Empowerment is an ingredient that is essential in many business.  Truthfully, very few learn to grasp the concepts and employ them correctly and effectively.  Without successful empowerment, business can become limited in growth, as the leaders who strive to control all aspects of the business hit their limits.  The bottleneck for growth and increased success truly become the top of the bottle – the leaders.

When we focus on business as a mission for God, we must in that process be equipping others to receive empowerment.  Our intent from the beginning should be to prepare and equip our local leaders and teams to successfully assume the decision making  authority and the essential responsibilities related to making business and kingdom decisions.  We see it is a two fold equipping process:

1. Understanding of God's mission and purposes and how we can run business in a way that honors and brings glory to Him
    
2. Developing the business skills to successfully be empowered

Empowerment is not like throwing a switch.  It is a continuum along which people develop.  It requires keen leadership skills to create an environment and working relationships that embrace and move toward empowerment.  It is a journey.  (You can reference our webpage on empowerment by clicking here.)

Many blessings and thanks,

Larry 

What a powerful demonstration of God's love for us, that He would leave heaven and come to us, clothed in the flesh of humanity as God's Son, Jesus Christ.  It is miraculous.  It is humbling.  It is truth.

And, it also is for us a great model of reaching people.  God reached us through incarnation and coming to us.  As we think about all types of mission outreach, this wonderful model provokes us to think of key factors and opportunities.

Most significant are lessons related to culture.  God came into man's culture in human form.  We know that mission work is powerfully enabled by emerging from within a culture.  It is limited and often nil if the effort is to somehow drive it in from outside of a culture.

We can embrace this learning in BAM strategies, both planning and work.  First, understanding the culture and preparing for the work from within the culture is essential.  Business strategies solely from outside of a culture may not be applicable or effective.  We must adapt them.  As businesses have been forced to learn how to successfully globalize, we in the process have become much improved at understanding and responding to different and diverse cultures.  This experience can now apply as we advance the gospel with businesses.

Simultaneously we can plan to contextualize both our business and how the gospel message can be best communicated in any given culture.

Warning – as we work to do this we must never compromise Scripture.  We are contextualizing how the message can best be brought to life in a culture.  We are not changing the message.

Much depends on this capacity to "contextualize."  Both the business and the gospel message depend on it in order to be accepted by the community we are working in.  Without acceptance, the business will fail.  Without acceptance, the message will not be heard.  It will be viewed as foreign, and it will be rejected.  Opportunity will be lost.

Many thanks,

Larry