Business As Mission Part 2 | Missional Marketplace Podcast S1E11

Speaker 1 [00:00:00] Marketplace skills are missionary skills. Okay. You’re like, I’m not a theologian. I’m not a preacher. Right. I’m not I’m not going be able to teach in a Bible college. That’s okay. Because there are other brilliant people who can and are called to do those things right. But what I want to do is challenge people with marketplace skills. How are you engaging the Great Commission? And I would say marketplace skills are missionary skills. They’re not secular skills, they are missionary skills, they are sacred skills. And you can use these skills to see the church planted in a place where the church is not, where the name of Jesus is not known. And so I want to leave you with that challenge. What are you doing? Marketplace People, what are you doing to move the mission of God forward in the world?

Speaker 2 [00:00:57] It’s time for your favorite podcast and my favorite podcast. It is the Missional Marketplace podcast. I am your cohost Darren Cooper with my brother here, Eric Cooper. Eric, how are we today?

Speaker 1 [00:01:11] We’re doing great. Yeah, it is. At least it’s your favorite podcast and my favorite podcast. You know, at least the two of us believe in it, right?

Speaker 2 [00:01:18] You know, it’s actually I take that all back. It’s Mom’s favorite, but it’s me real. Let’s be real about it.

Speaker 1 [00:01:26] There is no doubt about that. I can assure you this is our mother’s favorite.

Speaker 2 [00:01:29] Absolutely. So shout out to mom. I know you’re listening right now. We love you. It’s it’s good to have you here. So.

Speaker 1 [00:01:35] Yeah, well, hopefully it’s making a little impact on a few people outside of the immediate family is.

Speaker 2 [00:01:39] Absolutely absolutely. And it’s been fun watching the numbers grow as we kind of check that those stats you know you try it’s not about numbers but you always got to look every once in a while see how it’s going. So thank you. Thank you. For those of you who are watching on YouTube or even on Spotify, you can see it on Spotify now, which is crazy, very cool. And if you’re listening and following along with this, thank you for joining on this journey. We hope it’s been informative and encouraging along the way. It’s right. And so we are in episode 11 here, Eric.

Speaker 1 [00:02:11] Where we are close to the end and we.

Speaker 2 [00:02:13] Are we are almost done with this season one walking through your book Missional Marketplace, right? It’s been kind of our framework and you have that kind of the three sections of the book and we are in the we’re in remind me of the name of it because it’s totally went out of my brain.

Speaker 1 [00:02:30] We didn’t work in the great story, work in the great commandment. Now we’re at work and the great commission there. That’s right. We’re talking talking about global missions and how all of us are called to be on that journey.

Speaker 2 [00:02:44] Absolutely. And last week, we talked really specifically about business as mission or what we will say, bam, moving forward. Or if you hear us say bam, that’s what we mean. Business as mentioned, we kind of open that conversation up a little bit. That’s right. And this is kind of part two of that conversation, diving a little bit deeper. But one thing we did last week that I thought was really good, I just want to have you recap it a little. Sure. It was was to define what we mean when we say bam. Yeah, right. Because like we’ve said before, and if you heard us last week, when you hear business as mission, you could people will think all kinds of different things.

Speaker 1 [00:03:22] Right.

Speaker 2 [00:03:22] So when we specifically say that, what does that look like for us here at the Stone Table? Sure. On this podcast.

Speaker 1 [00:03:29] Sure. Yeah. We’ve we’ve incorporated our partners at the at the Bam office, the business mission office that work with assume or they work with tons of different agencies, but they’re rooted in Assemblies of God World missions. They work with our live dead friends all over the world. But this is the, I guess, the definition we’ve adopted in correlation of our partnership with them. And that is that 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. Right? So it’s the intentional integration of business and ministry to create a sustainable missional presence of the Kingdom of God in a particular community. And so we obviously we’ve been talking about this for 11 weeks now. Right. But we believe the marketplace is a sacred place redeemed by the gospel. Right. And so we see that the marketplace and business as mission, as an opportunity to take the name of Jesus to places where the name of Jesus is not known, where the gospel is not known, because the marketplace can create these these integration opportunities. So we can go in with a business model, but we can utilize that through the sacredness of the marketplace to do ministry. Yes, to proclaim Jesus, to plant the church, and to create really a missional presence of the Kingdom of God in an area that maybe is devoid of John Kingdom.

Speaker 2 [00:05:04] Yeah. And it’s it’s been you know, last week we talked about well, I guess we told a lot of stories last week, shared some stories of how this is working, what it looks like, all that kind of stuff. And and so if you haven’t had a chance to listen to part one, obviously go back and do that. Yeah, because it has some really good just practical stories where Bam is, is reaching out into the community and and it was really cool hearing those stories because we know that it works and that’s why we believe in it so much. And so as we continue then in this conversation, you kind of have these these three areas that that Bam is working. Yeah. And where you’re seeing it work and how it’s working and all that. So let’s break some of these down and just kind of share some of these ideas as as we continue.

Speaker 1 [00:05:51] Yeah. So I think when we think about business mission, let’s talk. The theory here now read like the ways business is being utilized on the mission field and we do use three areas. These did not originate with me. They originated from our friends on the field. But I think there are three areas that rhyme really nice. Ooh. And then the one that doesn’t rhyme. Okay, so. Well, we’ll start with the Reimers, right?

Speaker 2 [00:06:15] We’ll call that the bonus one, but it doesn’t. It’s like a little bonus one there at the end. So yeah. Give us the rhyming ones then.

Speaker 1 [00:06:21] Absolutely. So we’ve seen and I would say this is the one we try to avoid, right? The first one is the one we try to avoid. But this is a way that business as mission has been utilized and it’s been in our in our assessment, it’s been unfortunate. This is not the way we want to use business as usual.

Speaker 2 [00:06:39] Right.

Speaker 1 [00:06:40] But that that’s what don’t.

Speaker 2 [00:06:41] Call this down is the way you’re going to do.

Speaker 1 [00:06:43] Write this down is what not to do. Right. Job fakers.

Speaker 2 [00:06:47] Yeah.

Speaker 1 [00:06:47] Job fakers. And we really call this the ugly side of bam. Kind of a bait and switch, right? Like I get a business visa to go live in a certain place under a false pretense. You know, I put a shingle out that says I’m a consultant or I’m an importer exporter, put the shingle out. But I really have no intention of actually running a business that is adding value to the local community. Right. You know, maybe I’ll rent an office space and I fake some transactions and pretend like I’m a CIA operative or I’m.

Speaker 2 [00:07:19] Sort of the CIA version of Bam.

Speaker 1 [00:07:22] That’s right. And the reason that we don’t like this is that at its root is really deception.

Speaker 2 [00:07:27] Yeah, right. It’s just up against everything that we we’ve been saying for the last 11 episodes that business can add value to a community, can build relationships in a community, can be literally a part of the community. And this is the complete opposite of that. It is being kind of under the radar. Let’s not be truthful with people. It’s not tell them why we’re really here. And that’s that’s not the way we want to do that.

Speaker 1 [00:07:52] Yeah. So, like, here’s this this life giving resurrection news of Jesus Christ, and we’re going to lie to you to get it right. So that’s really not what we want to be about. So we don’t we don’t like we talk about this because I think it’s important, right? Yeah. But we don’t we don’t like this, we don’t promote this and we generally speak against its use.

Speaker 2 [00:08:11] And we want to bring it up too, because maybe some of you out there listening, you’ve had that experience, whether it’s on the missions field or even in your community here, where it’s this kind of like not truthful up front, honest thing. And it’s it’s actually more harmful than it is good. And so I think for us, we’re like, we want to bring attention to it because maybe you’ve had that experience, maybe you’ve walked through that and it’s like, Oh, that missions that they talk about. I don’t I don’t do that because that’s what you have in mind. We and that’s not.

Speaker 1 [00:08:45] We let things get defined by their abuse, right? Yeah. I mean that’s, that’s what we don’t want to see happen here. A job fakers job fakers is one that we want to bring some attention to, only to say, don’t do it, don’t do that. Yeah, don’t do that. Don’t write. Don’t get involved in that. And the second is job takers, though. Job takers. And that one probably makes sense to you. I mean, it is what it sounds like. Right? We see take a job, missionaries all over the world and this would be somebody who maybe has a special skill set that fits a certain area or a certain global market. I mean, like the oil industry in the Middle East or we have engineers working in in power plants, nuclear power plants in other parts of the world or, you know, specific farming, you know, agro science, that kind of stuff that like I have a specific skill set that I can go take a job in another part of the world, add value to that corporation, that company, and then maybe join a church planting team or be a part of a missions church planting team in that power, in that part of the world.

