Faith at Work: Exploring Business as Mission with Mats Tunehag | Intersection Podcast I
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[00:00:00] Hgh: This is the Intersection Faith Work and Life podcast hosted by Bob Varney and Hugh Brand. The intersection is committed to helping people see that discipleship means we live by faith in God, in all arenas of our lives all the time. If you wanna hear more discipleship stories of people living by faith in every sphere of their lives, please invite others to listen to the Intersection Podcast.

[00:00:23] Hgh: Welcome and thanks for listening to today to learn how Motts Tune Hogg has helped give leadership to business as mission or BAM, around the globe. Mots Tune Hog is a global voice for business's mission. Few people have shaped the business's mission movement as deeply and broadly as mots has a writer, speaker, and consultant originally from Sweden.

[00:00:46] Hgh: Now also based in the USA, MOTS has spent decades weaving together a life of global influence, spanning media, religious liberty, anti-trafficking investment, and above all business' mission. [00:01:00] Since the 1990s, he has been at the forefront of building BAM as a truly global movement from launching the first global think tank on BAM in 2002, to being the main architect behind the BAM Manifesto and Wealth Creation Manifesto.

[00:01:17] Hgh: His vision has helped connect business, church, academia, and mission leaders across continents. Today, his writings are available in more than 200, excuse me, 20 languages. And his impact has felt throughout the networks manifestos and initiatives. He has helped pioneer. Yet behind the global leadership lies a personal story deeply marked by collaboration and compassion.

[00:01:42] Hgh: Tuong has also worked alongside his wife Jennifer, who has been a leader in anti-trafficking and freedom business initiatives for decades. Together they have blended vision with action, conviction with compassion and global strategy with personal faith. Today. Today we sit [00:02:00] down with Motz to explore the journey, the lessons, and the passion that continued to fuel his calling.

[00:02:06] Hgh: Matt, welcome and I'll pass it on to Bob.

[00:02:10] Bob: Thank you. Matt, it's a pleasure to have you on this podcast. Uh, we've enjoyed quite a number of them this year, and they're really, they're really just enjoyable. I mean, we're just gonna have an enjoyable conversation, almost like we're sitting in front of a fireplace.

[00:02:23] Bob: So you have to imagine that, yes,

[00:02:26] Matt: right now you don't need a fireplace here in Washington, DC area. I can imagine I'm back in Sweden during the winter. Yes. Ah,

[00:02:34] Bob: yes. Yes. Tell us a little bit about yourself, uh, your background and what it was like in Sweden as you grew up.

[00:02:41] Matt: Well, uh, I'm a preacher's kid.

[00:02:43] Matt: So, and, and grew up in, in Sweden, have two brothers. And as a preacher's kid we moved around a little bit. Not too much for a featured skid but, uh. In my, my teen years I, I, my [00:03:00] interest was. The world both in terms of international affairs and wow. You know, and, and reading maps. I was obsessed with all kinds of maps.

[00:03:10] Matt: Looking at maps. So bedtime reading, have a map and read a map from anywhere in the world. But that also translated into my passion walking with God was, God, I wanna work. With you, uh, especially in areas with deep spiritual and other needs. And so that was that kind of longing and passion as in, Hey, I need to, uh, be part of God's global thrust to the end, so of the earth.

[00:03:39] Matt: Uh, I didn't know what that meant as practically for me, but that was sort of, a, a, a passion of, of mine. And the, uh, so yeah, so I'm, I'm, uh, my background is Swedish. I have a Swedish passport. Even though I'm losing some of my swedishness and my kids make fun of me when I speak broken [00:04:00] Swedish

[00:04:00] Matt: ' cause I hardly ever speak Swedish anymore. Um, because I worked internationally all, all my life. Now since, uh, three and a half years, we live in, in a small village in northern Sweden. It's the biggest village in the area. It has 260 people. Whoa. A lot of people. Yes. That's the big town. But, uh, there is a, there's a church, there's a grocery store, there's a pizzeria, and there's a hardware store.

[00:04:26] Matt: That's all you need in life. And it's, it's beautiful. That's right. Pizza. So, yeah. So Sweeten is. It's beautiful, uh, and where we live, it's extremely beautiful. And my wife is from, from Alaska as you may recall, Bob, so yeah. Yeah, so we've been journeying together and working together across the global as well.

[00:04:44] Matt: So, but now we're, we alternate by being based in Washington, DC area, uh, center, Virginia and Sweden. And then of course, both of us work internationally. So we are, we also feel at home on airplanes at times.

[00:04:58] Bob: Uh, this business has [00:05:00] mission it's I I guess it, it comes out of those maps. It comes out of the sense of, of the world. So tell us a little bit about how that sort of came about in you and what the, I mean, I think the definitions early on when BAM was around the US so, decades ago, wasn't as well understood and articulated as I, as I've heard you say recently. So, uh, I think all of our listeners would love to hear a little bit of the history, but then what exactly is bam and how does it differ from the things that might look like it?

[00:05:31] Matt: Right. Yeah. So my, my journey into BAM is really a, a, you know, a god surprise because I have no family background or educational background in business.

[00:05:41] Matt: But my passion has always been for the least, the lost and the loyalest, the underserved of the world. Yeah. Whether they we call them unrich peoples, they don't have a Bible in their language, or they're persecuted, or, uh, they're poor or they're being trafficked or whatever it is. My, what triggered [00:06:00] me to get involved in, in this whole thing about business with a godly mission was being involved in the Soviet Union, working in the Soviet Union.

