"Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything… and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive." -Titus 2:9-10
The great 19th century Baptist preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon believed that the gospel is like a caged lion. It doesn’t need to be defended, just turned loose. But turning the gospel loose in a society and culture that draws hard and fast lines between the secular and sacred is not always easy.
The reality is that in the past fifty years the message has been caged and the door to the cage tightly bolted and locked, fearful that if the Good News is turned loose, it will permeate society affecting such radical changes that life will take on a new dimension. No wonder Christians are minimalized, labeled as right-wing extremists, and feared equally as terrorists or revolutionaries.
Says Nancy Pearcey in her award-winning book Total Truth, “Today the cage is our accommodation to the secular/sacred split that reduces Christianity to a matter of private personal belief. To unlock the cage, we need to become utterly convinced that, as Francis Schaeffer said, Christianity is not merely religious truth, it is total truth—truth about the whole of reality.”
Breaking out of the box, or the cage, as Pearcey thinks of it, is not easy. It is usually not done to the tune of beating drums and marching armies, but quiet forays into the world as God’s own march to the beat of a different drummer, and living out the gospel in a manner that makes God look good.
One such foray into the world of commerce, with a definite agenda that seeks to glorify God and make a difference, is a movement described as Business as Mission or the BAM movement, described by some as the next wave of world evangelization.
Seventy-five year old Ken Crowell is one of the pioneers of the movement. His company, Galtronics, has produced more than one billion antennae for wireless technology used by Motorola and Samsung. “When Crowell pioneered his work,” writes Joe Maxell, “he thought he was simply following God down a sometimes foggy but hopeful path of combining commerce with Christian witness.”
Prominently displayed in his shops and factories is a vision statement that reads: “Commit thy ways to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass,” the words of Psalm 37:5 written 3,000 years ago.
Crowell also produces small self-contained devices—much like an I-Pod—with a light-sensitive screen producing power, pre-programmed with Gospel programming and music, distributed in corners of the world where Christian radio doesn’t penetrate.
Another businessman is Don Parks, who—without realizing he was part of the BAM movement—began a steel-fabrication business, based on Scripture principles. His primary goal was not to enrich the founder but to produce funds for the support of international Christian ministries.
Guidelines’ board member Greg Sizemore, a successful developer, having heard of Mexican farmers who were being consistently cheated by unscrupulous money lenders known as “Coyotes” who would loan money at very high rates against the next year’s coffee crop.
Annoyed by the injustice, Greg formed a cooperative, began importing the coffee, and stumbled into a business as ministry endeavor. Yes, he has experienced resistance and had bumps in the road, but is gradually succeeding. The benefactors are the Mexican families whose income has accelerated.
Invading the world with business as ministry is good business from God’s perspective. In fact, it is exactly what Jesus did with His life until age 30, when he embarked on public ministry. It is exactly what Paul had in mind when he wrote to Titus advising slaves that “in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive” (Titus 2:10).
May God raise up an army of business men around the world dedicated to business as ministry, making a difference in our world, one business as a time—whether it is a small shop or a giant manufacturing plant.
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