Speaker 2 [00:09:48] And teachers educating, you know, absolutely.

Speaker 1 [00:09:50] Doctors, you know. Yeah, there, there. We live really in a global economy. We do. And so there are so many opportunities, so many needs around the world for marketplace jobs. And if we can connect those with strategic, intentional church planting efforts and missions efforts in those parts of the world, this can actually be a very powerful tool for utilizing the marketplace. Right. It’s a powerful strategy, you know, to get trained missionaries into strategic ukg locations. I mean, I would say the one downside often is the time, time consuming aspects of this. You know, if you’re working a, you know, 80 hour a week job and you’re trying to be part of a CP team there on the ground, and sometimes as well, these global businesses have compounds for their expats to to live in together. And so you’re not actually able to get out and and interact with the local community. So there are some upsides and downsides, but.

Speaker 2 [00:10:46] Be aware of it, right? Correct. You have to be aware of it.

Speaker 1 [00:10:48] But I would say strategic job placement is powerful when it’s connected to. Missionary church planting teams and efforts that are intentionally trying to take the gospel to the ends of the earth.

Speaker 2 [00:11:00] Yeah. Yeah. So really, job.

Speaker 1 [00:11:02] Fakers, job takers. And then the third rhyming one. The third rhyme is job makers or job makers. And this would be more of your what you think of with entrepreneurial bam development is kind of what we were talking about last week with the English school. This is, you know, studying it, saying, okay, we we have identified an unreached people group. So we go to that area, we identify a market, need this, and then we develop business models that can meet that market need. And then we start investing and strategizing and building businesses that give us access to that local community through genuine value add business creation.

Speaker 2 [00:11:48] Yeah, right.

Speaker 1 [00:11:49] For sure. So it typically they’re in even in areas that are adverse to the gospel, they welcome this type of investment. If we do it well, we do it right because you go in and you are making jobs. Yes, you are utilizing as you’ve already talked about, you are utilizing the beautiful aspects of the market. We are meeting a need, we are adding value and oftentimes we’re hiring local people. So we’re providing economic vitality to the local community through entrepreneurial development.

Speaker 2 [00:12:19] And even even dig Brogdon in our last missional moment talked a lot about that and he’s in a very, very difficult area of the globe. And yet when you see Bam step into even those places, governments and communities are open to right. All of that. That’s just that’s beautiful. And what I even love about these this outline, obviously, job takers doesn’t sit in there, but job takers and job makers, it kind of gives if you’re sitting here listening and you go, I’m not entrepreneurial in my my makeup and how God’s wired me. Well, that’s where you can go take a job, right? You know, you are good at teaching or whatever it is, and now you can go do that. Or if you have that entrepreneur entrepreneurial spirit, yep, now you can go. So it gives you both sides of the coin that you can really see how you, if you have a passionate about it, to get out and be a part of missions. There’s easy ways that you can do that through the work of your hands and that’s what’s really cool.

Speaker 1 [00:13:18] Absolutely. So, you know, we love entrepreneurial development. I mean, obviously there and again, pros and cons, the pros are huge on this because if you can go in and create a legitimate business that is economically viable, hiring locals, meeting a local need. Right. That’s the perfect story. Right. But we all know entrepreneurial development is hard.

Speaker 2 [00:13:37] Yeah, it’s not easy.

Speaker 1 [00:13:38] It’s specialized in. And even here in the States, right. Like how many small businesses fail, you know, all those types of things. So you have to go in with your eyes wide open and you have to go in with a strong business plan and you have to go in with the right people involved. But but make a job, you know, missionaries and missions teams. I mean, this is this is powerful stuff.

Speaker 2 [00:14:00] Oh, absolutely. And I’m even sitting here thinking, too, that like often when when you feel that call in the ministry, how many missionaries have we talked to that at a young age or at some point in their life, they feel this call and all they want to do is get to the field. Right. And I think that’s really good. But often what we’re seeing with these models is it takes time, it takes thought, it takes development, it takes putting a plan together. And even though you feel so passionately about getting to the field in some way, this stuff is really good. And if you take the time to put the plan together, to spend the hours, the days, the months, the sometimes years to develop the right plan to help the community in beautiful ways, you can actually make you can go further, faster. Yeah, right. And so if you’re feeling that call and feeling that pull like be okay with that development side of it from a business standpoint in this way?

