Name: DEREK BROWN
Topic: BUSINESS - AS MISSION
Content:
The Ideas we inherit – and the things we are passing on
Filed under Community transformation
Stalin famously said ‘ideas are more powerful than guns’. Ideas change our thinking and as our thinking changes, so does our behavior and our actions.
Recently I have been looking back at times in history when business and mission have been connected. Although the term ‘business as mission’ is a fairly new one, there have been numerous points in the history of the Church where business strategy and mission strategy have been somehow integrated. This integration had much to do with how people were thinking at the time, reflecting both the ideas they had inherited and the mindset that they were intentionally trying to pass on.
It has been said before that the current emphasis and growing activity in business as mission is part of a broader paradigm shift in the global church, a long, slow shift in thinking sometimes referred to as the ‘breaking down of the sacred-secular divide’. Today when we talk about the sacred-secular divide, we often mean the latent tendency by evangelical Christians to label some activities as spiritual, worshipful or ‘sacred’ and others as material, worldly or ‘secular’ and to, consciously or unconsciously, ascribe value to those activities accordingly. In practical terms, as we break down this divide in our thinking, we begin to integrate the whole of our life with our faith and values, we see our work and our business as a gift from God and as an arena for service to Him.
Over the years, as I have talked with those involved in business as mission, a breakthrough in thinking has almost always been part of their journey. As I consult with those preparing to launch into missional business, people often relate that a great barrier for them is the lack of understanding among Christian friends or from their church as to how business could glorify God. In some cultures the ‘barrier to action’ is higher than others, whether it is overtly expressed or not. For many Christian communities business is irrevocably tainted, the working life is not valued and if you want to really serve God the best thing you can do is to give up business and do something more ‘spiritual’.
We are still very much in a season of breaking out of ‘old ways’ of thinking!
However, looking back a couple of hundred years, we have a different picture. Many Christians in the 1700-1800s had the firm idea that they could change society and serve God through the arena of their vocation. Some of the global brands we know and love today: Cadbury’s, Boots and Guiness were started by business people who were weaving into their business strategy a clear goal to transform their communities, to bring about change in their own society. These were men and women committed to doing good, but crucially it had to make good business sense too. Alongside them, influential Christians like William Wilberforce, Lord Shaftsbury and others were working for change in other spheres.
William Carey, who is often called the father of modern missions, had a very rounded approach to his mission to India during the 1790s and into the new century. His biographers Ruth and Vishal Mangalwadi 1 describe how Carey put a lot of effort into translating and printing scriptures because he understood that individuals first needed to repent and know Christ, that personal transformation was the pre-requisite to family and societal transformation. However, Carey did not stop there. The Mangalwadi’s describe how he got involved in education, scientific advancement, social reform, literacy projects, healthcare, media and also in business and industry. He was involved in bringing innovation and new technology into the weaving, printing and forestry industry, and he started the first savings banks. Carey’s influence in Indian society was broad and lasting.
These are some of the famous cases from past centuries. Many hundreds and thousands more must have been quietly serving God through their business or working lives, just as many hundreds and thousands of Christians are today, whether that is in their home town or in another country. The point is that our actions and our working models reflect our ideas about work, vocation and service to God, as was the case for Christians in the 1700s and 1800s.
Some of the roots for the ideas they inherited were put down in the Reformation in the 16th Century. Martin Luther was the first to use the word ‘vocatio’ or calling to apply to all types of work. He went against the prevailing idea that the Priesthood or becoming a Monk was the true spiritual vocation. He realized that biblical values needed to be worked out in the context of ordinary life and that daily work is an arena for service to God. John Calvin reinforced this theme with his ‘doctrine of callings’, as he taught spiritual principles among the traders and artisans of Geneva. Gradually what became known later as the ‘Protestant work ethic’ emerged amongst Christians in Europe in the 17th Century and then through the Puritans into the New World.
The Moravians, themselves religious refugees in Europe, launched one of the first church mission movements in the early 1700s. They were artisans and traders who started enterprises necessary for the survival of their own displaced community in Hernhutt, East Germany. When they then embarked on overseas missions, they instinctively integrated enterprise. Their leader Count Zinzendorf reflected Protestant attitudes to work when he said “man works not only to live, but man lives that he may work”. 2 In Zinzendorf’s writings he expressed that the missionaries should earn their own living first for the benefit of the people to which they were sent, in order to teach the people the dignity of labour, and then for their own good, to support themselves. 3
And this in turn brings me to a related question. If the ideas we inherit are so important, if our actions are confined or expanded by the ideas we embrace, what ideas are we in turn passing on?
