May Our Faith Be Bigger Than Our Business Plans I've been deeply moved by the biography of Lilian Trasher, a young missionary to Egypt in the early 20th Century. When Lilian was just a teenager, the Lord began speaking to her about her future on the mission field,...
Principles of Biblical Entrepreneurship: Principles from Personal Experience I had the honor and the privilege to work at a Christian faith-based business before I came up to Minneapolis for school. I was grateful to work under a leadership team that was emphatic...
Following last week’s article on Principles of Biblical Entrepreneurship from Matthew 6:33, I want to take us about a direction that I have come to see from my personal experience working under some fellow Christian entrepreneurs. I spoke with a husband & wife...
Principles of Biblical Entrepreneurship: Lessons from Matthew 6:33 Entrepreneurship is a tough assignment. There are many challenges that business owners face daily. Through our “Principles of Biblical Entrepreneurship” letters, I hope that you are encouraged to find...
Is there any eternal value to your day job? Is it possible to find gospel meaning in your "secular" career? If you really love Jesus, shouldn't you quit your job and go into full-time ministry? How does your everyday work have anything to do with God's mission in the...
Preunderstanding: What is Workism? Workism is “the belief that work is not only necessary to economic production, but also the centerpiece of one’s identity and life’s purpose; and the belief that any policy to promote human welfare must always encourage more work.”1...
We have a passion for unreached people groups and BAM consulting here at The Stone Table. Three billion people around the world have no adequate witness of the Gospel, and a major portion of our mission investment is aimed at proclaiming Jesus and planting the Church...
Being a leader of any kind is scary. The responsibility can be incredibly heavy – for the vision, for the finances, for the people, for the impact on your family. But over the past few years, I've uncovered the most terrifying reality I face as a Christian leader in...
Recently, I was thinking about business and life, and I realized that I tend to have many daily reflections of the work I do. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t reflect on my work every day, 24/7, but I’ll notice when specific ideas start to come up more during certain...
Back in 2017, The Stone Table partnered with four Indiana churches to underwrite the start-up costs of a small portfolio of BAM (Business as Mission) projects around the world. One of the most impactful (and let’s face it, most fun) is a CrossFit Gym in Alexandria,...
And at The Stone Table, we define BAM this way: Business as mission is the intentional integration of business and ministry to create a sustainable, missional presence of the kingdom of God in a particular community. Across the globe, all kinds of marketplace work is being embraced as a Great Commission opportunity to take the Gospel to every ethnos. We have missionary entrepreneurs that are starting sustainable farms, tourism companies, CrossFit gyms, and coffee shops in areas devoid of Gospel witness. We have gig economy workers like graphic designers and book editors that are moving their base of operations to strategic missions’ outposts. We have take-a-job missionaries that are partnering with local church planting teams and are embedding in local corporations that are moving them to unreached parts of the world. We have business owners that are franchising their models to missionary teams that could take the Gospel into places that traditional missionaries cannot go. And missionary investors are underwriting the risky startup costs of these strategic BAM projects through grant and investment dollars. And they’re embracing this multiple bottom-line definition of success and Great Commission returns.
So, what is the Great Commission? Do you know? The Great Commission is Jesus’ last instructions to his disciples as he ascended into heaven. These instructions weren’t just for professional pastors and missionaries. Jesus’ words were aimed at all of us who call him “Lord,” including those of us with marketplace jobs. Look at Matthew 28:19. It says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” It says “go,” to move out, to train up followers of all nations. And the Greek word here is actually ethnos. It’s ethnos or a people joined by similar customs or culture. We can better translate this word, not as geo-political nation states, but as people groups. And Jesus said to go make disciples of all of them. But the Joshua Project estimates there as many as 7,400 unreached people groups in the world today. These 7,400 people groups total 3.1 billion people or 42% of the global population. And for many of these people, were not just talking about a general disinterest in Christianity, we’re talking no access to the Gospel. If you are born into this 42%, there is a good chance that you will live and die without ever as much as meeting a Christian let alone hearing the life-giving message of Jesus. And this should disturb all of us. See, if you belong to Jesus, the Great Commission belongs to you.
That’s why two recent Barna surveys on global missions and evangelism really shocked and troubled me. Maybe you saw these. According to Barna, over half of all churchgoers, 51%, are completely unfamiliar with the concept of the Great Commission. But I think even more disturbing, they found almost half of practicing Christian millennials believe that evangelism is wrong. And perhaps these responses reflect a rejection of some historical missions’ missteps that were rooted more in western colonialism than the gospels full redemptive work. Perhaps, but I fear something worse. I fear God’s people may actually be losing God’s heart for the nations. I fear we’ve turned the Great Commission into more of a great suggestion. If we really love people, won’t we move heaven and earth to tell them how their sins can be forgiven, how they can find union with their heavenly father, and how they can function in the fullness of the resurrection power of Jesus Christ. The answer is yes, and we passionately believe that mobilizing entrepreneurship, business, and the marketplace is a vital part of that Great Commission calling.