How current BAM authors present the relationship of a BAM company to the local church. Second, I examine how current BAM authors present the relationship of a BAM company to the local church.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Lad departed from the ethical view of the kingdom, concluding that it is the work of God, not man. Wright, The Mission of God's People: A Biblical Theology of the Church's Mission, Biblical Theology for Life (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 28. In this chapter, I will work to answer a central question: what is church relationship in the kingdom of God.
However, Moore shows that there is a consensus among the church as the assembled community of the kingdom. 56 I first saw this suggestion in Schreiner, The Kingdom of God and the Glory of the Cross, 15. The covenant with Abraham promised a people and a place at the restoration of the kingdom (Gen 17:4-8) .
All the mighty fulfillment of the kingdom is not present in the local church at present. The gathering and scattering of the church play a spiral role to each other in the preparation of the kingdom of God. First, a waiting for the kingdom of God is part of the preparation of the kingdom.
Therefore, the Church is the authoritative realm and representative of the inaugurated kingdom of God. Wright, The Mission of God's People: A Biblical Theology of the Church's Mission, Biblical Theology for Life (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 25.
Platform
But I will show that there is enough support for the platform perspective to use it positively. They include church planting, evangelism and discipleship along with social justice, care for creation, poverty alleviation and wealth creation as part of God's mission. Both entities are the same, pursuing God's mission to realize God's kingdom.
The province's stance articulates that business plays a unique role in advancing the kingdom of God, a separate province or realm from the church. 24 Ralph Winter, "Where Both Business and Mission Fall Short," in Business as Mission: From Impoverished to Empowered, ed. He writes that BAM promotes the kingdom of God as its priority, even its reason for existence.44 Therefore, the business is a means of access for a kingdom purpose.
For example, he writes: "The leader or CEO of the business must see his or her role as primarily being a missionary in the market and secondarily as a business person."46 Therefore, Vijayam promotes a Platform position for the business to pursue the ministry.
Partner
He writes, “Profit should primarily be plowed back into the ministry,” and “A kingdom company should perform missionary duties separate from profits.”45 While Vijayam tries to reconcile the business and ministry as a cohesive unit, he makes comments that override this option. Paul Stevens provides a partner perspective in his theology of work and vocation in The Other Six Days. He puts the responsibility of God's mission on the church: “The church has an enormous task to bring the good news all over the world as a witness to the nations.”62 Kilpatrick also describes a narrow view of mission.
It is clear, however, that business practices are no substitute for spiritual qualities required for church and mission leadership.”64 For Kilpatrick, the cooperation between business and mission in the church must be better utilized: all ground is holy ground. God-called and God-gifted businessmen with influence, networks, financial resources, and years of valuable business experience await missionary organizations to deploy them in the harvest fields.”65. Instead, they prefer a narrow focus for BAM because they see a connection between physical redemption and spiritual redemption that needs to be articulated in the gospel.67 The authors say that the multiplication of churches is a hallmark of their definition of a Great Commission Company, and they often form formal alliances with local churches.68 Great Commission Companies is an example of a BAM book that takes the role of the local church as an inherent characteristic of a BAM company.
They see the company as integrated, not just for access like the platform attitude, for the mission of God.
Peer
They define BAM through the characteristics of a business with a holistic mission: social responsibility, fosters local church growth and multiplication, primary focus on the least evangelized, brings glory to God, income producing, and led by Christians.66 While the authors acknowledge holistic mission, they do not choose to adopt the terminology of missions in a broad, all-encompassing term that speaks of God's activity. Many will articulate a holistic mission that emphasizes economic, social, political and spiritual transformation in the gospel. He argues for a holistic mission: "While I also emphasize and advocate that mission and missions include a robust witness for Christ, I have come to see God's mission and his vision for missions as something much larger and more comprehensive than produce.
