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The Business as Mission Ecosystem Map: A New Interactive Tool

by | Jan 23, 2025 | Articles, BAM, Resources

Business as mission is a growing movement around the world. It is not our movement but the move of God through His people.

In 2004, the first global consultation on business as mission took place under the auspices of the Lausanne Forum. Around ninety people took part altogether and we estimate that at the time there were around 10 BAM-related books and approximately 20 articles, plus a couple dozen entities in early stages of developing BAM networking or resourcing. Twenty years later, there are almost 1000 resources and blogs here in the latest version of the BAM Resource Centre website. In September 2024, at the fourth Lausanne Congress, 2,400 people (nearly half of the total attendees) reported that they were interested in a workplace track.

Today our opportunities in business as mission include: a growing awareness and acceptance of BAM as a strategy in the global Church, a greater breadth and depth of expertise in the business as mission ecosystem with more specialization and functionality, and growing communication and collaboration between respective parts.

Yet, there is still a dissonance between the God-given potential of business for His kingdom purposes and the way that many Christians perceive business as inherently evil or corrupt. Businesses and business people remain a relatively untapped resource for intentional mission impact.

Our barriers remain: ongoing skepticism, outstanding resource siloes, lack of resources in critical regions and languages, and lack of easy access to existing resources.

If we are going to leverage the opportunities before us and overcome these barriers to BAM growth, we cannot waste an ounce of energy in pride or division. Christ has called us all as a global body, and He has commissioned us to redeem culture, to free the captives, to bless the nations, and to see the good news of the gospel proclaimed to the ends of the earth (see for example, Colossians 1:19-20Luke 4:18-19Genesis 12:2-3Matthew 28:19-20).

Howard Hendricks once described church ministry as a football game with, “Twenty-two men in need of rest and forty thousand people in the stands in need of exercise.

We need everyone in the game. We need a diverse range of expertise and experience in the BAM ecosystem and better ways for people to collaborate with one another. There is work to be done to mobilize new people, companies and entities—and to enable them to make their vital contribution and connections. That’s the “why” at the heart of the new BAM Ecosystem Map.

Introducing the BAM Ecosystem Map

We are delighted to announce the launch of a new interactive tool for the business as mission community, the BAM Ecosystem Map. Click the image to explore:

 

The purpose of this new tool is to demonstrate the size and breadth of the business as mission ecosystem and help people to navigate it. We hope it will enable greater networking, collaboration, and unity between entities and raise awareness of service providers among BAM practitioners.

One leader reported after reviewing the map, “You have no idea how helpful this will be to me. Still the majority of those in our mission organization feel that business as mission is some niche idea that a few of us have invented. It is difficult to get buy-in. But this map shows that it is not just us! There is a huge move of God taking place here.

Overview of the Map

In the course of our research, the following five categories emerged:

  1. Coaching/Training
  2. Incubation/Acceleration
  3. Recruiting/Mobilization
  4. Capital/Investment
  5. Networking/Events/Prayer

In Part 2 of this blog post, next week, we will unpack each category with a comment on each and referencing the key sources that helped us create the map.

Meanwhile, how did we choose these categories? Well, they are not really new. Rather they are well established categories that reflect the wider ecosystem that any business needs to thrive—and thus are vital to the development of a healthy BAM company.

They are also categories that exist within many organizations within the ecosystem. For example, Triventure is an initiative of three partner entities that together address the needs of BAM practitioners: Third Path Initiative (for training), IBEC (for coaching), and Legacy Generational Foundation (for funding). Nehemiah E-Community has its categories of community, training, coaching, capital, and events. OPEN USA runs its annual B4T expo event and has a department for recruitment and field support services that includes coaching, mentoring, and funding among many other things.

Business incubation often includes the activities of training, investment and networking activities, and in earlier stages of the BAM movement these functions were often carried out by separate entities with a relative lack of dedicated BAM incubators. However, in the last decade or so incubators and accelerators focusing on BAM or Kingdom business have been on the rise (although there is still great need for regional access, industry applications, and greater awareness.) This growth called for a separate section for Incubation/Acceleration, despite there being an overlap with other categories.