Speaker 1 [00:15:01] Well, on maybe what I would say to you is, you know, if you are entrepreneurial minded, you’re a believer, you’ve got a heart for starting businesses, maybe you’ve got a special skill set in that area. Why not consider starting your business and pursuing your entrepreneurial endeavors in an area of the world that needs the gospel? Yeah. And build your business there. Right. You know, and we’re seeing a lot of young people with a huge passion for international business and things along those lines. And so, you know, my encouragement would be the marketplace is a powerful tool for gospel proclamation, the planting of the church and seeing the 3.2 billion unreached people around the world reach with the gospel. Yeah. So if you are a marketplace person, you’re like, I’m not a missionary. Well, maybe you are, because I think we all are to some, you know, maybe not in the church. Additional understanding of missionaries. But we all have this great commission calling and why not use your business skills in a part of the world that needs the gospel?

Speaker 2 [00:16:03] It’s a beautiful way of doing it. Absolutely beautiful way. Which which kind of sets up and leads us into our unremitting fourth bonus option that we have here. That’s just kind of goes along with the entrepreneurial spirit here a little bit. But but but break this this fourth one down.

Speaker 1 [00:16:18] Yeah, it does. I think, you know, one of the things we’ve watched develop over the last decade or so and we really saw it during COVID. Right. Is this you know, we call it the gig economy, right? Graphic designers, computer programmers, copywriters, consulting firms, you know, maybe one stop shops, you know, where, you know, these people are. You know, they can work from anywhere for sure. They can work in co-working spaces. They can work. You know, we have Internet. You’re connected, right? Your business goes with you wherever you go. And I think they’re not I think I know because I know people who are saying, hey, I’ve got a publishing business, I’ve got a copywriting business, I’m a graphic designer. I do that from my house or I do that from a co-working space. Well, what if I could do that from the Middle East? What if I could do that from North Africa? What if I could do that from a part of the world that is in need of the Gospel? And I could go join a church planting team or emissions team in one of these hard to reach places. And I could just take my business with me. Yeah. And so the gig economy has provided that kind of flexibility. And so if you’re, you know, if you’re young, if you’re old, you know, but if you if you you know, if you make a living that way, why not consider moving your gig economy business to a part of the world that needs the gospel? Yeah.

Speaker 2 [00:17:36] And what we’ve seen, you know, obviously through our experience with COVID, IT people are more open to that reality, right? They’re open to working with a business that might not be down the street. Right. It could be an online business. And they’re open to that type of thing. Now that maybe a couple of years ago was a little bit more like it was a heavier lift at that point. So this has really opened up the door to some really good opportunities. If you feel that call and you have those gift times, you can step into it in some pretty, pretty cool ways.

Speaker 1 [00:18:13] There’s no doubt.

Speaker 2 [00:18:14] Yeah, I love that. So that’s a that’s the the three plus a bonus.

Speaker 1 [00:18:19] Job fakers, job takers, job makers and gig economy.

Speaker 2 [00:18:23] And gig.

Speaker 1 [00:18:24] Economy. The gig economy. Right.

Speaker 2 [00:18:25] We tried so hard to make that rhyme.

Speaker 1 [00:18:27] I couldn’t figure it out. It would be, you know, if you want to send us a note and say, hey, here’s how you can make that rhyme, feel free.

Speaker 2 [00:18:33] Somebody that’s a little more prolific on this. But yeah. Well, as we as we kind of wrap up this episode here, you know, the stone table and what we do, we really kind of bought into this pretty heavy, right? We’ve see it. We’re passionate about it. We believe in it. Obviously, we’re doing a podcast about it. We’ve written books on the topics, you know, like all of that. But why is that and what have we seen here and why is it part of our our DNA, if you will? Yeah. As we wrap up today.