However, he separates them at the organizational level when he says, "I have read about business practices throughout the ages and how theologians and church leaders have treated the concept of business and its role in God's mission."71 Furthermore, he simply states that business competence serves the holistic mission of God, "I believe that a company can serve this mission [God's mission]."72 Therefore, Russell views business as a peer to the church that brings the kingdom of God, "the spiritual mission of the company is not to establish a kingdom of wealth and power, but to bring God's kingdom. It is a company that uses its economic position in the community to sponsor and implement integrated missions in the company and the community."80. God's mission is a comprehensive mission that emphasizes church planting, evangelism and discipleship in addition to other social and economic activities.
The business activities of a BAM company are essentially missionary, but the BAM company cannot lose sight of the spiritual goals of God's kingdom.
Province
The intrinsic value is that the work itself produces God's results, but the instrumental value is that it provides the venue for the production of God's desired results. The implications of Quatro's argument elevate the general grace of business, which asserts that business activities are inextricably part of God's plan (or mission) in the world. 94 The authors focus on Christian ethics as a driving force for discerning God's rule in business.
He points out that the word mission is a Latin term for sent, but until recently it was used only to denote God's activity. God's mission creates the church. Missions can be narrowly defined as church planting, evangelism, and discipleship, or missions can be broadly defined to encompass all of God's activities in restoring creation after the Fall—including church planting, evangelism, and discipleship among other activities that seek righteousness in areas such as politics , economy and social issues.
The provincial paradigm sees business as intrinsically valuable in building the kingdom of God through the creation of wealth for creative and redemptive purposes.
Platform Evaluation
In Chapter 3, I concluded that a BAM practitioner must engage the local church in order to engage in the Kingdom of God. So what implications arise for the four BAM positions Platform, Partner, Peer and Province with this definition of the Kingdom of God. Practitioners can also use the robust definition to help articulate the need to be more than a shell company as they seek legitimate access to one.
Partner Evaluation
Peer Evaluation
Because God's rule must be placed in the context of God's people and God's kingdom, a peer attitude must ensure that evangelism or discipleship in relation to increasing the quality or quantity of a local church must be a clear goal of BAM. Some fellow practitioners may feel inadequate based on skills or knowledge to contribute in a local church setting. However, not every organization needs to manage every aspect of a strong kingdom definition in the local church.
As with the Partner perspective, a peer practitioner can find comfort in a robust definition of God's kingdom in which individual companies and people will play different roles in the growth of the. Yet peer practitioners must work to develop a specific purpose in the local church if they are to achieve kingdom goals.
Province Evaluation
Each attitude of involvement has fostered a good truth found in the complex definition of the kingdom. However, we should not forget to mention the importance of the church that is fragmented over the different spheres of life that Peer and Province propagate. David Bosch's research suggests that practitioners can practically fall on the extreme ends of the spectrum in the platform and province poses.
First, Bosch acknowledged that more than half of practitioners did not have a control plan integrated into the company. Bosch also found that none of the practitioners had ongoing support from a home church, mission organization, or local church for their BAM business. A robust definition of the kingdom will enable platform practitioners to reflect on how to more fully utilize the gifts of the scattered church to cooperate with the mission God has given them.
This dissertation shows how a robust definition of the kingdom can help the conversation in two ways from a Province perspective.
CONCLUSION
The gathering marks a new people in submission to the King and his mission.5 The local church more clearly, though not completely, grasps the promise of the land in. 1 Wendell Willis, “Discovering the Eschatological Kingdom: Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer,” in The Kingdom of God in 20th Century Interpretation, ed. 2 For a thorough analysis that ends a mediating position of inaugurated eschatology, see Wendell Willis, ed., The Kingdom of God in 20th-Century Interpretation (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1987).
One cannot overemphasize the gathering or the spreading of the local church, but one must keep the two in tension.7 The local church is the scaffolding of God's dominion and rule, since it is the gathering of those who are in God's people under his rule, a visible marker of those ruled by the king. A more adequate definition of the kingdom as God's people in God's place under God's rule necessitates a spatial and communal aspect realized in the local church. 7 Jedidiah Coppenger, "The Community of Mission: The Church," in Theology and Practice of Mission: God, the Church, and the Nations, ed.
I argued for a solid definition of the kingdom of God to laser-focus effectiveness in mission.