[00:06:08] Matt: And, and the three of us were old enough to actually know what the Soviet Union was and the Cold War and the Berlin Wall and.

[00:06:16] Matt: Sort of imploded. December 91, 1 country became 15 countries.

[00:06:22] Bob: Yes.

[00:06:23] Matt: And one centrally planned economy became 15 countries that had to adjust to global marketplace realities. Yeah. And, uh, in, in a, the artificial. Communist economy, everybody had a job, an employment. So unemployment was basically 0%. Yep.

[00:06:42] Matt: Didn't mean there was any mini, many meaningful jobs, and as we know, they totally failed in manufacturing and providing basic consumer goods for their people. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union, of course then unemployment and underemployment. Yeah. Right. Went [00:07:00] from 0% to 30, 50, 70%.

[00:07:03] Matt: And as I was then heavily involved in this, in the Stans, uh, Kyrgyzstan Takistan and Stan Kazakhstan and those areas, you know, we saw this.

[00:07:14] Matt: Exponential growth of joblessness and everything that comes with that of social ills, labor migration, human trafficking, social, uh, dysfunctions alcohol abuse increasing and all that. And these were unreached peoples Muslim background, few Christians. To me, it was like, what are we gonna do about this?

[00:07:37] Matt: People can't eat the Jesus film or chew on on Bibles, even though those are good things around themselves, but that doesn't pay the bills. That's not human flourishing in its entirety as God wants it. So that's, that's when I started to think, well, we need business people to come in here to see how can we address this particular issue in a, in a godly way because.

[00:07:58] Matt: Other business people came in quickly. [00:08:00] The mafa came in quickly. The oligarchs came in quickly, right? But they didn't operate on good values. And so that was my start in the, about 30 years ago, in the early 1990s and onwards. And then I started the first ongoing international. Consultation on business as mission, which was called the Central Asia Business as mission consultation.

[00:08:25] Matt: Oh, wow. Oh, oh. Uh, and then I got invitations as in, oh, can you come and help us in Turkey, in, in East Africa? Can you help us in the, in the Anglican communion, the church mission societies to think through what this is. And I met others who would. Noticing similar issues and in terms of we need business to serve people.

[00:08:49] Matt: And some are thinking just, oh, just register a business, get a Visa and I can do something else. Right? But others are thinking no business is a ministry in its own right, as [00:09:00] part of, you know, serving people in and through business. As this was emerging and I, I met more and more people from different continents who were thinking along these lines and some of them taking actions towards starting businesses.

[00:09:16] Matt: I felt we need to have a global conversation on what is this? Yes. That is emerging. What does God say about work, faith, business, profit, unreached people's. Yeah. Yeah. In a mix. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And then I thought, well, what if we start a global think tank?

[00:09:38] Bob: Yeah.

[00:09:39] Matt: Where we gather people and we can talk these things through the, there's wisdom in the council of many and having sort of, so I, I contacted Lausanne and one reason I contacted Lausanne was, well, I thought if we create such a white paper, through a think tank process we need to have a good brand name. You know, branding is [00:10:00] important. Yes. And if you travel across the globe and you come across, I don't know what this is, oh, I know what McDonald's is, I'll, I'll go and eat there. 'cause that's safe. Right. You know the brand. Right.

[00:10:10] Matt: It's kinda a safety in knowing the brand. Yeah. So I thought, well if you're gonna create something on businesses' mission, is there a good global brand among Christians? That people will feel like, oh, Luan is part of this. I can relax, I can read this. And it's kind of an indirect endorsement by the branding.

[00:10:33] Matt: So I contacted Luan 'cause I was part of Luan leadership, both on national, regional, international level, and said, this is 2002, 23 years ago. Can I do a global think tank under your auspices on business's mission? And they said business as. What did you call that again? They literally said that, which I understand.

[00:10:55] Matt: It's like it was new. It was new, yes. And, uh, the, [00:11:00] so I tried to explain what was happening and what we meant by that. And it's like, we're not sure what you're talking about, but we trust you, so why don't you go ahead and do that.

[00:11:07] Bob: Wow.

[00:11:08] Matt: Uh, and then to make a long story, at least a little bit shorter.

[00:11:13] Matt: So I, I gathered, um. 75 people from all continents. Two thirds were business people and business leaders. Uh, the last third were leaders in church mission, NGOs and academia. We did dozens and dozens of case studies. We did dozens and dozens of papers, and then we did some email based conversations, and based on that was a 15 month long process.

[00:11:38] Matt: Then we met for one week in Thailand for 2004 to then. Try to you know, sift through and. And discuss and, okay, so what, what have we learned through all these papers and, and case studies and the discussion? And then we literally, and this was one of the most complex processes I've ever facilitated.

[00:11:59] Matt: With [00:12:00] 75 very opinionated people from different cultures. Yeah. Yeah. Because most of them were entrepreneurs and they can have very strong opinions, which are good. We co-wrote chapter by chapter the Lauan. Paper on business as mission. Wow. But a reason why I wanted to. Us to do it together because I wanted to create our own ownership of the whole thing.

[00:12:24] Matt: So when we would walk out of that room, people would say, this is my paper. This is our paper. I was heard my contributions are in there. And it's not much tune hog's idea that I have to buy into, you know, it's our right. Our deliberations over a year that now has been. Put into a paper, but as we were working through this in the room in Thailand for a week I, I was thinking this paper is gonna be about 75 pages and that's fine.

[00:12:55] Matt: But we need something shorter.

