Testimonies and Reports from iBAM Courses

 

NEW! Testimonies from iBAM Chiang Mai 2010

 

The first iBAM of 2010 has just finished - here is what some of the participants had to say...

 

"Taking iBAM is the shortest most thorough way I can imagine to step into the Missional Business stream. I got a good understanding of how God is moving in these days through business and I feel equipped to be a part of it."

 

"iBAM was a great opportunity to see first hand what business as missions is doing around the world, it encouraged me to step out of the box."

 

"A great course,  with a huge amount of information to continue to process over the coming days, months and years. A great foundation for understanding something of business as part of God’s calling from a biblical perspective and being presented with some of the very real and practical challenges that go hand in hand with such a call."

 

"I have received both the spiritual tools and the practical tools to step out and do the business that God has put on my heart to do."

 

"Before I came to the iBAM Course with my wife, we knew that the Lord was leading us to establish an IT Business as Mission company in Uruguay, the least reached country of Latin America. One of the many things that I have heard from other BAMers when they referred to BAM is that these are businesses used by the Lord to transform peoples, communities and nations. However, I was still not sure how the Lord could use such a small IT company to bless a nation! When we came here and experienced these intensive 5 weeks of learning and sharing with other brothers and sisters from different parts of the world, the Lord provided so that we had all these doubts clarified. We learned more about adding value to people, being effective servant leaders in the marketplace, and even how to start a company from scratch. There were so many things that we learned from the staff members themselves by their example and experiences. Now we are coming back home to Puerto Rico with formal plans and ready for a season of prayer so that the Lord can show us when we should move to Uruguay to begin the market analysis. iBAM 2010 has been a blessing for me and my wife."

More reports from iBAM 2009

 

 

Grappling with Business as Mission

A short article about iBAM 2009

 

 

iBAM 2009 Week by Week

A week by week report from iBAM 2009 with participant testimonies about each week

 

 

Grappling with Business as Mission

 

What is God trying to tell us in His word about the purpose of business?

 

Landa Cope had us against the ropes and there was no escaping with pat answers. She was teaching and we were wrestling! What is God’s response to poverty? What exactly is sinful about corruption? Where are the integrity issues? How do we build economies, as well as building businesses? How do we disciple nations, as well as discipling individuals?

 

By the end of the first week we were exhausted, but exhilarated… our thinking transformed, our dreams a little bigger.

 

This is what the Introduction to Business as Mission (iBAM) course is all about. We explore the subject of business as mission in concept and practice. Our aim: to prepare participants for the next step in business as mission and to build their businesses on stronger foundations.

 

Week on week, we delved deeper into business as mission, it’s history, it’s context, it’s practice. What kind of theology and strategy do we need to bring transformation? How do I develop a marketing plan? Stretching our thinking, our understanding and addressing the practical questions, the how-to’s.

 

A crucial component of the iBAM course is getting out to see real-life examples of business as mission. In iBAM 09 we visited a diverse range of enterprises, both locally and in the region, for an inside look at business as mission. The course is strongly interactive throughout and time is given for participants to discuss and apply principles they are learning and to spend time articulating their own ideas and plans.

 

The iBAM Course incorporates classroom teaching, visits to local businesses, group work, one–on–one consultations from experienced business coaches and a 1 week field trip to locations in South East Asia.

 

The next Introduction to Business as Mission course will start again on the 16^th January 2010 in Chiang Mai, North Thailand.

 

Find out more about the iBAM Course

 

 

*Landa Cope, international speaker and author of The Old Testament Template: Rediscovering God’s principles for discipling all nations.

 

 

iBAM 2009 Week by Week

 

“For me personally, iBAM 2009 was a challenge to excellence; to be intentional in life and work and allow the kingdom to come through business.”  iBAM Participant

 

WEEK 1

It has been very exciting to welcome our 17 participants and get to know them a little in these first days. Our 17 students have a very Asian flavour, which is tremendously exciting. Five of the participants are Asian, from Vietnam, Thai, Cambodia, Philippines and Singapore! We also have 1 African, 1 Australian, 3 Europeans and 7 North Americans – of this non-Asian crowd, 3 have been working in SE Asia, 3 in Central Asia and 1 in the Pacific! So it is a diverse, interesting and international group.

Everyone had arrived by Saturday the 24th of January and we kicked off with our orientation weekend. On Monday the 26th we began our classroom sessions with more formal introductions. We spent time articulating our expectations for the 6 week process ahead, which produced a great sense of anticipation and excitement. We invited God to breathe his life into our learning and to exceed our expectations!  

The staff team also shared some of their story and motivation for hosting the course and introduced the different facets of the curriculum. We are particularly excited about how the different parts of the course contribute to the overall aim of equipping our participants to launch into business as mission projects. Included are times of worship and bible study, teaching sessions, personal development sessions, teaching on cross-cultural communications, business development workshops, business planning and coaching, a field trip and visits to local businesses! The class had their first visit to a local BAM project, a media company here in Chiang Mai on Tuesday afternoon, which really made the learning process come alive!

From Wednesday to Friday we had our first keynote speaker, Landa Cope teaching on ‘discipling the nations’ and God’s purpose for business and economics – this was the biblical foundation for business as mission.  The teaching was very challenging and Landa lead us into some very good interactive discussions as we wrestled with God’s principles and looked at how they applied to some real life scenarios. We had a very lively session on what the bible says about corruption!  A local expert on cross-cultural communications came on Friday afternoon to finish the week with some practical teaching on working in cross-cultural situations.

 

I thought that the schedule was well planned and varied. I appreciated the weekly visits to local businesses as these experiences could be incorporated in the course material.

 

It was great to start with Landa, it was good for building foundations.

 

Landa is a very good speaker, a very good choice for this course as she has a broad understanding on how to transform a society or nation.

 

Landa is an amazing speaker, the way that she teaches, she always brings fun in class. She is trying to show me why I want to do business. It’s helped me a lot.

 

I really enjoyed Landa, she had a way of challenging your thinking to go deeper and at times in new ways.

 

The local business visit was very useful, I appreciated K’s transparency and willingness to share.

 

WEEK 2

The iBAM course continued in week 2 with an excellent series of teaching sessions from Mats Tunehag. Mats travels all around the world teaching and writing on Business as Mission and he brought his global perspective into our classroom and stretched our horizons.

Building on the biblical foundation laid in week 1, Mats challenged us that business as mission is not just another strategy, but a totally new way of responding to the needs in the world today. Just a few highlights: Mats provoked us to think more deeply about the physical, social and spiritual needs of the world and how in the long term the poor and vulnerable need not more and more aid, but sustained provision in the form of secure jobs.  Mats movingly highlighted the big issue of slavery in our times - human trafficking - telling real life stories of how joblessness and poverty leads to slavery. He also looked back through history, show-casing business people who have not only thought about making money, but also about having a transforming impact on their employees, business associates, communities and nations.

Week 2 also included sessions aimed at business development and personal development, including: an overview of business planning and financial management, strategic planning tools and teaching on how to keep growing and developing yourself.

 

For me the first week and a half was really powerful in terms of understanding and tearing down the dichotomy that I didn’t even realise existed within me. A light bulb came on in terms of the holistic nature of business as mission. I love the fact that business as mission is about is about transforming nations by transforming lives.

 

Mats challenged me to think through some issues in a deeper way, it was a good time.

It was great to sit under Mat’s teaching. He has thought through the history and current manifestations of BAM.

 

I was both challenged and really inspired to realize the size of the issue of human trafficking, but also encouraged and inspired about the role of business and the difference business can make.

 

Ken gave very practical tools for doing business as mission in the field, I loved having access to BAM practitioners! The one-on-one coaching sessions have been very helpful.

 

I found David a friendly and accessible speaker who made an outstanding contribution as a current CEO. His insights are invaluable because of his experience and discipline.

 

 

WEEK 3

Week 3 in the iBAM course was all about going deeper.... Going deeper in relationships and going deeper into the subject of Business as Mission and what it takes to really do it.

Monday was a national holiday in Thailand and we kicked off the week with a Team Building day at a nearby resort. We began with teaching on the dynamics of teams and how to build culturally diverse teams. This was coupled with a few fun activities to help the field trip teams get to know each other better.  Everyone enjoyed the change of pace and were ready for another few intense days of classroom-based teaching.

Peter Shaukat* long time practitioner and BAM mentor taught for 3 days and really touched on some of the core issues of practicing business as mission. Peter started with his personal story, along the way imparting principles of how God prepares us for servant leadership in the marketplace. Other highlights included: the strategic importance of small and medium size enterprises, the spiritual foundations needed for business as mission, our call to both moral and operational leadership, and the elusive notion of success! If all that sounds intriguing – it was! Peter’s teaching was both inspiring and challenging and provoked some great discussions.

The week finished with more teaching on working cross-culturally and final preparations for the field trips for the 6-7 day field trips.

 

* Peter’s real name has been disguised for security reasons.

