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Business as Mission (BAM)

Releasing entrepreneurs and business professionals within the church to transform the world through their business activities

What is Business as Mission (BAM)

Business As Mission (BAM) is a movement of kingdom minded business people whose emphasis is on transforming communities through businesses with an intention to make Jesus known, encountered and followed. BAM recognises that daily work of doing and being in business is one way of engaging with society, bringing the kind of transformation desired by the Christian faith. This approach implies a wholistic mission in which there is a conscious evangelistic engagement with the business world as a place where the Lordship of Christ and the Kingdom of God is hoped for and worked out in the decisions, culture, structures and systems of commercial life. BAM recognizes business is a calling, the business people are fulltime ministers – not just mission supporters, and the marketplace a prime mission field.
BAM also recognize business as an entry point to poverty eradication in Africa.

Vision

African National Economies that are driven by Kingdom businesses.

Mission

To awaken the church to exploit her latent potential for political, economic and social impact.

Objectives

  • To saturate the emerging middle class with biblical values by developing Kingdom businesses through which they can achieve their full potential.
  • To create national champions as effective models.
  • To mobilise investment – micro credit, with trade venture capital.
  • To influence public policy by pursuing long term strategic change.
  • To identify and collaborate with national, regional and global business as mission networks/ initiatives.
  • To build administrative capacity for BAM Africa.
  • To establish a business exchange forum/centre.
  • To train business people in BAM principles and practices.

How we do it:

  • BAM networking forums and conferences
  • Capacity building- training of business people
  • Exposure and awareness campaigns
  • Facilitating business start ups – beacon projects
  • Linking mature businesses with young businesses.

BAM MANIFESTO

  • We believe that God has created all men & women in His image with the ability to be creative, creating good things for themselves and for others - this includes business.
  • We believe in following the footsteps of Jesus, who constantly and consistently met the needs of the people he encountered, thus demonstrating the love of God and the rule of His kingdom.
  • We believe that the Holy Spirit empowers all members of the Body of Christ to serve, to meet the real spiritual and physical needs of others, demonstrating the kingdom of God.
  • We believe that God has called and equipped business people to make a Kingdom difference in and through their businesses.
  • We believe that the Gospel has the power to transform individuals, communities and societies. Christians in business should therefore be a part of this holistic transformation through business.
  • We recognise the fact that poverty and unemployment are often rampant in areas where the name of Jesus is rarely heard and understood.
  • We recognise both the dire need for and the importance of business development. However it is more than just business per se. Business as Mission is about business with a Kingdom of God perspective, purpose and impact.
  • We recognise that there is a need for job creation and for multiplication of businesses all over the world, aiming at the quadruple bottom line: spiritual, economical, social and environmental transformation.
  • We recognise the fact that the church has a huge and largely untapped resource in the Christian business community to meet needs of the world – in and through business - and bring glory to God in the market place and beyond.

(Business as Mission Issue Group October 2004, Lausanne)

Business as Mission pursues...PROFIT

Business must be financially sustainable, producing goods or services that people are willing to pay for. Sustainability implies that the activity is profitable. Profits are an essential element of all businesses, in all cultures. Without profit the business cannot survive and fulfil its purpose. Accordingly, business as mission – promotes real businesses that genuinely exist to generate wealth and profits. Business as mission does not view profits as inherently evil, bad or unbiblical. Quite the contrary, profits are good, desired and beneficial to God and His purposes, as long as they are not oppressive, or derived from gouging customers or selling products and service that do no honour Christ and His gospel.

What you do:

Prayer for the Movement
We call upon the Church world wide to identify, affirm, pray for, commission and release business people and entrepreneurs to exercise their gifts and calling as business people in the world – among all peoples and to the ends of the earth.
We call upon business people globally to receive this affirmation and to consider how their gifts and experience might be used to help meet the world’s most pressing spiritual and physical needs through Business as Mission.

Remember….

In Africa we are applying Business as Mission by means of the quadruple bottom line of transformation; socially, economically, spiritually and environmentally. The real bottom line of Business as Mission is AMDG - ad maiorem Dei gloriam – for the greater glory of God.

 

CONTACT:

CHURCH MISSION SOCIETY (CMS)
850 Chania Avenue, off Ring road Kilimani
P.O. Box 40360- 00100 Nairobi, Kenya
Tel. 2720037/56
Fax. 2714420
Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Website.www.bamafrica.org