Into the Wildness

True faith is not expressed or experienced by those who remain in the safety of the temple courts, but by those that charge into the wildness of humanity armed only with the Cross of Peace.

While I was journaling with Dad today, he gave me the tidbit above. While there are many practical reasons why many of us are seeking a future in the business world, the persistent call of the Mission of God remains the brightest and purest motivator. It is easy to trust God in the temple courts and remain there where everything is already ordered according to the Kingdom of Heaven (well, at least we wish it were). It’s also easy to leave our faith in God in the temple courts while we trust in ourselves and the systems of man “in the real world”. But the Gospel of the Kingdom demands that we trust God to lead us into the marketplaces where the Kingdom has not yet come as ambassadors, establishing outposts of the King until he comes to bring his Reality in all its fullness.

I hope this encourages you today not to turn from the Great Journey for an easier road and to know the value of active trust is so much greater than passive belief.

Three Types of Journeyers

As we’ve listened to the stories and questions of people interested in marketplace ministry with the simple church movement, three groups of people or three types of journeyers have come to the surface:

1. Many people, who have come from full-time ministry in other forms of church or directly from seminary where they have been trained for professional ministry, face a dilemma when they want to enter simple church: How will I make a living if I’m not supported by the church? In some cases, this person may have few marketable skills and little business experience. In other cases, they need guidance in how to make a living that will still allow the time and energy necessary for them to follow their calling.
2. There are many business people in the simple church movement whose journey in this incarnational approach to Jesus-following has drawn up questions about how they can reform their careers and businesses for the sake of the King. This would also include entrepreneurs who are attracted to the pioneering nature of simple church because it aligned with their personal passions and who want to reform existing careers or businesses to serve the Kingdom they’ve come to love and serve.
3. We’ve also heard that some people are just sick of their current job because it isn’t the vibrant life they are now used to in Christ or because it limits mission and sane living in some way. They are asking questions about better ways to make a living by reforming their careers or starting up businesses of their own.

Which one are you? Let us know if you think there are other categories. We’re trying to get a bit of an idea about who and how many people are interested in each conversation/journey. Tell us a little bit of your story and what you hope to do with marketplace ministry in the future.

Three Areas/Themes of Marketplace Ministry

Tony and Felicity Dale

A couple of days ago, I was on a conference call with Tony and Felicity Dale, David Underwood, and Jim Mellon – all people with a huge heart for the simple church movement and all business people who are paving the way for those who are asking questions about self-funded ministry and mission and how to make a marketplace impact (Tony, David, and Jim and I will be facilitating the Marketplace Ministry track at the H2H2008 conference while Felicity will be working with John White in the House Church Basics track).

While on the call, the Dales told the story about a new direction in their ministry and perhaps in the lives of many in the movement. Since sometime around last Christmas, the Dales have felt God urging them to support and serve people who want to do Godly business within the movement, so they brought in their good friends and long-time collaborators Jim and David (who played a significant role in founding House2House). These four have been listening to people far and wide as they ask questions about surviving and thriving in the new paradigm with few professional Christians and blurring boundaries between the spheres of family, faith, and work.

A Kingdom (Re)Definition of Business

The Gospel flips the whole world up-side-down. The Kingdom of God, in it’s most central meaning, is God’s reality subverting and overcoming human-generated reality. That means Jesus re-defines all human endeavors, not the least of which is business. We cannot afford to be dualistic and allow our economic activities to remain unconverted while the rest of us is discipled to the Master (since most of our lives are now spent at work, that would only leave 25% for Jesus). We must start with changing the definition of business.

Being a “wiki-a-holic”, I decided to look up “business” on Wikipedia. Here are the more salient snippets:

QUOTE:
In economics, a business (also called firm or enterprise) is a legally recognized organizational entity existing within an economically free country designed to provide goods and/or services to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most are privately owned and typically formed to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. The owners and operators of a business have as one of their main objectives the receipt or generation of a financial return in exchange for their work and their acceptance of risk.

What’s the “Bottom Line”?

I’ve been thinking about the “non-negotiables” of following God at work. In order for me to seek the Kingdom in enterprise, what I do must resound with the calling of Christ and impulse of the Gospel. It must prophetically announcing the coming of Kingdom-reality as much as all other Jesus-following. This makes me think that Missional Business is a WHOLE Enterprise:

The Questions that Drive Us

I’m coming into Missional Buisness from full-time urban missions, planting simple church networks in the New York City metro area. Our city-wide mission team MetroSoul, and various other friends are forming cooperative ventures to fuel and sustain mission here, impact more lives, and have more life-on-life time with emerging leaders. Right now, most of what we have are heavy questions and few answers. I’m thinking that might also be true of many people in the house/simple church movement right now. I have friends from Mexico to Chicago to Texas and Denver all asking very similar things.

Perhaps the most pressing question comes from the most apostolic leaders among us. Although these guys have served to catalyze countless leaders and networks, they are having trouble figuring out how to pay the bills. They’re question is very real: “How am I going to avoid bankruptcy?” (This was actually a topic of concern on a conference call today with other national simple church leaders.)

Four Streams of God + Business

My friend, co-planter, and business partner Jared Looney has been doing some research into Jesus-following in different business modes.  He’s identified four “streams” of combining faith and work, each with it’s own emphasis, origin, and culture.  I’d be curious which of these terms you identify with the most or have heard most often: