International (MNN) — SIM International has always been open to trying new approaches to Gospel ministry. The newest venture they've been exploring is business-based ministry, or
BBM.
BBMs serve several purposes as an outreach. They provide jobs for a community, access to
places that missionaries may otherwise not have had access to, and day-to-day
opportunities for sharing the Gospel. Often these are great mission openings for early retirees with business background to get into the mission field.
The point of a BBM is not to open a "secret" or "undercover" ministry. Instead, they are openly-Christian businesses that allow believers to live out and proclaim the Gospel daily. BBMs are approached similarly to church planting efforts. A BBM must be
respectable, real instead of fake, and it must be a blessing to the community where it is established. In a sense, all the income earned at the BBM is re-invested into the community.
Part of the purpose of this kind of ministry is to portray the idea, to both believers and non-believers alike, that a job and your relationship with Jesus can go hand-in-hand.
Some of the already-existing BBMs are chicken farms, computer software companies, steel parts manufacturing, and handicraft programs. At the chicken farm, the surrounding Muslim farmers ask for advice from the Christians as to how they raise such healthy chickens–same with the steel business which is located in the heart of a Muslim area.
Pray that God will protect missionaries and Christians who are a part of BBMs. Pray also that the business will grow so that more people can be employed and can
interact more closely with Christian business leaders.