[00:12:57] Matt: So I thought, well call me. Marx had his [00:13:00] communist manifesto. Which I've read is long and it's boring, so I thought, no, we're gonna have our manifesto, but it's gonna be one page and it's gonna be a summary of everything that we've, ah, that we've done. So I, while in the room, I drafted a one page summary.

[00:13:17] Matt: And I said this is the draft of the BA Manifesto and then we talked it through again. So everybody had ownership of it. Yes. This reflects our deliberations over 12 months, our papers and case studies and our meeting here in Thailand. And that became then, uh, the BA Manifesto?

[00:13:34] Speaker 5: Yes. Okay.

[00:13:35] Matt: And then it was, the paper was published, the manifesto was published.

[00:13:38] Matt: And the branding idea worked people in, especially in Korea and, and Brazil and, and so Ohan, oh, we could read this. Yes, yes. That's great. Um, but what it did apart from creating a paper and a manifesto was it created a common language. Yes. Yeah.

[00:13:59] Speaker 5: [00:14:00] Yes.

[00:14:00] Matt: Uh, because without a common language, you cannot communicate.

[00:14:03] Matt: Right. And if you cannot communicate, you cannot collaborate. Right. And that paper then set the tone and the stage for what is business's mission. There's been ongoing discussions ever since, and there's been, but there's also been, um, a. Sort of tuning out some of the stuff that we did not think was business as mission.

[00:14:26] Matt: And the paper says that 2004, clearly from the beginning, no, this is not business as a visa. Yes. Uh, that's integrity issues and all that kind of stuff, and it's not doing business. So we can do something more spiritual. No business is the spiritual ministry. And, and so that, that was said from the very beginning.

[00:14:46] Matt: So it's not about fake businesses. No. It's about authentic business with an authentic mission.

[00:14:53] Speaker 5: Yes.

[00:14:54] Matt: And faith at work. Faith at your workplace. Faith in and through business. [00:15:00] So that was. Kind of established as it were, as a baseline in 2004, and then we continued the conversations. So, but if you go back 2000 to 2010 15, there were still a lot of what is this thing and this is that and this is that.

[00:15:17] Matt: But yeah, we've cont continued to do think tank processes. We've now created about 40 papers. Another manifesto, wealth Gehi Manifesto. We've engaged over 500 people from 50 different nations in this think tank processes, which means yes, there is a fairly good consensus around the globe. What is business as mission, right?

[00:15:38] Matt: So what is business's mission? Maybe I should answer that question too, Bob.

[00:15:42] Bob: Yeah. Well, I think it's, uh, I wanted to pause for a second. As you were talking about the Soviet Union collapsing and going into the stands and talking to the people and the unemployment rate going up and I mean, my, my own little tiny, view of that. I mean, it was back in the nineties [00:16:00] that, uh, when it fell and, and my wife said, you know, my dad wants to go back to Ukraine for the last, for the last time. And he was in his high seventies at the time. And um, so we went and we went a couple times, spent a number of weeks there, and the people were just trying to get used to what's going on, so they were trying to engage in business.

[00:16:23] Bob: They had no idea what business was, right? Correct. I remember sitting down with a couple of them talking about a balance sheet or an income statement, and I remember distinctly profit. What do you mean profit? What, what do you do with that? What, you know, why, why do you have that?

[00:16:38] Bob: You know, it, it's like, and I thought, oh my goodness. You know, so, I mean, I was identifying with the challenge of, of what those countries had to go through having lived under communism. Where you didn't produce goods, right? You didn't produce goods for the, I mean, as you said, for the people.

[00:16:56] Bob: I mean, that just didn't happen. Right? Uh, and there was no [00:17:00] mechanism to, to do any of that. Uh, so, I, I really applaud you for, for that. Initiative of engaging with all of those people and then beginning to come up with a, a solution, which is now o obviously working in a lot of places. So

[00:17:17] Matt: I just wanna say thank you, Matt.

[00:17:19] Matt: Well, thank you, Bob. That's most kind. But I think it's also your observation is, is extremely important here that, you know, from a, from an American perspective or a Swedish perspective, doing business, being entrepreneurial, starting a business, failing and starting another one, and Right. And being a church member.

[00:17:35] Matt: Yeah. The, you know, every, most church members would know someone who runs a business, right? Yes. Yeah. It's also part of that church. But then in Soviet Union, you had 70 years of, hey, nobody was running a business. It was illegal and it was considered immoral. Yeah. By many Russian Christians.

[00:17:52] Speaker 5: Yeah.

[00:17:53] Matt: I had a Russian Denomin national leader who told me in the nineties when I started talk about this, he said, mats, [00:18:00] Christians don't do pornography and Christians don't do business.

[00:18:05] Matt: Wow. Ah, we have different starting points and I thought, well, if I start here, I think I've started at the, the Rock Project.

[00:18:12] Matt: And this has also been helpful as we've been doing this global think tank processes that Yeah, they, they have d. We will have different experiences and views of, right, what is business. And in Latin America, many have negative experiences of American corporations that have been a very exploitative, for example.

[00:18:30] Matt: Oh indeed, yes. Yeah. In Sub-Saharan Africa, many people have said, well, the West will give us aid. It's all about aid. How can we just ask? Right. Just get more of that. And getting all these kinds of perspectives into a conversation and, and then together say, well, no business is good.

[00:18:45] Matt: Business is godly. God calls and equips people to business. And, and have that as a common language and baseline has, has really been helpful acknowledging that. There are different cultural and socioeconomic [00:19:00] contexts that we're dealing with. Yes. Yeah, indeed. Yeah. And it's,

[00:19:03] Bob: but it's, it's exciting to know that one can go past that.

