Part 3 – Businesses reach Businesses

The Institute has a small part to play in reaching the GBCs. Our purpose statement is “Repurposing leaders and corporations to discover and implement personal and corporate callings, thereby transforming communities and nations.” Our tag line is Repurposing Business—Transforming Society^®. We have a particular focus on restoring God’s intended purpose for business simply because business is his, and because it is often the key in the lock to open nations. It is also a common denominator to accessing most spheres of society simply because there are businesses that serve all spheres, and it we can repurpose them, we can have inroads in the spheres. So business is not everything, but it is a handy starting point to get into and transform nations.

Of course we cannot just repurpose businesses, and there are many other competencies required to transform a nation. I cannot unpack these competencies in this article but they include areas such as research, intercession, capital, discipleship, and more.

In the past we at The Institute have had a two-pronged approach: the rēp Ventures and the rēp2.0 follow-on products. We have also begun experimenting with a community-based business. We recognize that to transform society we need a multi-pronged approach. When people from the USA join us for training and Ventures, then our marketplace partner, Vine Associates, handles their funding. All product delivery is done through The Institute and we face the market as a business. Now, it is true, we do not have the same markup on all lines of business, but neither does a supermarket.

Looking at it from the “customer perspective” there are a number of tiers within the GBC, so we are working on ways to have an impact on these sub-segments. You may be called to activities that focus on a particular tier of the GBC.

• People of Peace
• Households of Peace
• Spheres of Society
• Individual businesses, be they corporates or mid-market companies
• Marketplace leaders—a critical mass of people who truly live integrated lives, no longer compartmentalizing work and faith, business and ministry
• Entrepreneurs—infusing scriptural business precepts into thousands of entrepreneurs who are often the lifeblood of emerging economies
• Communities—here we are building businesses among the poorest of the poor who are living proof that God’s business principles work at all levels of society.

You might be wondering why we repurpose companies. God has given all of us a ministry of reconciliation, as you will know from 2 Corinthians chapter 5. This means that we are charged with bringing aspects of the kosmos back into alignment with Him. It is an impossible task without him, but the truth is that business, as will all facets of society, belongs to God and operates best when run on his principles. Our job is to get businesses back into God’s business.

This concept of a business incorporating biblical principles and being a vehicle for kingdom growth is not at all new. The word “company” comes from two Italian words, “com” or with, and “pan” or bread. In other words, a company is “those who gather around bread.” The Moravians, by way of example, were quick to combine trade and missions. In 1751, a group of merchants attached to the Moravian congregation in London decided to outfit a trading and missionary voyage to the Labrador coast the following year. A mission house was built at what is now Ford’s Bight, near Makkovik, and named Hoffnungsthal (Hopedale). This expedition ended in tragedy when its leader, Johann Christian Ehrhardt, and six companions, were killed by local Inuit Indians. The Moravians were under no illusion that the combination of business and missions was easy, but they did it nonetheless

In the 1600’s greengrocers in England got together and established a “livery” or guild where all participants agreed to abide by a set of biblical conduct. These later were codified in Rules for the Conduct of Life. All apprentices in England had to sign the code of conduct. This spread from the grocers to many other industries.

“…the twelve great companies of the City of London are still known this way today. Now there are 300 companies in the City of London registered as Livery Companies. The latest one was the Most Worshipful Company of Information Technologists. So everybody that joins one of the companies in the City of London, even today gets a list of the principles they have to sign up to. There are 36 Biblical principles to guide your life. And they call the book Some Rules for the Conduct of Life to Which Are Added A Few Cautions.”[i]

Our work, as a business, is to get other businesses, leaders and corporations in society to rediscover God’s intended purpose for them, just as the two greengrocers did centuries ago. We want companies to have an enduring purpose that is an unchanging reason for being that transcends people and products. It is a vision that is so big that it can never be achieved. For example, Merck’s enduring purpose is to eradicate diseases. As far as we can see, disease will never be eradicated. Merck’s specific mission at any point in time may change, such as the mission to find a cure for AIDS over the past 20 years. Despite an evolving mission statement, Merck’s enduring purpose or vision is unchangeable. We admit that changing one company at a time may not start a movement, but it could!

(See Part 4 – Church Planting Movements)

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[i] A paper delivered by my friend, Mark Markievicz, The paper was never formally published.