Course Description

The Introduction to Business as Mission seminar is created from the first two weeks of the 12-week School of Business and Entrepreneurship (SOBE). It is recommended both as a stand alone seminar for those wanting a “taste” of what BAM is, as well as for someone that is not yet sure if they want to commit to taking the full 12-week SOBE. All of our online learning is done using Moodle as our Leaning Management System (LMS) and Panopto as our Video Content Management System (Video CMS). The course is structured using short video clips followed by questions the student answers to ensure active learning. The student can start and stop whenever they want. Moodle will resume the course at the point they left off and is accessible through a web browser on any computer or a downloadable app on a mobile device.

The seminar will include the following 10 sessions:

• Introduction to Business as Mission
• Biblical Basis for Business – Part 1
• Biblical Basis for Business – Part 2
• Practices and Principles in BAM – Part 1
• Practices and Principles in BAM – Part 2
• Practices and Principles in BAM – Part 3
• Practices and Principles in BAM – Part 4
• BAM Case Studies: Learning from Success and Failure – Part 1
• BAM Case Studies: Learning from Success and Failure – Part 2
• How to write a Business Plan

A more detailed description of the sessions is as follows:

Introduction to Business as Mission – This teaching will talk about what Business as Mission is and is not. What strategic role does it play in missions today, especially amongst the least reach? How is it being used by different mission agencies? What are some historical examples of BAM, and what can we learn from them? What are some BAM best practices? We will contrast aid-based development vs. business-based development. At the end, the students will have gained a better understanding of the BAM movement and its strategic role in world missions.

Biblical Basis for Business – We will dig deep into scripture to discover what God’s design and intent is for Business. Does the Bible really have much to say about business? How does the Old Testament provide a template for this? How do we identify biblical values on which business should be conducted? What does the Bible have to say about working within a corrupt system? At the end of these six sessions the student will have made a shift in how they read scripture to see God’s plan for business in a way they may have never seen it before.

Practices and Principles in BAM – The concept of Business as Mission is not new and history, research and scripture lead us into an understanding of how to do BAM well. We look at a wide range of both missional and business concepts and how they intersect and integrate into the concept of Business as Mission.

Case Studies: Learning from Success and Failure – We will look at over 60 BAM ventures that will be used to draw out what has resulted in success and failure in both the economic and spiritual bottom lines. From these examples, the students will identify best practices that they will be able to incorporate into their own BAM ventures.

How to write a Business Plan – This session is designed to provide you with a healthy start to crafting and leading a successful BAM business. Within this session, we’ll cover the framework of building a comprehensive business plan that includes the key fundamental parts that a successful BAM business or organization needs. We look at all four bottom lines of BAM, which no other business plan training will have as a focus. The student is then provided with a working template to use to write their plan.