[00:19:08] Bob: Correct. That people are people, people are smart. Yeah. People are created as creators and therefore inventors, even if they come from a place that didn't do much inventing.

[00:19:20] Matt: Right, because creativity is, is a, is, is a godly trait within us. You know, we created in God's same mission, he is creative, created good things in community, for community and business is about being creative.

[00:19:35] Matt: Create products and services in community for community. So that creativity is there. So, and that's why, you know, soon after the Soviet Union imploded, businesses started. Yes. And that's not because they had 70 years of experience. No, they had, they didn't have that. But because that's, doing work and business is deeply divine and deeply human.

[00:19:58] Matt: Yes.

[00:19:59] Bob: Yeah. [00:20:00] That's really quite exciting. Now you must have some papers that address that directly to you. This notion of God creating us and it allows people who. Didn't have any background to certainly move in relatively short order into that?

[00:20:17] Matt: Yeah, I mean, we, this was one of the issues that came up when there was a consultation in Brazil 2014, hosted by Lausanne dealing with poverty and the gospel and, and, uh, prosperity theology, uhhuh. Uh, and, and of course a lot of people in there felt the prosperity theology. Jesus, more than this is kind of a spectrum. There, there are some truths in there somewhere. Sure. Uh, but that doesn't really that's not really the gospel, but we still have to help the poor somehow.

[00:20:54] Matt: Of us who say, Hey, can I feed myself and my family? I'll go, what if I'm a desperate situation? I [00:21:00] may do desperate measures as in Go Prosperity Church. So we don't blame people for that. But most people at that consultation said, well, the solution is that we do more wealth sharing. We who have stuff we just to GI need to give more uhhuh, which is back to the old, aid thing.

[00:21:19] Matt: We give more aid. And then some of us said, yes, we could do that. But the life and business is not zero sum mentality. Right. You can also create more wealth. Yes. 'cause there's never any wealth to be shared unless it has been created. And who are the wealth creators? Yeah. Oh, those are business people.

[00:21:43] Matt: And is there a theological foundation for wealth creation? Yes, there is. Yeah. So it was actually that consultation in Brazil 2014 was then challenged. I was then asked to, can you reopen this one and have another con [00:22:00] conversation on what is this? Yeah. Yeah. And that became the wealth creation consultation, which we met in 2017, which dealt with this whole question.

[00:22:09] Matt: Okay. So. What is wealth? What is creating wealth? What is it to be creative? To be created in God's image? To create good things. To create different kinds of wealth. Social wealth, intellectual wealth. Financial wealth. Social wealth. Yes, because wealth is not just money. Yes. You can be financially wealthy.

[00:22:29] Matt: Yes. But you can be socially poor. You have no friends. Right. You can be socially rich, but spiritually poor. You don't know Jesus. Yep. We talked about this whole thing. How are we. Creative and wealth creators in and through business. And so we did seven papers on wealth creation, including a, a biblical paper on what is wealth and the Bible.

[00:22:52] Matt: Then they did one on wealth and the poor and, and then of course. Then we summarize that in the wealth creation manifesto, [00:23:00] ah, which is now in 20 languages, uh, across the globe. And that deals with this very question. So regardless of if you come from a Soviet background or a Brazil background, or Indonesia background or, or a Norway background, what is the biblical thing about human creativity that is, is uh, deeply.

[00:23:22] Matt: Rooted in who God is, right? And what, how does that translate into uh, to business? And, and the most stark examples, if you adhere to wealth creation principles or not, is North and South Korea. Ah, wow. Yes. Same culture, same geographical uh, space. Yes. Same people group. Same ethnicity, same language.

[00:23:46] Matt: Right, right. One is flourishing, one is the most poor dirt, poor countries oppressive in the world. Yes. So what is what's the major difference? Well, um. Three [00:24:00] biblical values, which is part of, of is has to do with freedom, creativity, and dignity, right? Creativity, being able to create. If you don't have freedom, you can't create.

[00:24:12] Matt: And that it doesn't matter if you, if you, if there's no freedom press, you can't create good articles if there's no freedom of speech. You can't have good literature if there's no freedom of religion. You can't start churches or worship or whatever's no freedom of economic activity. You're gonna, you're gonna starve businesses and all that, right?

[00:24:31] Matt: And if there's no freedom, there's no human dignity. So freedom, dignity, and creativity. Three biblical values. Yes. Yes. Which basis for wealth creation. And that's within us. Yeah. Yes. Does that make sense? Or makes a lot of

[00:24:45] Bob: sense.

[00:24:46] Matt: Sense. And that's why this is not just sort of con conceptual stuff for hair splitting kind of conversation.

[00:24:53] Matt: It's actually, if we get it right, we can do a South Korea. If we

[00:24:58] Bob: do it wrong,

[00:24:59] Matt: [00:25:00] we'll get a

[00:25:00] Bob: North Korea. No, I think that's a great, a great example. I mean, easy to understand, easy to see, uh, easy to measure. And it's now one, one of the questions that comes up. I mean, I that is in my mind at this point.

[00:25:14] Bob: We can go back to a couple of the other ones that were there, but. Your one of the challenges that, that we've been looking at in this idea of faith and work together. Okay. And, and how does that work and the dignity of, of work and the worship that goes on through work. I mean, all of that stuff.