How To Use This Map

The BAM Ecosystem Map is intended for three primary audiences:

  1. BAM Practitioners—and those looking to become practitioners
  2. Supporting Organizations and Resource Providers
  3. Newcomers and Researchers—those exploring the BAM community

The goal for everyone is to help them navigate the vast array of resources and entities in the ecosystem and to encourage networking, collaboration, unity, and the sharpening of one another.

For BAM practitioners, as you navigate your journey in business as mission you may be asking:

  • “Where should I start?”
  • “Who should I have in my corner?”
  • “What resources are available to me?”
  • “Who can I network with in my local area?”

The goal of this map is to help answer these questions.

The following example represents a ‘typical path’ for BAM practitioners to take:

In other pathways, a future BAM practitioner may take an internship overseas, join a mission organization, get head hunted by a recruitment agency, or choose to take a job overseas.

For many, however, involvement with the ecosystem will not be so sequential. A practitioner may reach out to a coach to solve a strategic planning issue, then hop on the phone with a recruiter to fill a job opening, and the next moment they might be engaging with a local BAM chapter and considering investment for a joint venture with other entrepreneurs. None of these must be done in any sequential order.

Therefore, another way to think about the BAM Ecosystem is as a web of interconnected resources to be accessed as needs arise.

Yet, even though the BAM Ecosystem works like an interconnected web, there are some standard recommended approaches for new entrepreneurs. For example, it is recommended that most BAM practitioners work with a coach or mentor. Generally this step would come before approaching anyone for investment, though it may come later in the event that a business incubator was approached first.

Challenges and Opportunities

There is much still to be done! Although there are a growing number of pathways into BAM, we see that there is still much work to do to bolster advocacy for BAM and communicate onramps, especially in relatively underserved regions and languages.

Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few” (Matthew 9:37) and that remains true today. As we pray for more laborers to go into the harvest fields, we should consider how we can bring more awareness of business as mission to the broader body of Christ. We need more advocacy and we need to shine a light on the sacred-secular divide that blinds us to the potential for Kingdom impact in everyday work.

There are 169 million migrant workers according to the International Labour Organization (ILO). We live in a world where working cross-culturally is normal, and yet so few Christians have considered taking a job in a less wealthy, less reached place than their own.

While there are a growing number of funds, there are still too few deals being made. Many businesses are going without funding. In some cases, this means that they need better support such as training and coaching. However, it could also mean that the need is for greater education for investors regarding risk tolerance in BAM investments. John Piper once said, “By removing eternal risk, Christ calls His people to continual, temporal risk.

There is a huge need for further collaboration, unity, and networking in the body of Christ around BAM. Our hope is that the Ecosystem Map will help spur more of that on. This might mean more leadership roundtables, localized BAM networks, and further church education and partnerships. Or it may be that increased connection with churches and university programs would be beneficial.

Local ecosystems with incubators at their center and BAM investment funds attached to them are becoming more prevalent. The Agathe Center is a prime example of success in this area, and we hope to see more of this.

May we also sound the alarm and turn to corporate prayer. While it is hard to measure how many are praying, weekly Faith Driven prayer and monthly BAM Global prayer attendance is still far too sparse. “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective” (James 5:16). May we remember the power of prayer.

Finally, we offer this as a first iteration of the BAM Ecosystem Map. There are other ways we could have organized the information and our categorization is by no means perfect. There are also bound to be resources and entities that we have missed, and others that will become rapidly out of date. The map will be continually evolving. The BAM Global team and its partners are committed to keeping this resource live and up to date.

Please help us by submitting missing resources and updates in the ‘Submit a New Resource’ form or contact us to let us know about broken links or errors… Let’s keep this map current!

To learn about how the Map was created, key exclusions, and to dive into an explanation of each category, read part 2.


This article was also posted on the businessasmission.com website in collaboration with their team.

Jon B, with Jo Plummer

Jon has spent his career as a serial entrepreneur and business consultant both in the US and abroad in missions contexts. From a young age he has worked to marry a calling to missions and gifting for business. He is currently the Director of Missional Business Development at The Stone Table and Coach Coordinator for OPEN USA. Jo Plummer is the Creative Director & Co-Founder of BAM Global and the co-editor of the Lausanne Occasional Paper on Business as Mission. She has been developing resources for BAM since 2001 and currently serves as Editor of the Business as Mission website and The BAM Review Blog.

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