Speaker 1 [00:19:07] Yeah. I mean, bam is not the only thing that we get behind here, but it is something that we are passionate about. And there’s a few reasons for that. I mean, one is that we are rooted in the marketplace, right? And so when we see the marketplace being utilized in ways that push the great commission forward, we want to obviously get behind and celebrate that and figure out how to expand it. Right. But I would say just from a practical side, in 2015, you know, when we launched when we launched the stone table, yeah, you know, we took that baton. And if you go all the way back to, I think, episode one or two, we talked about our pastor that we grew up under a wonderful man named Tom Paino. Tom was the one that handled all of our missions and work for the first 20 or so years of our existence. And so Tom came to me and he said, Hey, you know, Eric, I’m, I’m in my nineties now. Yeah, it’s probably time for me to slow down a little bit, although it’s him again that he’s going to outlive me. Right? But, but he said, Hey, look, here’s what I want you to do. He said, Ah, I want you to go to Springfield, Missouri. I want you to meet with Greg Mendes, who is the executive director of Assemblies of God World Missions. And I just want you to listen to him. Yeah, he said, I want you to go say, hey, you know, we have this business that was built to fund global missions work. And he said, go ask him, you know, what is the most strategic thing that’s happening in the world today in global missions? And how are we as an organization uniquely poised to help him? And so as we talk to Greg, gosh, I can still remember that day in his office. You know, he talked about our passion for unreached people groups. And he talked about how we have to get more. More strategic in how we reach these places because our traditional missions methodologies just aren’t working in certain places or can’t work necessarily in certain places. And so he began to talk to us about how the marketplace and utilizing business as mission was a core strategy that they wanted to embrace more that they wanted to get better at. And so, you know, for us, as a as a missional business here in the states, funding global missions and being told by people on the ground and people who are, you know, on the front lines of this, that this is becoming a core part of reaching the unreached with the gospel. We said we’ve got to be a part of that. We want to be a part of that. Right. And so how do we mobilize the marketplace for the mission of God in the world? How do we accelerate the great commission through our role as marketplace believers? These began to become kind of core to us.

Speaker 2 [00:21:49] Yeah. And what I love about that, too, is in in if you listen to kind of the thread that’s through that story that you just told is that we were embarking now on to something new. Even though we’ve been a part of missions for four years, it was a new organization creating of the stone table. Right. And you went to somebody and you said, How can we help and how are we strategically put together to help in this way? It’s much like if you’re going to go into a community, you go, What’s the need here? How can I fill a need here? And how am I uniquely designed to step into that? Much like what? What you did, you said, Hey, what’s the need and how can we help? And then we fill that. It’s just it’s a perfect example of even what business mission is in, in what we do every day. And so I love that story because it really it really shows how we can go. Yeah, like we we believe in this and we can meet this need at this time, in this place.

Speaker 1 [00:22:48] We believe in this because the people who are on the front lines are telling us this is important.

Speaker 2 [00:22:52] Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 [00:22:53] And you know, I’ll be honest with you, Darren, it’s still a little bit of the wild, wild west out there, right? I mean, business mission has been around for a long time. So you get me wrong, it’s not like we’ve created something new here. But I do think as as Christians are beginning to understand more and more how the marketplace is part of God’s kingdom work in the world, and then how the marketplace can be utilized then as a mechanism to take the gospel to places where the gospel is not. I think we have to wrestle with these things. We have to get better at it. We have to challenge it. We have to we have to step in. And that’s part of what we want to do as an organization, is we just want to help. We want to serve in this way. And so I think as we close this time out here and go to our missional moment, I really want to just close with a challenge to marketplace people. How are you utilizing your business, your work, your money, your resources, your skill sets for the global mission of God in the world? What is God saying to you? You know, maybe you’re a business owner and the Lord’s saying, I need to you need to commit a certain percentage of your profits every year to global missions work. I would challenge you to wrestle with that, right? Yeah. Maybe you’ve got specific skill sets and the Lord’s saying, hey, what, what about becoming a take a job missionary and moving to a place where the gospel is needed and joining a church planting team in that part of the world? Right?

Speaker 2 [00:24:19] Yeah.