[00:25:32] Bob: Mm-hmm. We find great resistance in churches in general. I mean, there's a few churches around, uh, that begin to embrace that. But, but by and large it's very, very challenging. At least our heart's desire would be that churches embrace this for the very reasons that you just stated by the dearest between North and South Korea.

[00:25:55] Bob: I mean, honestly, think, I mean, you've got the freedom here and you got this, but [00:26:00] you sit, when you go inside the Christian bubble, sometimes the freedom goes away. Yeah, because your behavior is contained in what it ought to be in that little sphere. And it's an odd little juxtaposition, but I see my mind looking at this example and then saying, okay, well what about this little one next door?

[00:26:18] Bob: So what are, what are, what are your experiences? I know working with business people is actually great and wonderful. Okay. Yeah. Maybe some people in Luanne is, you've had great experiences there as well. Yeah. But what about churches?

[00:26:31] Matt: Yeah. No, no, you, you're right. And then, uh, I mean it is, the response rate is much more.

[00:26:41] Matt: Favorable and higher with business people, right? Yes. 'cause many of them has felt inside them that, oh, this is my calling, this is my vocation. This is who I am, this is what I thrive upon. And, and. And many Christian in business, they wanna do good, you know, through business, but [00:27:00] they've never been affirmed in their calling, right?

[00:27:02] Matt: They, they live in this tension. I should really sell my business and become a missionary, or my only role in church is to, to write big checks and, and serve on a, you know, on a, on a building committee or, or something like that. I've, over the 30 or so years I've been involved in this, it's like you have business people.

[00:27:20] Matt: They's like, wow. Finally, somebody's verbalizing what I've been feeling here and thinking, but I haven't really been able to conceptualize or verbalize it. Yeah. Pastors, they're not, in general, they're not. Anti, but they're very hesitant.

[00:27:38] Bob: Right? Well, they're ter they're they, they've grown up in a world outside of business.

[00:27:43] Bob: I mean, business has al always been that other thing that sends money this way,

[00:27:47] Matt: Correct. And that is, and I've done. I done, I did for a number of years, uh, on every continent, actually informal surveys in Uhhuh in, in audiences of primarily business [00:28:00] people.

[00:28:00] Speaker 5: Yeah.

[00:28:00] Matt: Which. Part highlights.

[00:28:02] Matt: Why do we have problems in the churches to get this message to land? I asked them, so how many of you have ever heard a sermon on faith at work? Theology of Business? Business as mission? Yeah. Anything of the that sort. And it's usually 0%. Then second question, how many of you of you have been asked by your pastor to give money to the church or to a charitable cause of some kind?

[00:28:26] Matt: You're right, five plus percent. Third question. How many know of you have ever been asked by your pastor? How can I pray for you and your business this week?

[00:28:34] Speaker 5: Yes.

[00:28:35] Matt: 0%. Yeah. 0%. 0%. I mean, so basically nobody has ever heard a sermon about faith work. Nobody has ever been asked by the pastor, I cannot pray for you and your business this week.

[00:28:46] Matt: Yeah, but everybody's been asked for, for money. So why is this right? Why is this right? Well then you go back to seminaries, where pastors were trained and how many classes did [00:29:00] they ever have on faith at work, business submission, theology of business, work, profit, anything. Zero. Zero, right? Zero. Zero. Yeah.

[00:29:09] Matt: So they replicate, well, this is what I was taught and now I'm gonna pass it on to the congregation. So pastors who have. Expressed an interest and, and, and I've been part of it practically. I said, oh, well, what do I do? Okay, yeah. I'm not gonna, step down from the pop and become a business person.

[00:29:27] Matt: I'm still a passport. Do you want me to do? And I said, here's, here's a very easy thing to get started. You don't have to add in budget line to your, a line item to your budget. You don't have to hire more staff. This is simple way you can just get it going. Ask a handful of business people in your church if you could meet with them for one hour.

[00:29:48] Matt: One hour. And the first thing you're gonna say, I'm not gonna ask you for money, because they, many of them I met, many business people were hurt because the pastors only. Oh yeah, yeah. Talk to me when they want money. It doesn't care if [00:30:00] my marriage is failing, my business is failing or anything. Just want my money.

[00:30:03] Matt: So yeah, say that first and then say, I just wanna ask one thing. How can I pray for you and your business this week?

[00:30:11] Speaker 5: Yes. Yes.

[00:30:13] Matt: And I've had some pastors that actually started doing that, and I tell them, don't try to solve their problems. Just listen to them. Right. It's what you, it's what your wife tells you.

[00:30:23] Matt: Exactly. Don't solve my problem. Just listen to me. Just listen to me. And if you, there is a group of five or eight business people, they. Can probably be the peers, like your peer group who can address some of these problems. But if they're just being heard and recognize, the pastor wants me to be salt and light in my business and he wants to pray for me, right?

[00:30:46] Matt: And I have this HR issue, this person on staff that causes so much trouble and I don't know what to do. Yeah. Well. Tell the pastor and your peers and pray about it.

[00:30:57] Matt: And I had one pastor in Singapore for a large [00:31:00] congregation. He took this to heart and he said, MAs, I've taken this to the next step. When you do you want to come with me?

[00:31:06] Matt: 'cause on Monday mornings I go and visit a business that one of my church member owns. Hmm. Excellent. And so we went and visited the business. We walked around for an hour. They told about, their business, they were manufacturing. We saw their product, we met their staff, and all that kind of stuff.

