This article was originally published at LiveDead.org and was reposted here with their permission. Our friends and partners at LiveDead give their lives to take the Gospel to the unreached people of the earth, often utilizing business and the marketplace to engage the...
Because of our global missions engagement, I’ve had to do a fair bit of international travel over the last 5 years. Long hours on airplanes is not easy, but I won’t lie, interacting with so many missionaries around the world is worth the countless stiff necks,...
Your job is a beautiful platform for the Gospel. I’m not just talking about putting a Bible on your desk, wearing a cross necklace to a business meeting, or displaying a 365 days of Scripture calendar in your office. All those things are fine and dandy, but I’m...
This article was originally published at LiveDead.org and was reposted here with their permission. Our friends and partners at LiveDead give their lives to take the Gospel to the unreached people of the earth, often utilizing business and the marketplace to engage the...
God’s sovereign will is unfolding all around us everyday in thousands of different ways we will never see or fully comprehend. Occasionally, He gives us a little glimpse into how He is orchestrating His Story in the world. This was one of those moments. Stone Table...
My wife and I packed up our life in one city and started over in another place. After a year learning Arabic and immersing ourselves in Arab culture, it was time to put these things to use. In some ways we felt very blessed. Here in our new city, we are taking up the...
When I looked at my calendar last week I noticed something unusual. There was nothing, literally zero little colored blocks, on the Saturday column. It was glorious discovery and I embraced it fully. I slept until I naturally woke up (which unfortunately isn’t very...
I took one for the team gentlemen. Hugh Jackman’s world tour came through Indianapolis this weekend, and I decided that taking my wife of 24 years to see this handsome triple-threat heartthrob was a great anniversary gift. She seemed to agree. It was 2 1/2 hours of...
This is a story of a Business as Mission (BAM) practitioner on the field using business as a mechanism for planting the church in areas of the world you can’t go with traditional missionary methods. In order to protect the work being done there, we will not share the...
On a recent day-tour of Paris proper, I learned the story of Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, the young French architect who redesigned and rebuilt the famous spire of the Notre Dame Cathedral (yes, the stunning spire recently destroyed by a horrific fire). Following...
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.