Speaker 1 [00:24:19] What if you’re a young or an old. Yeah. Entrepreneur and you’ve got you’ve got entrepreneurial ability and skill set. What about moving that cross-culturally to a place that needs the gospel and starting your business in a place that is unreached with the good news of Jesus? Because here’s what I want to leave you with. Marketplace skills are missionary skills. It’s okay. You’re like, I’m not a theologian. I’m not a preacher. Right. I’m not I’m not going be able to teach in a Bible college. That’s okay. Because there are other brilliant people who can and are called to do those things right. But what I want to do is challenge people with marketplace skills. How are you engaging the Great Commission? And I would say marketplace skills are missionary skills. They’re not secular skills, they are missionary skills, they are sacred skills. And you can use these skills to see the church planted in a place where the church is not, where the name of Jesus is not known. And so I want to leave you with that challenge. What are you doing? Marketplace People, what are you doing to move the mission of God forward in the world.

Speaker 2 [00:25:28] As a good challenge? It’s a really good challenge. And so I hope, as you hear that today, that you can sit with it. Maybe you need to take a day or two and just pray on it, journal on it, say, God, what are you saying to me in this? And just just really lean in and listen. That’s a that’s a good, good challenge. And that leads us to today to our missional moment. And these have been just such a joy. Are you putting together for these podcast series just because it’s it’s just listening to other stories and hearing and being encouraged by them. And so last week we talked with Dick Brogdon and we’re going to do part two because he is kind of the guy like he is our our Mickey ology like Guru. You know, he knows what’s happening and he’s just encouraged us so much. And so we’re stepping into part two with with Dick today. And man, if you haven’t listened to part one, you got to go back. It was such a such an encouragement. And like you said, I think every time you sit down and talk with with Dick, you leave inspired and challenged. Challenged all.

Speaker 1 [00:26:32] Yeah. Scared in all the right way. Right, right. But you know, I mean, this interview, we went back and listen to it and we were like, what do we cut out? How do we get this all down into one week? Right.

Speaker 2 [00:26:42] So I think I told you, we’re at a place now where we’re cutting good stuff. Like this is where we’re at. So we wanted to do part two. We hope that this is just yet another encouragement to you, so enjoy this week’s Missional Moment.

Speaker 1 [00:26:59] For this week’s Missional Moment, we are engaging part two of my conversation with missionary Dick Brogdon, the global lead of Live Dead and Missionary to Saudi Arabia. When it comes to theology and our understanding of global missions, few people have been more influential on us here at the Stone Table than Dick. And so I asked him, why should Christians be concerned about global missions and the Great Commission to begin with?

Speaker 3 [00:27:29] I think where we are at our high octane best is when we have this great combination of solid scripture and spirit power. And when we do that in the sense of looking at the Bible and what God, the Holy Spirit is doing in the Earth, we see that unreached people, groups and missions, it’s not optional. It’s not the great suggestion. As others have said, it is core to God’s heart. It is central to the Scriptures and it is the the energizing work that the spirit is focused on. So why is it important? Simply because God’s a missionary, God and the Bible’s a missionary book.

Speaker 1 [00:28:08] Dick and his wife Jan have given their life to reaching the unreached with the gospel. And so I asked Dick, where you are right now, where you are ministering. Tell us a story of something incredible God is doing among unreached people groups in your area.

Speaker 3 [00:28:25] Well, this lady is so sweet. My wife has been working with her and walking with her, and she was in our living room a few weeks ago and I asked her, Do you know other believers in Saudi Arabia that are Saudis that follow Jesus? And she said, Yes, I know five. I said, Five, who are they? She said, I have two sisters. My brother, my uncle named a few things and I said, Wow, that’s amazing. Who led those people to the Lord? She kind of looked down with a shy face and she said, I did. I said, You did? That’s awesome. And so we were talking about baptism. She wants to be baptized. She had brought her brother that day and I took her to the passages about being baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire that are mentioned in the Gospels. And she got this really concerned look on her face. She says, now going down into the water, I understand that. But being burned with fire, do I have to do that with Jesus? You’re like, No, no, no. It’s a fire within. You’re so in love with Jesus that it comes up. So we prayed with her. She got all excited. She left our house and went to a council of Muslim men. And in that Council of Muslim men and Islamic Council, she shared the gospel boldly with them. And she texted my wife. She says, Man, I left your house. And we were talking about the Holy Spirit. And I went and shared the gospel with all these Muslim men, the Council, but none of them accepted it. They’re really hard. And we said, Yeah, they’re kind of tough. But here’s a mom, you know, she’s probably in her late forties, multiple children married to a religious zealot, but on fire for Jesus, sharing her faith. The gospel is going forward like that in Saudi Arabia, from the heart and voice of women.