 

Peter had a very good command of the topic of BAM in practice, based on a very relevant background in the field.

 

I was really impressed by Peter’s willingness to give of himself to the group and was really envisioned and excited by what he had to share and teach us.

Peter’s teaching was worth the price of admission – if he had been the only speaker the effort of coming would have been worth it. Peter’s insights were unique and technically impressive. The material he covered will be helpful for my future work.

 

Peter is a great speaker, he shared from his personal life and about business, he started in the word and had a very good balance of knowledge and application.

 

I have already begun to be spiritually refreshed through the good teaching, I am learning a lot about recent development of business as mission. I am encouraged to learn of such successful business as mission efforts in so many areas of the world and am more challenged than before to teach others to apply them back home.

 

The variety of cultures and ages represented in this group is quite incredible. I’ve been impressed by freedom of interaction between everyone… it’s been incredible to see language and cultural barriers breaking down. 

 

This course has helped me see that I need to be much more ‘intentional’ in my personal development so that I am ready for what is to come…

 

Please note: In 2010 the iBAM in Chiang Mai will be a 5 week course and Week 3 will be the field trip week.

 

WEEK 4

This week only means one thing - FIELD TRIPS! This year the participants split up into 3 teams, to China, Cambodia and South Thailand.

The timing of the field trips in the iBAM course is deliberate – it’s time to get out of the classroom and to see the principles they have been learning in action in a variety of real-life businesses and training projects that are all about having a transformational impact.

The China team felt they had an opportunity to witness the changing face of urban China, as the environment is steadily becoming more and more conducive for small and medium businesses. They visited 5 different businesses and met with other business owners and officials. What struck them was the variety - God using people who reflect His creativity in diverse ways. Each different business they saw was having an impact – whether that was bringing dignity and empowerment through employment, providing an opportunity to train and disciple employees, giving context for influential relationships with local officials, seeing customers and employees come to faith or starting educational programs in the local community as part of the company’s ‘corporate social responsibility’.

In Cambodia the team were also struck by the different backgrounds that the business owners came from – some had only limited business experience, some had a lot. They saw that availability and obedience to God counted for a lot and was resulting in each business making an impact on the social and economic fabric of the community, including influence at a Governmental level. Some of the businesses focused on providing dignified employment for the most vulnerable of the poor: landmine victims, abused women and ex-prostitutes. Another focused on creating jobs in the IT sector and transferring skills – training, as well as discipleship.

The South Thailand team traveled to Bangkok and Pattaya and saw in particular how micro and small enterprises are transforming the lives of slum dwellers and prostitutes. In Pattaya, it is estimated that 1 in 4 residents is involved in the sex industry in some way – the team felt privileged to meet Christian business people and missionaries called to bring change in this dark place, providing real economic and spiritual alternatives for women trapped in that way of life.

Each of the teams came back inspired, with new perspectives and having had some fun together too!

A highlight was the excellent field trip and the exposure that came with it, seeing varied people with varied callings with so many challenges in a difficult environment.

 

Having the trips here in Chiang Mai and also in Cambodia was amazing. What Mary is doing in Cambodia is phenomenal… if we’d only visited her it would have been worth it. She is seeing healing in peoples lives, she is influencing governments, she is helping families, she is working at all levels of society. It was really challenging for me to dream bigger.

 

The field trip and local business visits were an essential part of this course and for me was the backbone of this time, we saw good examples of the spectrum of business as mission.

 

The field trip was so wonderful, to be with the team from different countries. It was wonderful to visit some companies and projects in Bangkok, looking at how people there are working hard to rescue people.

 

The business visits and field trips, especially our time in China, have helped to keep things in perspective between classroom concepts and theory and what we find in the everyday Kingdom business world.

 

 

WEEK 5

Week 5 began with Field Trip debrief and reporting. The field trips happen mid-course to allow the participants to be able to dig into their experiences more deeply and apply them to what they are continuing to learn about business as mission.

The final 2 weeks of the course are all about application and the skills needed for the future. This part of the course is somewhat tailor made to individual participant felt-needs and as such there are many 1-on-1 coaching times, panel discussions and question/answer sessions built into the schedule. This week we have had very practical teaching on some basics of business operations: research and business planning, sales and marketing, business systems, financial planning and recording, management and succession planning.  Other topics have included working with mission organisations, goal setting and coaching others. We’ve also had a visiting speaker talking about micro-enterprise development.

 
I really appreciated the openness and hands on experience of the business coaches. I particularly appreciated the simple but clear overview of sales and marketing and the insight that you need to have a real desire and passion for what you are doing as a business.

