values where everybody is intrinsically valuable, whether they’re here or in China, able or disabled,” Gowdey says.

It’s such a blessing to see how something so seemingly inconsequential as a piece of luggage can serve not only to carry the Lord’s name before kings (and presidents). But it also serves to multiply the blessings of people on the other side of the world, through employment, increased standard of living, and most importantly through the love of Christ shared with them and demonstrated to them by the efforts of David, Gil, and Ben. To me, this is validation that marketing strategy and business strategy can both be powerful components of our Kingdom strategy.

• Response to global trends
• Challenges facing the organization
• Perceived benefits of Business as Mission

In Part 1 of this series I discussed the first driver, identifying key trends facing missions organizations. In Part 2 I discussed how organizational challenges makes BAM an attractive solution for missions organizations. Finally, in this post I will identify some of the perceived benefits of Business as Mission and discuss some misconceptions that are common among missions organizations.

3. Perceived benefits of Business as Mission

Missions organization generally cite the following benefits that they believe Business as Mission will create for their organization (ranked by frequency of identification):

1. Creative Access
2. Job Creation
3. Influence/Witness
4. Funding/Revenue Generation
5. Developing Organizational Capabilities
6. Enhanced Recruiting

I will dive deeper into each of those in future posts. Generally, the perceived benefits created by Business as Mission fall in one of two categories: those that create advantage for furthering strategic objectives (job creation, influence/witness, developing organizational capabilities) or those that specifically address challenges facing the organization (creative access, funding/revenue generation, enhanced recruiting).

Here’s what field-level leadership from around the world has to say about the benefits of BAM:

“It takes us into arenas where our traditional missionaries would not venture. Business leaders have increasing clout here, and they are also aggressively pursuing opportunities in the opening markets all across the 10-40 Window. Probably Business and Education give the best opening for what we would like to see in terms of placing people in Creative Access countries.”

“I see several benefits. First, it provides a natural platform from which to interact with people. As a missionary in France I frequently was viewed as clergy and ‘I had to say those spiritual things’. But as people got to know me as an engineer, they were much more open to dialogue on spiritual things. Secondly, I do see that funding missions will be a growing issue worldwide and in the US as well. So BAM provides a natural partial solution to that as well. Also, I see BAM as addressing one of the spiritual qualifications listed by Paul to Timothy – that of having experience that is recognized by the world. In today’s information-overload world, people are no longer validated by a title (like missionary or pastor) but by their contribution to the local society. I see BAM as a validating tool for the Gospel.”

Recommendation:

As your organization thinks about what makes BAM an attractive Kingdom strategy, you need to be able to differentiate between:

• BAM as a complement to existing strategy, furthering the impact of current efforts;
• BAM as a series of steps for fixing existing problems.

This distinction is important because integrating business into a traditional missions environment is complex and requires new skills, knowledge, and capabilities to execute. When individuals or organizations are driven by the belief that business will alleviate many of the current challenges inhibiting missions efforts it is possible to underestimate the effort required. This will create additional risk to your organization or to your field personnel which can ultimately lead to failure of the business effort and/or cause unnecessary damage.

Conclusion:

Though some would argue that adopting Business as Mission requires too great of a paradigm shift for traditional missions effort, I believe that in light of these factors I’ve discussed here Business as Mission is a good strategy for missions organizations to pursue. This is why Unconventional Method is committed to helping missions and ministry organizations understand and embrace BAM strategies.

Many of the factors that are eroding the effectiveness of traditional missionary activities are creating greater opportunities for businesses. Taking advantage of these opportunities and integrating business into your organization will also create side benefits that may address many of the other challenges facing your organization.

However, my experience has shown that organizational motivations that lead to a desire to integrate Business as Mission as a strategy contribute more to the success of a BAM initiative than almost any other factor. It is critical for any missions organization considering Business as Mission that key leadership, especially the executive sponsor and champion of your BAM efforts, make sure that it will contribute to your organization’s larger ministry goals first, before focusing on BAM’s unique benefits (job creation, increase influence, development of capabilities) or how it can mitigate some of the challenges facing the organization (access to closed countries, funding, recruiting).

Below are some key questions that will help you to understand the motivations that are leading your organization to consider Business as Mission as a strategy:

Response to trends

• What major trends are affecting your organization? How is your organization being affected?
• How do these trends affect the business environment in the areas that you operate?
• Do you monitor changes in global trends? How would changes to the current trends impact a Business as Mission strategy?
• What additional trends will you need to be aware of if you integrate business into your organization?

Challenges facing the organization

• Does your leadership team agree on what are the top challenges facing the organization?
• What are the root causes of these challenges?
• How are you monitoring/measuring the impact of these challenges?
• In what other ways are you addressing these issues?
• Do you understand how Business as Mission can address these challenges?

Unique benefits of BAM

• Which benefits of BAM are most important to your organization? At the leadership level? At the field level?
• What could limit the potential of BAM?
• What needs to be in place in order for your organization to capture the BAM benefits?