Speaker 1 [00:30:06] Because of the places Dick and Live Dead work as an organization, business mission has become a strong part of their global mission strategy. And so we talk to Dick about business as mission, and we talked to him about why business people are so important to the global missions movement. So if you are a business person, I want to let Dick talk specifically to you, to tell you why, who you are and how God made you is part of God’s great commission plan for the world.

Speaker 3 [00:30:37] Yeah, the first thing that comes to mind when, you know, we wrestle, where do I fit in? I think of a sports analogy. I know your daughter loves basketball. The mentality is almost like, well, mission is for the guards. You need the point guard to control the ball. You need a shooting guard who can score. But what we’re saying is business guys are like your center and your power forwards. We need rebounds. We need intimidating defense on the interior. You know, we need the whole complement of everybody that can shoot, everybody that can rebound, everybody can dribble. Now, your guards might be a little more dexterous with some of them ecology or the theological backgrounds. But if we don’t have those centers and power forwards, we don’t win any games. Right? So we need the business people because they access a sector of community on a consistent basis. That can be hard for the more clergy types to access there with government officials there, with captains of industry there, with decision makers. And when those guys have access to the gospel, they don’t get saved as a solitary unit. The effect tribes and clans and policies and communities. So there’s like a power punch that the business community can give us on the field. So, number one, we need business guys to help us access that influential stream of society that’s hard for us to get to with our backgrounds. Number two, as I mentioned earlier, you can leverage your business profits. You can leverage your business access to get us more visas in a more countries. Number three, sometimes it’s as simple as writing us letters or, you know, what was done. Table is a great example, providing resources to help us develop a business plan that gets us in a new community. So, yes, you can give of your finances, you can give of your expertize. And coach, maybe you don’t move overseas, but you adopt one of our band projects in China or India or Palestine or Central Asia. You visit them once a year. You look at their business plan, you look at their staffing procedures. You look at their policies and protocols. You look at development. And just out of your experience as a business guy, you help them think through some problems that make sense. So you can coach business, you can fund business, you can participate in your setting yourself. And then here on this side, you know, I wouldn’t overlook both the prayer and the personal sharing either. There’s so many Saudis, there’s 60,000 Saudis in America right now. There’s Indians. There’s guys from all over the world. And sometimes you can build a business relationship with an international. Share your faith here. Those guys go back, connect them to us on the ground. It opens doors. We network. We build bridges. So I would just wish that our business community, those who God is gifted and placed in places of influence, say, All right, how can I broker this for the glory of God and all the earth among all nations? Think beyond Indianapolis. Think nations. And what are these opportunities God is giving me here and now that I can see spread His glory and all the earth.

Speaker 1 [00:33:37] With all the noise and all the sideways energy that can so easily distract God’s people from the mission of God in the world. We asked Dick to to challenge us and to encourage us about why keeping the Great Commission central in focus for God’s people in God’s church is so important today.

Speaker 3 [00:34:00] I would say it doesn’t matter who sits in the White House as long as Jesus sits on the throne, I would say it doesn’t matter who moves in, shakes the corridors of Congress while Jesus is shaking the nations. We have been so distracted through racial issues, through COVID issues, through political issues this last year, that we are in danger as a body of Christ, of taking our eyes off what really matters. And that’s the glory of Jesus globally. We have unprecedented opportunity. Let’s not waste sideways energy on things that don’t matter. And let’s put all of our resources into getting the Gospel to the last and the least in all of the Earth. Jesus will come back. And that’s when we’ll have justice. That’s when we’ll have equality. That’s when we’ll have health. That’s when we’ll have peace. It’s not about all these other sideways, peripheral things. It’s Jesus and missions and his kingdom and the second return of Christ. And that is directly linked to getting the gospel done, peoples. So let’s marshal our energies, put them there, and that will be worth it all.

Speaker 1 [00:35:04] We hope you’ve enjoyed and been challenged by this conversation with missionary Dick Brogden over the last couple of weeks. We just want to leave you with that. That passionate, great commission challenge that who you are and how God made you as part of God’s great commission call for this world. And that is this week’s Missional Moment.

