bam or ram
I was listening to one of our church missionaries and learned another acronym: BAM . It means business as missions - one of the many innovative ways of doing missions. Restricted access in many nations to missionary work has spurred creativity among God’s people. So missionaries enter a country on a business visa, set up a small business, and use it as a platform for reaching a target group of people. It may be a cafe, a restaurant, a consultancy company, a hostel or guesthouse, a gifts or craft shop, language school, whatever. The intention is of course to win the lost to Christ and to disciple them. The business is a means, a vehicle to help the missionary do it. The missionary in business often reaches out to his employees and as a result small cells of believers are formed. So you have factory churches, restaurant churches, etc besides the underground churches(churches that meet in secret). There are already successful and fruitful models in existence. One is a garment factory from which profits have been used to resource church plants. Another is a guest house cum restaurant that hires the unreached people and they got saved and discipled in the place of business.
It got my creative juices flowing and I came up with RAM. That’s retirement as missions. Go to a country which gives special visas to retirees. They are welcome as long as they keep certain sums of money in deposits. You settle among the unreached you want to reach and do the work! A few countries like Malaysia and Thailand have this program.
Any takers for BAM or RAM?
Add comment July 25th, 2008