 

The one-on-one coaching sessions were helpful and comforting. We needed assurance and encouragement and the coaching staff showed us they cared for us, which was so important. They helped us not feel inferior if we do not have all the business ‘know-how’ and experience that others have.

 

At a practical level, financials have been demystified for me, which is nice! Ken and Irene have a way of making it seem not so impossible.

 

God has been using this course to encourage and affirm me in some of my skills. To a degree it has been redeeming large portions of my (business) life that in my very dichotomised mindset, I thought I’d wasted.

 

 

WEEK 6

In Week 6 we had teaching and stories about the spiritual realities and challenges of doing business in Asia, from a Singaporean businessman with business concerns all over S E Asia. In other sessions we challenged the participants to think together about ‘multiplying’ and ‘communicating’ business as mission, which produced some very creative and productive discussions.

The important work of 1-on-1 coaching continued throughout the week with iBAM 2009 business coaches Ken and Irene, who gave tailored input to help prepare participants for their future business activities. There were also optional workshops on living cross-culturally, leading multi-cultural teams and business ethics.

On Friday we heard participant testimonies and took time to encourage and pray for each participant individually. The grand finale was a Celebration Dinner on Friday evening at which certificates and Thai flower garlands were presented in honour of so much effort and dedication to learning! It was a wonderful 6 weeks and a privilege to be involved in the lives of the participants.

 

I feel that I am being equipped to talk with and mobilise churches, business people and the mission community for business as mission.

 

I felt like the course staff team worked well together and that you were all focused and committed to helping each person have the best experience possible. I felt like each of you were interested in me and my unique issues, that was very encouraging and a blessing.

 

For me the course has helped me develop new business ideas and have a picture of ‘my’ business as mission project, the vision is getting clearer and I am closer to a plan for the next 2 years.

 

All the speakers from week 1 until the end really impacted me, the teaching really blew my mind. This course has given me a much bigger and broader perspective. It’s about how I can use my business to transform nations and communities. I understand now why we need to rise up and ask God to help us by using us in the area of business, to shine for him and make an impact in our world.

 

 

More about what impacted the participants:

 

I was very encouraged about business in the Kingdom and where that fits and the impact it can have in the nations through people, it was very powerful.

 

Something that has been significant for me is realizing the need for business builders as well as just entrepreneurs in the BAM movement.

 

A real highlight was sharing with different participants, I’ve been reading and talking about business as mission and it has always seemed an incredibly western concept. For me the highlight has been to see the number of non-westerners here and to interact with the guys who are going to be the multipliers of this in their nations.

 

This course has helped me learn how business as mission interrelates with economic development and poverty reduction. I have also learned how values education and Christian worldview is imparted through business development.

 

The course has given me a deeper understanding of the biblical, theoretical and practical basis for BAM. I am appreciating the broad spectrum of BAM and seeing different BAM enterprises in situ.

 

Something significant for me has been seeing the legitimacy of non-profit AND for-profit models in mission. Mission needs to have two healthy legs to move forward, non-profit and for-profit.

 

Business as mission is a great challenge – one that can only be done with God’s guidance and provision. I have a business background – and by no means think I know everything – but coming to this course I realize how more we need God for this to happen and how little we’ll be able to do on our own, so that was a really big thing for me.

 

The course would be especially helpful for those whose mind is already made up that Christian mission should only be done in certain ways – it might convince them that a paradigm shift is in order!

 

 

More about the program in general:

 

The iBAM course has provided a number of substantial opportunities to meet ‘like-minded’ individuals including the speakers, as well as participants. The opportunity to not only hear but interact one-on-one with the main speakers has been significant.

 

The course length was good, it allowed a time for concepts to be laid and then for them to be thought on and seen in different ways throughout the rest of the time. The course seemed to build week upon week, I could tell the staff team had thought things through.

 

The local business visits were great for the group dynamic and discussion. They have been an important part of the program, giving much to think about and talk about.

 

It has been great value in regards to spending time with others in the group, I have appreciated being able to develop relationships with people in the course.

 

Overall I really enjoyed the speakers and access to the speakers, this is a valuable aspect to the course. The quality of the majority of the speakers was ‘top notch’ and very knowledgeable and brought a great dynamic to the learning environment.

 

I appreciated the balance of informal and formal times we had to get together and meet and the relationship building and networking we got to do here and be part of. 

 

I felt like the course staff team were hand picked for the job.

 

I found that the staff exhibited an exemplary combination of professionalism and friendliness.