Micro-Development Missions

Business As Missions (BAM) is an organization of Christian university students and faculty formed for the following purposes:

1. To make Christians aware of the opportunities and obligations Christian businesspeople have to be involved in and support Christian missions.

Business can be and should be an integral part of missions, not just as a ‘front’ for spreading the gospel in a traditional sense, nor just as a means to financially support more overt evangelistic efforts. Business provides the context to demonstrate Christian lifestyle attributes such as honesty, the golden rule, pursuit of excellence, a work ethic, servant leadership, respect for self and others, and personal responsibility. People living in poverty desperately need this witness.

Business development should strengthen the local church by providing meaningful jobs to local believers, and by producing the profits that fund growth in commercial activity and jobs in the community, the region, and the nation. A business should be understood as a way to bless the lives of all its stakeholders, to provide them with longer, more dignified and less-burdensome lives, as well as a greater range of choices that allow them to make choices that reflect God’s intentions for the highest of His creation.

2. To involve university students and faculty in business missions efforts in a variety of ways, including internships, service projects, survey or field trips, scholarly research, sponsorship of related seminars or programs, and in maintaining an organization website.

Regular meetings educate members on critical topics such as the causes and culture of poverty, Biblical perspectives on poverty and development, business development as a missions tool, business missions in limited-access countries, and principles of microenterprise development and microcredit (MED/MC).

An annual Christmas sale of craft items from developing countries. Ideally, the organization could work with missionaries to obtaining craft items from the people groups with whom they work.

A four-six week internship is being planned for the summer of 2007. Dr. David Johnson will accompany a select few students to Uganda and Rwanda for an internship focused on Christian economic development opportunities in the “Two-thirds World.” Participants wil study the critical aspects of Christian economic development before departure. While in Africa the students will visit mission sites identified with the Churches of Christ to observe, study, and participate in development projects, as well as to conduct research on other business opportunities in the areas visited.

3. To initiate and maintain an up-to-date record of past and present economic development ministry efforts undertaken by missions identified with the Churches of Christ, to serve as a resource for future programs.

The most prominent expression of this will be the development and maintenance of this website, which is dedicated to Christian business development missions. In time, it will provide a record of past and present efforts. This resource will be developed with the cooperation of and for the use of current and prospective missionaries. It will serve the information needs of missionaries, sponsoring churches, and donors, as well as Christian students and faculty. Eventually, these resources may be expanded to include print- and digital-format materials, and possibly courses in business/economic development ministry. This could eventually result in formal university curricula and a degree offering in economic development ministry.

4. To encourage research on the role of business enterprises in promoting Christian mission efforts in the U.S. and abroad.

The focus will be on micro-development (MED and MC) programs for several reasons:

Faulkner BAM - Who Are We?