[00:31:23] Matt: And it, it talks about the lowlights and the highlights. And then we ended up in their office and then we just, Hey, let's pray. We had all the prayer requests and, and, and praise requests. Yes. Through that tour. Yes. And that business person felt like the pastor came to me, right? He recognized me as salt and light in the marketplace, and he, he wants to invest time and he wants to pray for me.

[00:31:46] Matt: Yeah. That's awesome. That changes the dynamics and Pastor does do that. It does.

[00:31:51] Bob: Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:31:53] Hgh: Just to, just to jump in, you know, over the years interacting with different business people, a phrase they use too often is, [00:32:00] I feel like second class citizen. Correct. In the kingdom of God. I'm a business person.

[00:32:04] Hgh: I'm not a missionary or a pastor. I feel like a second class citizen. And I feel you're describing that. That's how too often they can feel.

[00:32:13] Matt: It's true. And that's why even in the business as Mission Manifesto you know, which is now 20 years old it ends with that kind of, uh. Affirmation and recommendation to pastors and to business people.

[00:32:29] Matt: You know, we, we ask the pastors to, you know, recognize the business people affirm them, equip them, and send them. And we ask the business people to receive this affirmation and rejoice in their calling. And so we've sometimes encouraged churches and, and gatherings with pastors and business people just read through.

[00:32:52] Matt: The BA Manifesto, it's a one page, it only takes a few minutes, and then the, at the end there's a call to [00:33:00] pastors, and then there's, and then there's a call to business people. Beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. And that's helps, you know, it's like you, some of the church churches, you do confession, you do prayer, you verbalize it together.

[00:33:13] Matt: Right? Right. And that is one way you, as you recognize. Lee, that to make business people who feel like a second, third, fourth class citizen in the kingdom of God to be recognized. Oh this is my calling. Yes.

[00:33:33] Speaker 5: Yes.

[00:33:33] Bob: Yeah. Yeah. That's beautiful. Yeah. 'cause we, we. We talk obviously about vocation and calling that God has on people.

[00:33:42] Bob: The design that he's, I mean, he's made each of us, right, we're aid differently. Uh, we've got different talents for different reasons. And I mean, one of the, we, we had barned to a study I'm sure I've mentioned it to you and it's we found out that 1%, if you look at all seven spheres of society, only 1% of the [00:34:00] people work in the religion sphere.

[00:34:02] Bob: Correct. All the, even the mega churches, you hang around the United States, right, right. Mega churches, you know, and you got churches in every town and you got, you know, and you got pastors and youth pastors and, and places like ywam and Crew and mm-hmm. Walks, you know, all these places. 1%. Yeah. And.

[00:34:16] Bob: I mean, you can't get past that without asking the question. Well, do you think God wants anything out of the rest of us? Yeah, that's well over 90% of us, yeah. Yeah. Um, and it's so it's, it's exciting to hear some of the things you've done, but, uh, somewhat discouraging. And I I, I wanted to go move on to the academia side.

[00:34:37] Bob: I know you've mentioned you've, you've gotten some of the things going on in. Universities and colleges. Is this

[00:34:45] Matt: academia does that include seminaries? I wish it was more responses from the seminaries. You know, we've, we have from the beginning because thought about how do you build a movement?

[00:34:55] Matt: How do you build an ecosystem recognizing that. Business and business [00:35:00] people are essential and critical. Yeah. We can't this is not a silver bullet. Okay? So now all the traditional mission or anything they're out and now is business. People are a silver bullet and they're gonna solve everything.

[00:35:12] Matt: Now we need to recognize how do we work together? Church mission, right? Academia and business people,

[00:35:18] Speaker 5: right?

[00:35:19] Matt: Today there are, uh, 30, 40 different kinds of BAM networks around the globe. On all continents. Most are geographical based, but there is also some who are looking at a particular issue like agriculture, uh, or an industry coffee, or there's also bam, academics network.

[00:35:37] Matt: So gradually there has been an interest and, and an embrace from academic institutions to, to do bam. Yeah. Yeah. And in, you know, the Korean BAM network, which has been around for 18 years and is one of the largest in, in the world, and they, they publish a book every year on bam, even, and from a Korean perspective, they've [00:36:00] sent, sent out.

[00:36:01] Matt: Korean business people bams to over 35 countries along the Silk Road. Wow. Wow. Wow. Just give an example. That's, you know, this is not a Western thing. The Koreans is way ahead of, of most of us, and the biggest BAM network in the world is probably in Indonesia with about 30,000 entrepreneurs. They speak Bahasa, not English.

[00:36:19] Matt: I mean, some of them speak English, but that's their ling franca. Yeah, sure, sure, sure. So in the Koreans they have four MBA programs that are BAM infused and it's all in Korean, just to mention it's in academia. And so now there is, there are dozens and dozens of PhDs on businesses mission from all continents.

[00:36:43] Bob: Wow. That's cool.

[00:36:45] Matt: And, uh, the number of master thesis, we don't really know. And I've been mentoring and guiding a number of PhD students and, and master's students. Right now I'm, I'm the external professor for a guy from Central [00:37:00] Asia from Kazakhstan who's doing his PhD and from based Oxford on.

[00:37:07] Matt: Business as mission is cultural and socioeconomic context in Central Asia, for example.

[00:37:12] Hgh: Wow.

[00:37:13] Matt: And there's even been a, a, an academic thesis out of the London School of Economics, which you know, is a high ranking school. Yeah, yeah. On business as mission. Not because necessarily law school economics is gonna become a BAM institution, but they recognize this is a global phenomenon.

[00:37:32] Matt: And it's happening. Yes. That's very cool.