My research shows that interest in Business as Mission is typically in response to three (3) drivers:

• Response to global trends
• Challenges facing the organization
• Perceived benefits of Business as Mission

In this article, I will discuss the first driver, identifying key factors facing missions organizations and making recommendations on how much weight these issues should be given when considering BAM. In Part 2 I will discuss how organizational challenges can make BAM an attractive solution and how to maintain objectivity in your evaluation. Finally, in Part 3 I will discuss some of the perceived benefits that BAM creates and hopefully point out some limitations in this type of thinking that, if ignored, could harm your BAM efforts.

1. Business as Mission in response to global trends

The following sets of global trends are contributing to the increasing popularity of Business as Mission as a missional strategy. This list is limited in scope focusing on what are the most prevalent trends that are currently affecting missions organizations. Additionally, this list primarily focuses on North American sending organizations. We do not discuss generational challenges here because the implications of the trend in the business context are not understood well enough by organizations that they are looking to BAM as a potential response.

The six main trends we’ve identified are:

Impediments to traditional missions:

• Governmental opposition to Christian work within world’s most populous countries (the 10/40 Window).
• Declining financial and prayer support for North American based missionaries.

Changes to the international landscape:

• Increased integration of international markets and trade (globalization).
• Increased importance of the differences between nations (internationalization).
• Devaluation of the United States dollar against world currencies.
• Widespread poverty and under-employment throughout the world.

I believe that Business as Mission has the potential to satisfy the needs that are being created in the global missions environment by these macro-trends. However, BAM’s contributions to each of these areas are secondary benefits. What I mean by that is the primary benefit of BAM is it creates a context, an audience of employees, customers, and community, for the business leaders to love, serve, minister to and evangelize.

Secondary benefits like job-creation, creative access, profit generation can not be the primary focus of BAM efforts. Using BAM solely as a means for addressing these could undermine the effort required to start and run the business. You face the risk of underestimating the importance of the building blocks of the business model and thus jeopardizing the sustainability of the business. Missions organizations must be cautious not to over-prioritize any of these objectives.

As an organization that is thinking that Business as Mission can address these trends/issues, you are not mistaken. BAM does touch these areas; however, you cannot neglect the following considerations for each trend that, if ignored or misunderstood, could hurt your BAM efforts.

Impediments to traditional missions:

Closed access countries

How BAM helps:
Countries that are closed and/or hostile toward Christian missionary activities are generally welcoming to foreign business investment. Economic contribution is desired by the host government and thus the condition for them giving permission to enter.

Considerations:
Entry into closed access countries is a singular event. Economic contribution requires significant and continuous investment in business activities and thus is an on-going process. A disconnect in thinking about access can lead to misalignment of intentions for missional Christians who view business as an entry strategy.

Declining financial/prayer support

How BAM helps:
Leveraging business as a means for advancing the Kingdom engages western business men and women in a sphere of their life that has historically been a point of contention among the church. As a result, Business as Mission can create an effective means for accessing the resources (prayer, finances, skills, experience, networks) of these individuals.

Considerations:
Donor requests presented as Business as Mission opportunities can reduce the credibility of an missions organization among Christian business men and women. The Business as Mission concept will attract Christian business men and women who desire to use their skills, experience, and networks. Using Business as Mission to solicit donor requests can elicit negative reactions associated with how the church has limited Christian businesspeople in the past.

Changes to the international landscape:

Globalization

How BAM helps:
As global marketplaces are integrating, the opportunity is created to reach individuals within their business/work sphere.

Considerations:
Globalization is a controversial topic and integrating Business as Mission can be interpreted as an endorsement for globalization.

Internationalization

How BAM helps:
Business as Mission is enhanced by internationalization as local workers typically have language skills and cultural knowledge that improves the chances for business success.

Considerations:
There is a predominant assumption (particularly among western Christians) that Business as Mission requires a western resource to go abroad to start/operate a business. Having a western presence in the business is not always appropriate nor does it necessarily create an advantage.

USD devaluation

How BAM helps:
Changes in currency values can be leveraged to maximize the profitability of business activities.

Considerations:
Competitive advantages created by differences in currency valuation can be eroded by shifts in currency markets (e.g. the challenges facing outsourcing companies in India in mid-2008). It is important to take this risk into consideration when evaluating business models.

Poverty/under employment

How BAM helps:
Profitable businesses can contribute to both to job creation and wealth creation within their communities.

Considerations:
Job/wealth considerations are secondary benefits and can not be the primary focus of the business. Job creation without market justification creates a tax on the performance of the company that can threaten sustainability. Additionally, transferring wealth created by the business limits the resources available to reinvest in the business.

Recommendations

Responding to trends is a legitimate rationale for considering Business as Mission, but it can not be the only consideration. To ensure success of any Business as Mission strategy, you must determine whether or not it fits within the main objectives of the organization as defined by your Values, Vision/Mission and Strategic Objectives.

Additionally, global trends are constantly changing. This creates the potential risk that the underlying factors that currently support investment in Business as Mission may not be sustained. As you move forward in integrating Business as Mission, you need to be intentional about reviewing the global environment in order to anticipate shifts in these trends. Additionally, you need to be flexible and responsive so that your efforts are not vulnerable to potential shifts.