The Moravians realized, in the tradition of the Apostle Paul and Martin Luther, that the context of business and of working life is a powerful arena for discipleship, precisely because that is where we spend our lives. We are able to live out Christian values and apply a biblical way of thinking in the daily grind of a business.
Paul the Apostle had numerous reasons for being in the business of leatherworking or making tents. In modern times we have loaded up the metaphor of ‘tentmaking’ with so much meaning of our own, we have lost some of the original intent (pun intended!). A key reason that Paul gave to the church in Thessalonica for being in trade was to provide a model for new believers; ‘….with toil and labour we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you. This was not because we do not have that right, but in order to give you an example to imitate.’ 2 Thess. 3:8b-9. Paul was addressing a work ethic problem in the Thessalonian church and he set out to deliberately counter the sacred-secular divide of the day, a Greek mindset that disdained work. Paul not only challenges prevailing attitudes towards work through his writings, but he very intentionally provides a living model for the new believers to follow.
If our life in business is a powerful means of discipleship, then we must be intentional and careful about what we are modeling. Do we have lingering areas of divided thinking? Do we unconsciously place more value on certain activities over others?
I have observed that people often get into business as mission type activities with a particular focus or motivation, perhaps it is to start a social enterprise based community development project or to evangelize amongst an unreached people group. There is nothing wrong with being motivated in a particular way. However, often this quite narrow starting focus becomes much broader when those involved begin to see the wider impact that their business is having, or could potentially have, in terms of social, spiritual, environmental, political and economic transformation.
The paradigm shift we are experiencing today in our attitudes to business, mission and service to God are necessary because Christians in the 20th Century became much more polarized in their outlook. To simplify history a great deal, getting people saved became the focus for evangelicals, so in contrast, ministry to meet other needs became distracting or secondary. ‘Mission’ took on a much more exclusive meaning.
The challenge for us, even as we engage in business as mission, is not to polarize but to keep thinking biblically about mission and about business. If our business as mission enterprises are just a means to an end or reduced to a particular strategy, then we will pass on that way of thinking to the new believers around us. Is the daily act of hard work and honesty in our transactions as ‘sacred’ or glorifying to God as the opportunity to share our testimony with words? Does creating jobs line up as an important outcome for our business alongside sharing the gospel? The challenge is to keep transforming our own thinking so that we can embrace the fullness of what it means to be a missional business.
Footnotes
1 Ruth and Vishal Mangalwadi, The Legacy of William Carey Crossway Books 1999
2 Plitt, H. Zinzendorfs Theologie (Zinzendorf’s Theology), 3 Volumes, Gotha 1869-1874, p428
3 Weinlick, J.R. Count Zinzendorf, 1956, p100; cited in Danker, W.J. Profit for the Lord, 1971, p32
Additional Resources
Lifework – Darrow Miller, 2009 – subtitled a biblical theology for what you do everyday, essential for understanding the historical and contemporary worldviews that influence your thinking.
The Integrated Life – Ken Eldred, 2010 – invites us to change our minds and as a consequence to change our action in the world through business.
Business as Mission – Michael Baer, 2006 – explores ‘the seamless integration of business and mission’ in this pioneering BAM focused book.
The Missional Entrepreneur – Mark Russell, 2010 - gives a comprehensive overview of how Paul’s tentmaking connected with his mission, along with a lot more on principles and practices for business as mission.
Profit for the Lord – William Danker, 1971, 2002 – tells the story of how the Moravians and the Basel Mission Trading Company integrated business and mission.
Business Power for God’s Purpose – Suter and Gmür, 1997 – gives an overview of historical examples of missional business and lessons to be learned.
The Legacy of William Carey – Ruth and Vishal Mangelwadi, 1999 – along with other books written by them about Carey, this book is subtitled ‘a model for the transformation of a culture’.
Evangelical Faith and Public Zeal – John Wolffe (Ed), 1995 – collection of essays on how evangelical affected society in Britain, 1780-1980
Jo Plummer edits the Business as Mission e.zine. Visit their website www.businessasmission.com
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