[00:37:35] Speaker 5: And so they

[00:37:35] Matt: also wanna be a part of this, and, and this is important in terms of, you know, to be a learning movement. It's important for a business, it's important for, you know, how do you stay abreast with what's happening? How are you deeply anchored and where are you coming from and all that.

[00:37:49] Matt: You get a benchmarking, case studies and all that kind of stuff.

[00:37:53] Matt: You know, on different continents that have embraced bam. Some teach a course, some teach a class, [00:38:00] some have said, oh, our whole MBA program should be infused with this kind of faith at work thinking. Yes. Yes. So colleges, universities, and MBA programs. Yes. Seminaries. Slow. Yeah, yeah. I, I

[00:38:16] Speaker 5: keep thinking that

[00:38:16] Matt: is fact.

[00:38:17] Bob: That's fact. Yeah. Yeah. We've got a fellow on our advisory board. Oh, Samuel Chang. You probably know him. Yeah. To him. Yeah. Uh, when Samuel was heading up ion International Rally Network, he spent, I think maybe it was even two years. It was certainly a year going to all of the seminaries.

[00:38:37] Bob: It was an easier sell. Okay. Right. Because it was the recognition that there were people groups who were not being. Taken care of. Sure. Taken by by literate stuff. Okay. They needed an oral mechanism. Okay? So he was successful in getting orality put into those seminaries, and, and that's come along well done.

[00:38:57] Bob: Completely. But he clearly knows all [00:39:00] those seminaries and I, one of the things on my mind, and maybe you're making it pop up at a higher priority. Is to, to get Samuel to, to begin working on this idea of bam and vocational discipleship and faith and, and trying to get seminaries to really pick up on this because if we do that, maybe the next generation of churches will will

[00:39:21] Matt: function better.

[00:39:23] Matt: Yeah. And this was a part of why we involved academia from the beginning. As both of you know, right now, we have to. So often start with deprogramming. We have to deprogram people from the sacred secular divide. Right, right, right. And then we reprogram them to the biblical thinking, holistic thinking.

[00:39:45] Matt: Right. So, and, and that's why we have, are involving academia. If we get a new generation who does MBA, that's, that's a, come out with a college degree in business or economics or whatever. This is their [00:40:00] thinking from the beginning. They don't need to be deprogrammed. They got it from the beginning.

[00:40:04] Matt: So this is part of building the next generation that has this from, from the start. So we minimize deprogramming and that's why we need to get it into the seminars as well. Yes. So, absolutely. Yep. Yeah. Well, I wrote myself

[00:40:19] Bob: an action. Um, I'm glad I'm not gonna, I'm gonna write, Bob will take care of everything.

[00:40:24] Bob: I'll write that. I don't think so. Bob has one idea.

[00:40:27] Hgh: That's it. Maz, I have a question for you. Early on in our conversation, you were ready to give a definition of bam and then we moved on. I would love to hear if you have a, a definition, and I think our audience would love to hear that as well. Not that it has to be simple, but how would you respond if someone said, what is bam?

[00:40:47] Matt: I'm glad, I'm glad you, I'm glad somebody thinks and remembers things. My short term memory, you know, senior moments kind of stuff. No, that's a absolutely essential question. One way of putting it, it [00:41:00] is that you shape your business, which is an ongoing process. You shape and reshape your business for God and for the for, for the.

[00:41:11] Matt: You ensure it has a great commission perspective in it. So it's not just, I'm a Christian in business and I'm being nice. But also you recognize that you wanna have a holistic impact, including a spiritual one. Yes. And to the ends of the earth, because the great commission perspective is making Jesus known among all peoples.

[00:41:36] Matt: As we do business, another way of putting it simply, and it might be easier to remember, is um, four words, which all starts with a letter P. And which reflects the four bottom lines that we talk about in business as mission. Businesses are to serve people as the first p. People like Jesus came [00:42:00] to serve people and.

[00:42:03] Matt: And, you know, Christ talks about love your neighbor. And that's people and who are my neighbors as I do business customers, clients, staff, suppliers, competitors, tax authorities, uh, you know, owners, you name it. Yep. How do I serve them? Come to serve businesses, serve people, the different stakeholders.

[00:42:25] Matt: Secondly, align with God's purposes, and it's plural. It is not just one purpose. Great commission is, is one purpose, but creativity, freedom, dignity, shalom, all kinds of Godly purposes. We want to align our businesses with biblical values, so businesses serve people, align with God's purposes and be good stewards of the planet.

[00:42:57] Matt: That's the whole creation care, which is part of the [00:43:00] creation mandate, right? And this is not just reactively, okay? We're gonna recycle plastic bottles. This is also innovate, right? And commercialize innovations towards dealing with, environmental issues like polluted rivers or with the, all the plastic bottles that flows in rivers in India and and whatnot, and green technology and all that kind of stuff.

[00:43:22] Matt: You, you know, and that's what entrepreneurs do. And the last is, and make a profit.

[00:43:30] Speaker 4: Yes.

[00:43:31] Matt: Because if you don't make a profit, you don't have a business and then you don't serve anyone. Right, right. So people, purposes, planet and profit. That's great. So, and you do that again among all peoples. And that is, your ministry is not what you do, so you can then do ministry.

[00:43:47] Matt: Business is your business as a mission, business as calling in its own own right. And that's four bottom lines. It has financial, social, environmental, spiritual. [00:44:00] Yes. Thank you. Did that answer

[00:44:01] Hgh: the question? You Very much. So that was excellent. A question. My follow up is then if people wanted to read these two manifestos, where could they go to to see them, to read them, to be encouraged?

