Four Accounts

The last lesson made clear what business as mission is. This lesson is about how to measure such a business. In business-as-mission circles it is called the ‘quadruple bottom line’; this course says it more plainly: a business has to keep four accounts.

The first account is money. Jesus said, “which of you, desiring to build a tower, doesn’t first sit down and count the cost.” (Luke 14:28) Before you start, work it out: What are the costs? What will it sell for? How long until it stops losing money? Making money is not a sin. A business that loses money cannot support its staff and cannot sustain a mission; lesson 3’s ‘real business’ begins with getting this account right. And the books have to be true books: Paul’s “having regard for honorable things” (2 Cor 8:21) from lesson 2 applies first to our own ledger.

The second account is people. The law of Moses says of “a hired servant who is poor and needy” (Deut 24:14): “In his day you shall give him his wages, neither shall the sun go down on it,” (Deut 24:15) because he “sets his heart on it.” (Deut 24:15) More than three thousand years ago, God already cared whether a worker was paid on time. The people account asks: Are wages on time and fair? Is the work safe? Do employees learn skills, and are they treated with dignity? Will local staff one day rise to manage? Customers and suppliers belong in this account too.

The third account is the land. The psalm says, “The earth is the LORD’s, with its fullness; the world, and those who dwell in it.” (Ps 24:1) In lesson 1 we read that God put the man in the garden “to cultivate and keep it” (Gen 2:15). A business that uses land, water and timber has to ask: are we leaving behind better land, or a polluted river? This is not a passing fashion; it is God’s first calling. The land is his, and we are stewards.

The fourth account is spiritual. Jesus said, “that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” (Matt 5:16) What do employees and customers see in this business? Honesty, fairness, hope in hard times. When someone asks, do as Peter said: “Always be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks you a reason concerning the hope that is in you, with humility and fear” (1 Pet 3:15).

This account has a line that must not be crossed: never trade a job for faith. Whether someone believes does not affect hiring, promotion or pay; Bible study and prayer meetings are entirely voluntary. And the spiritual account is not a count of how many people have believed. Paul says, “I planted. Apollos watered. But God gave the increase” (1 Cor 3:6). Bringing people to faith is God’s work; what this account measures is whether we ourselves have faithfully lived it out and spoken it out.

The four accounts sometimes pull against each other. Orders go up: do we make staff work overtime for weeks without extra pay? Costs go up: do we quietly dump the waste water? The most common temptation is to keep only the first account and leave the other three ‘for later’. Others do the opposite, think only of the fourth, and the business collapses and the staff lose their jobs. Keep all four together. Sometimes the first account will earn a little less for the sake of the other three; but the business still has to survive.

How do you keep the four accounts? It need not be complicated. Every so often—every quarter, or every year—sit down and write a sentence or two for each: How has the money account been? The people account? The land account? The spiritual account? It is best to go over it with a trusted co-worker from your church. Lesson 2 asked: the more successful a business is, the more we must ask who is master. The four accounts are a way of answering that question every day.