What Business as Mission Is, and Is Not

The last two lessons looked at the Bible and at history. This lesson defines the terms: what exactly is business as mission? And how is it different from several things that look like it?

The term ‘Business as Mission’ was made widely known by the report of an issue group at the Lausanne Forum for World Evangelization in Pattaya, Thailand, in 2004. The heart of the report is this: ‘Business in and of itself is the ministry and instrument of mission’—not just a means of doing something else. The report also says its authors did not want to set up a fixed orthodoxy or shut out people who use other names.

This course puts it in one sentence: taking a real business to another place and another culture, to glorify God and serve people. The sentence has three keys: a real business; going somewhere else; glorifying God and serving people.

Start with ‘real’. Paul told the Ephesians to “labor, producing with his hands something that is good, that he may have something to give to him who has need.” (Eph 4:28) Something good is real work; something to give means it truly earns; and the giving means the earnings are not only for oneself. A business-as-mission business has to really sell something and really support people. The Lausanne report also says that a project that needs permanent subsidies to survive is closer to a charity than to a business.

So what is business as mission not? First, it is not a fake business. One approach is to open a company that has a signboard but no trade, as a front. The Lausanne report says plainly that fake businesses do not count. Paul says, “we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness,” (2 Cor 4:2) and “by the manifestation of the truth.” (2 Cor 4:2) A fake business is itself a lie; if the business is fake, why would anyone believe the gospel we speak is true?

Second, it is not just ‘a place to talk about the gospel’. Some people treat a business only as a venue for meeting people, as if it did not matter whether the business itself was any good. Employees and customers can tell. Paul told believers “to work with your own hands,” (1 Thess 4:11) so “that you may walk properly toward those who are outside.” (1 Thess 4:12) A business done well and done honestly—paying wages on time, selling genuine goods, treating staff fairly—is itself a witness. The Lausanne report also says business as mission is not simply a fundraising tactic.

Several things look like business as mission and are often lumped together with it. One is workplace ministry: bearing witness and serving where you already work. Every Christian can do this; you do not have to go anywhere or be the boss. Another is tentmaking: going somewhere else to be employed, supporting yourself while you serve, as Carey did at the indigo factory. The Lausanne report puts the difference this way: tentmaking is more often ‘job-taking’; business as mission most often involves ‘job-making’—starting a business and creating jobs for local people.

A third is business for mission: a business earns money and gives the profit to support mission, like the Moravian shipping company or the Basel Mission trading company. The report says this is valid too; business as mission simply stresses that the business itself carries the mission. A fourth is charity: not aiming to make money, relying on donations to help people. That is good as well; the ‘Charity’ section of this site introduces work of this kind.

None of these paths is higher than the others. As lesson 1 said, being supported in full-time ministry and working with your hands are both paths in the Bible. The names are often mixed up, and there is no need to argue about names. A few questions are enough: Is the business real? Whom does it serve? Is it in another culture? And in the end, to whose glory is it all? Paul says, “Whether therefore you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor 10:31).

One last word: this course does not discuss where to go or how to get into any particular place. If you really have such a desire, lesson 7 will talk about it: your church, together with an experienced mission agency, will help you discern.