Speaker 2 [00:35:28] Dick Brogdon, I’m telling you, that’s why we we say around here that he is kind of our go to guy when it comes to mis theology and understanding. Not only is he really smart and understands it, but can being can teach you in it and help you understand it as well. Right?

Speaker 1 [00:35:44] So yeah, there is there is probably no one who has shaped our passion for unreached people groups and you know, for for that focus tip of the spear point of global missions than Dick Brogden. So I just want to say a huge thanks to Dick, not just for this interview but for his friendship and and the great influence that he’s been in our lives. He’s I’ve had the opportunity to be with him on the field in a few places, and he’s taken me to some facts and places that have made me a little uncomfortable. I’m alone, but all, all in a good way. And so huge thanks to Dick. And if you want to know more about Live Dead, I can’t say enough good about that organization. Multiagency, multinational, multigenerational, really. I mean, they’ve got young people, old people, right, from from all different missions agencies. And the heart and the connecting point is how do we get the gospel where the gospel is not? So if you’re interested, go to live dead dot org and you can check out all of the resources there. Yeah, but be careful because the Lord may just grab a hold of your heart and begin to move you towards some of those uncomfortable places. Right. But it’s all to his will.

Speaker 2 [00:36:55] And Indyk has a really good book right now that you’re reading, right?

Speaker 1 [00:36:59] Well, he’s got a lot of good books, right. But one currently that you’re reading. Well, I finished it last year, but Missionary Guide Missionary Bible is a is a devotional. It’s a daily devotional that basically pulls out the missional story of the entire scriptures, starting in Genesis all the way through Revelation. It’s the it’s a chronological reading of the Bible and Dick’s commentary. It’s really Dick’s commentary on all of these passages and how the whole of the Bible is a missionary story. And so if you want to be challenged, it’s a good one. Missionary, missionary.

Speaker 2 [00:37:32] But if you’re wrestling with what you’re thinking and feeling, what God’s calling you to, that might be a good place to start. Yeah. Yeah, well, and as always, we’ll will put that in the show notes and have all those links there. But we’ll also have a link to your book, Missional Marketplace. This is such a great title. Somebody should do a podcast or on that.

Speaker 1 [00:37:52] Or something like that. It’s good. Alliteration flows off the tongue.

Speaker 2 [00:37:54] I like and I like that. But yeah. Where can they find that.

Speaker 1 [00:37:57] Yeah you can go to well Eric Cooper dot me Eric with a K or you can go to Amazon. It’s on Amazon as well and the links are there for both paperback. You can get a Kindle version. You can also get the audible version and I can put you to sleep by reading it to you, but it’s also available, I think, you know, Barnes and Noble pretty much anywhere in other places.

Speaker 2 [00:38:20] As well to get books. And we’ll have some links to to that in the in the show notes as well. So you can grab those copies. And in one big challenge that we’ll give to you in this first season of this podcast, we ask that you rate and review. Give us that five star if you feel so inclined.

Speaker 1 [00:38:37] Only if you like it. Don’t, don’t rate or review if you don’t like it.

Speaker 2 [00:38:40] Don’t be the the rate faker.

Speaker 1 [00:38:44] That’s right.

Speaker 2 [00:38:44] It is that a way of doing that. I’ll give it a five. It’s a fake five. But it’s all right. It’s all right. Yeah, but no that’s a that’s a huge help for us as we’re kind of establishing this podcast. And as we wrap up season one, we’re excited to bring the next few seasons and we have some great ideas, some things we’re kind of mulling over. It’s going to be fun and exciting.

Speaker 1 [00:39:03] That’s right. And if this, you know, speaks to you in any way, share share it with some friends, send it to somebody that that maybe needs to hear this and and hopefully be encouraged by it.

Speaker 2 [00:39:13] Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So as we wrap this up, if you want some more resources like this, podcasts, other articles, different connects, that way you can go to the stone the stone table dot org. Yeah. And that’s there’s a resource page there for.

Speaker 1 [00:39:25] Make sure you put the DA, make sure you put the DA in there. Otherwise you end up in an actual company that sells stone tables.

Speaker 2 [00:39:31] It might be buying a stone table. You never know. You never know. So until then, thank you so much for listening and being a part of this community. In this podcast. We hope that it is an encouragement to you and that you can go out and and just accelerate the great commission through the marketplace. And that’s this episode of the Missional Marketplace podcast. We’ll see you next week.