Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Next Steps Conference – Business As Mission
Next Steps Conference – Business As Mission
Mar 18, 2025 1:08 AM

I am attending the Next Steps conference hosted by Indiana Wesleyan University and organized by IWU Students for BAM. This is their first annual conference. Acton Institute is sponsoring this conference as a part of our evangelical network building work. As I have opportunity, I will post blogs including highlights of the plenary and workshop sessions.

Last night, Bill Moore, owner and CEO of PacMoore Products spoke on principles of integrating business as mission in pany. Bill started his lecture emphasizing business work is not a second class calling for the Christian. Work has inherent value to God and in itself glorifies God. God is a God of order and design and has gifted each with a talent.

He also described through laws like Title 7 where rights and privileges are afforded to business owners, managers and employees regarding religious freedom. Companies and organizations who desire to embrace business as mission should not purpose to e “Christian country clubs,” but rather hire Christians and non-Christians alike. The jobs they provide can create a mission field where the Gospel can be lived out, oftentimes without words, in front of co-workers.

Bill mentioned he isn’t too worried about customers reacting negatively to his mission. One application of pany’s mission was the corporate chaplains (he has seven on staff) contacting a large vendor who recently had to close asking if the staff had any prayer requests or special needs. This vendor is not a pany and their former employees were greatly effected by this expression. They also mentioned these calls were significantly more than their pany had done to reach out to them during this transition.

Finally, Bill answered the question “What does a pany do?” At the same time, pany must fill a market need with a service and help employees discover Jesus Christ. This creates a double bottom line and both activities must be done exceptionally well.

I hope to update this more throughout the day today.

UPDATE: Dr. Patrick Lai, founder of the OPEN Network and co-founder of Nexus lectured at this afternoon’s plenary session.

How do you start a business in an underserved area:

1)Profile the picture – What do the people need and want vs. what we think they need. Normally they want jobs, education and leisure. Also review gender, age, location, e, and occupation.

2) Consider the cultural trends of the people. They will either be undeveloped, developing or developed. In addition, in some cases countries will be regressing, stagnant or progressing.

3) Study the educational system. Analyze the holes in the education system.

4) Study the resources of the land

5) Study the government-political climate

6) Develop a uniqueness about yourself of your product. Don’t think you have nothing of value. We all have uniquenesses that God can use

7) Be professional. Get a lawyer, local address, business cards, brochures, website.

It is important to remember when starting a new business that all aspects of your life are integrated and if there is a problem in one area, it will impact other areas of life

The American view of business must be contextualized for the international scene. For example, law suits are much less prevelant in the Muslim world. Also, the issue of race is far less divisive in Muslim countries than the US.

Business in order to be successful must make a profit and make an impact in munity. A profitable business with munity impact is not business as mission.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
A Not-So-Compelling Argument
This is a pelling argument that “information should be free.” Logos Research Systems Inc., which produces Libronix biblical and theological research software, was vandalized this past weekend by “a man throwing Froot Loops cereal and pieces of paper out of an apartment window in the shipping department building Saturday morning.” The Bellingham Herald reported that he “told officers he felt pany was charging him money for Bibles when he could get them for free.” ...
Cheerful Giving
Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or pulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. (2 Corinthians 9:7) Genuine giving can be a very hard thing to do, especially when talking about money and finances. The Gospels make this abundantly clear with the story of the rich young ruler. I remember attending a church where the tithes were brought forward to the altar and being tempted e carrying an empty envelope on...
Truth, Relativism, and the Free Society
Michael Miller at ALS “Freedom is the recognition that no single person, no single authority of government has a monopoly on the truth, but that every individual life is infinitely precious, that every one of us put on this world has been put there for a reason and has something to offer.” – Ronald W. Reagan, Moscow State University 1988. Today I attended my first Acton Lecture Series event which featured Michael Miller, Acton’s Director of Programs and Education. I...
Africans to Bono: “Stop!”
Here’s a great story by Jennifer Brea touching on a lot of favorite Acton topics. Brea observes that many Africans are getting wise to the fact that Western direct aid may be hurting more than helping their continent. We’ve long decried government-to-government aid and advocated expanded trade instead. More pointed is the article’s indictment of private charitable aid as well. Brea concedes the positive dimensions of such charity, but argues convincingly that Africans’ welfare really lies in the hands of...
Religion, Race, and Hierarchy
I ran across this review essay by J. Daniel Hammond responding to S.J. Peart and D. Levy’s The Vanity of the Philosopher: From Equality to Hierarchy in Postclassical Economics over at SSRN, “In the Shadows of Vanity: Religion and the Debate Over Hierarchy.” In Hammond’s words, he wants to fill in a gap in Peart’s and Levy’s account: “The purpose of this paper is to make a start at casting light on the role of religion in the debate over...
Rev. Sirico column: ‘Free trade advances liberty, equality’
In today’s Detroit News, Rev. Robert A. Sirico discusses free trade and the conditions it creates for peaceful and flourishing societies. Every few years, a new round of trade negotiations hits the news, and the same debate takes place on the merits of free trade. But this time around, as we discuss a new round of trade relaxations between the U.S. and Latin America, there is an added element. The religious left has entered to argue against free trade on...
Incarceration and Immigration
Here’s a new NBER working paper, “Why are Immigrants’ Incarceration Rates so Low? Evidence on Selective Immigration, Deterrence, and Deportation,” by Kristin F. Butcher and Anne Morrison Piehl. Here’s the abstract: The perception that immigration adversely affects crime rates led to legislation in the 1990s that particularly increased punishment of criminal aliens. In fact, immigrants have much lower institutionalization (incarceration) rates than the native born – on the order of one-fifth the rate of natives. More recently arrived immigrants have...
Illegal Immigration and the Church: Philanthropic Lawlessness
Some Christian churches are joining the New Sanctuary Movement, an organization that vows to “protect immigrants against unjust deportation.” But what about the laws of the land? Brooke Levitske looks at the highly charged immigration issue and concludes that “the New Sanctuary Movement’s lawbreaking solution is neither a prudent civic response nor a necessary act passion.” Read mentary here. ...
Kozol Misguided In the NY Times About Public School Segregation–Minority Schools Are Not Problem
Children in a summer program in the Atlanta Public School System. Jonathan Kozol misses the point again in his op-ed in today’s New York Times. Last month’s Supreme Court decision is not a dismantling of Brown vs. Board of Education but a continuation of it. It continues in the spirit of Martin Luther King that children will not be educated according to race. One wonders if Kozol, and others, actually like racial minorities. What’s so wrong with predominantly minority schools...
Clement of Alexandria, Who Is the Rich Man that Shall be Saved?
Readings in Social Ethics: Clement of Alexandria, Who Is the Rich Man that Shall be Saved? The soteriological status of the rich: “So also let not the man that has been invested with worldly wealth proclaim himself excluded at the outset from the Saviour’s lists, provided he is a believer and one who contemplates the greatness of God’s philanthropy; nor let him, on the other hand, expect to grasp the crowns of immortality without struggle and effort, continuing untrained, and...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved