Blog


Apr 18

Business as Mission: Creative Parnerships for the Gospel Here and Abroad

2013 | by Trent Hunter | Category: Church Planting

As part of our Spring for SNAP initiative, we’re hosting a Business as Mission Workshop this Saturday at DSC from 9:00 AM – 3:30 PM. As you consider joining us, here are answers to a few questions you might be asking.

What is the “Business as Mission” (BAM) Workshop?

This workshop is designed for two purposes. The first purpose is to help all of us better grasp the opportunity for the gospel that is before us in all of our jobs and vocations.

The second purpose is to help us begin to partner as a church in creatively supporting the work of SNAP through our respective vocations.

What do we mean by that? We’re not talking fund raising. We’re talking about skill and business resource sharing. Let me explain.

Are you a lawyer? Our SNAP team will be entering what is called a creative access country requiring a legitimate job identity in order to carry out their primary agenda of gospel ministry. They will need help setting up an LLC in the US to further legitimize their work. You can help with that.

Or, here’s another example. Let’s say you make candlesticks. Maybe candlesticks are in need in our target country. You could be a supplier and our missionaries can sell your candlesticks. Or maybe you can help our missionaries establish a candlestick business of their own. Or maybe our missionaries will be making widgets, and you can help as a consultant in manufacturing processes.

What outcome should we pray for?  

Creative access countries need sending churches to be creative. We’re praying for God to grow our church in seeing our vocations, skills, and business resources as assets that can be creatively employed for the sake of the church’s mission. Then, out of this we are praying for creative solutions, skills, and business resources to emerge from within our body in support of our SNAP initiative.

What’s the Schedule?

9:00 AM to 12:00 PM – Business as Mission Foundations: 3 sessions covering the Biblical and historical “why?” and “what?” of BAM

12:00 PM-1:30 PM – Lunch break

1:30 – 3:30 PM – Business as Mission Practice: 2 sessions covering the “how?” for specific SNAP initiative, including next steps for our church

If you want to come, just show up on Saturday morning. No registration required. Email global@desertspringschurch.org with questions.

Who is leading the workshop? 

We will be joined by three workshop leaders:

Larry W. Sharp is the Founder and current Director of Strategic Partnerships of a Business for Transformation consulting firm, International Business and Education Consultants (www.ibecventures.com). He has served 21 years in Brazil and 19 years as Crossworld VP of Operations and currently as Vice President of Business Partnerships. Since 2007 he has devoted energies toward Business as Mission themes. He holds degrees in Bible, business (B.A. Seattle Pacific University), and education (M.A. Azusa Pacific University) and a Ph.D. (University of Calgary, Canada) in comparative sociology of education and administration. He has spent most of his career in education and supervisory roles. While in Brazil he served as teacher and headmaster of the Amazon Valley Academy (15 years) and President of the Missão Cristã Evangélica do Brasil for six years.

Ben Briggs moved to China at age 25 to start a leather factory. Knowing practically nothing about manufacturing, business management, leather, or Chinese, Ben and his Dallas-based bosses at Barrington engaged business for mission. Over the ensuing eight years, the factory grew to 100 people producing high-end goods for Ritz-Carlton, Neiman Marcus, Tommy Bahama, the PGA, and more. But most importantly, Ben’s team hired and mentored several deaf, handicapped, and Down syndrome employees, using their business as a platform to bless employees, glorify God, and benefit the community.

Dean Callison serves as a Sixteen:Fifteen Business As Mission Coach. Dean is a Certified Financial Planner and has spent the last 25 years doing financial and philanthropic consulting. Dean has assisted many stewards in the transfer of financial resources to missional projects around the world but he is especially interested in assisting stewards with gifts of time and talent to help the growing Business As Mission movement. Dean is pleased to assist Sixteen:Fifteen, influence churches and individual stewards towards real business and real missional efforts in the least reached areas of the world. Dean has a degree in Business and Economics from Taylor University. Sixteen:Fifteen exists to help local churches discover and use their unique gifts in partnership with others to make Christ known among all nations. Sixteen:Fifteen’s vision is to coach 1,000 churches toward a strategic missions focus, resulting in an incremental $1 billion invested to reach 1,000 unreached people groups around the world within the next 10 years.