[00:44:13] Matt: We have two websites and hopefully the first one should be really easy to remember. Business as mission.com doesn't sound that original, but it is for so business as mission.com. We have about 1000 resources on business as mission. And there, there their books and videos and blogs. And we also have an interactive, BAM, global ecosystem where you can see across the globe BAM networks, BAM investors, BAM training programs, BAM academics, BAM initiatives, BAM meetings.

[00:44:48] Matt: And you can click on them and you can see that this, uh, is a global movement speaking over 20 languages. Business as mission.com you'll find a lot of resources you find. You also have, [00:45:00] we just launched what we call BAM Pathways. So if you're interested in Business as mission, yep, I'm a beginner.

[00:45:06] Matt: You click there and it will take you through a path on, start with these resources, look at these videos, or you're a BAM prof or you're a business professional. It's like, well, here are resources for you. And then we have another website and they're linked to each other as you'll find them. BAM global.org.

[00:45:24] Matt: Bam. Global. I've been on that one. And that's where you have all our reports, our 40 or so report. You have the business as Mission Manifesto, you have the Wealth Creation Manifesto. And everything that is there is free to use, to share, download, upload. It's for the movement. Outstanding. Thank you.

[00:45:47] Bob: Yeah. That's terrific. This has been, this has been great. Uh, this has been great. Do you have any any, any final pieces that you'd like to leave with us that we haven't covered? Some thoughts that you wanted to go through?

[00:45:58] Matt: No. It's, um, [00:46:00] we wanna build something that will last. And of course in our day and age when everything, the attention span becomes shorter and shorter with Facebook and whatnot it's important to see that what we're talking about here, you know, faith at work and vocation and business mission these are not urgent matters, but these are important matters.

[00:46:24] Matt: And if you're gonna build something that will last, you need to be deeply rooted. There's a saying, as you know, a tree with deep roots laugh at the storm, a tree with deep roots laugh at the storm. And I was in Egypt in March this year, and. And I've revisited the Giza plateau and, and the pyramids.

[00:46:48] Matt: And last time I, I saw the pyramids was 40 years ago and I had changed quite a bit in 40 years. And the pyramids had not changed in 4,000 years. Yes, indeed. Indeed. They were built [00:47:00] to last. Yeah. And it took some time, but once they got up there and hey, they're standing from generation to generation, what we're talking about here is how do we, how can we be deeply rooted, connected by our Judeo-Christian tradition, starting in Genesis and until today and everything in between, and dig into our roots so we can laugh at the storm. 'Cause storms will come. Yeah. Yeah. And if we wanna build, the higher we want to build the digger, the deeper we need to dig for the foundation.

[00:47:35] Speaker 5: Yes.

[00:47:35] Matt: You know, go to New York, Manhattan. Yeah. You look at the skyscrapers. If you're gonna build one, what do you do for a year? You go down. Yeah. You see, you see nothing on the surface. So, uh. And that's where take the time, even if people ask you, I don't see anything yet. Yeah. It's like, no, I'm digging deep because I'm gonna build high.

[00:47:56] Matt: Yeah.

[00:47:57] Hgh: That's really good. And I wanna

[00:47:58] Matt: build something to [00:48:00] last. And that's why it's important to work with academia. That's why it's important to work with churches. And, and this is why it's important to, to have patience. This is not urgent, but it's important. And we wanna build something that will last and set the stage for the next.

[00:48:16] Matt: Generation so they don't have to do any deprogramming. Right, right, right. So the next generation will just come out and say, ah, hallelujah. But of course it's Sunday. I can go back to my full-time ministry in business.

[00:48:29] Bob: That's terrific. Very, very well said. Very well, well said. Hugh, would you mind just, uh, praying for Matts and the band movement? Uh, I think, uh, I've really enjoyed the time Matts and yeah, likewise. We, uh, you know, you and Jennifer and Sandy and I need to, we do need to get together, so we do. Yeah. Uh, maybe sometime in the fall, November, December would be great.

[00:48:49] Hgh: Let's do that. And even when you're in Colorado, it'd be fun to have a lunch with you if that ever worked out. So I live here in Denver.

[00:48:56] Matt: Oh, you live in Denver? Yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna be at a meeting there. I think it's in [00:49:00] Denver. Um, I just have it in my calendar and the info is somewhere. I'm, I'm speaking at a, at a bam event there, so.

[00:49:08] Matt: Sure. Yeah. Okay. Well, let

[00:49:11] Hgh: me pray. Father, we're grateful, um, for this time and all the things we learned and how you have been now working through business leaders all over the globe, helping them to see that you have uniquely gifted them as business people. And through the business your kingdom is growing and people are being changed and, and lives and countries and cities are being changed.

[00:49:35] Hgh: For this, we are grateful. Thank you for mots, for his leadership, for his desire, even from the be beginning to collaborate with many other leaders, so it becomes a global movement. Father, thank you for this time. Again, thank you from mots and his wife Jennifer, and how you've been using them. This is what you do, father.

[00:49:55] Hgh: We're thankful. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. [00:50:00] Lemme um, lemme close off our time. Thank you to all of our listeners for joining us on this 10th intersection Faith Work and Live podcast with mot Tune Hogg. We ask you, you go to our website at www cities project global.com or to LinkedIn or to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and subscribe to our podcasts.

[00:50:22] Hgh: If you have found our podcasts helpful, please let us know through our review. Again, thank you Mats for joining us today.