Business as Mission Helps Church Planter – Siberia

It’s -40°, wind gusting above my head in the depths of winter. I’m in a hole in the ground holding a small torch heater up to a pipe to thaw it out. My fingers are going numb and I’m pretty miserable. I never imagined a business as mission concept would be like this. Welcome to life trying to reach an unreached people group in North Asia for Christ.

Why am I in this Hole?

You might be wondering why I’m in this hole. Why would anyone volunteer to move a continent away to learn a new language and culture, and live in a country which won’t allow a simpler way to receive a visa? Clearly, it takes a crazy love that counts loss for the sake of the cross as gain to motivate these actions. This love also makes people willing to get waaaaaaayyy outside their comfort zone.

So yes, the primary reason why I’m in this hole is that I love the people of T-land*, the place we’ve chosen to call home. The secondary reason is that I run a small business here. The pump that provides water to our facility has frozen, meaning someone (that’s me!) has to go outside, clamber down into the well box and hold a blowtorch flame to the pipe for an hour or so until the ice is melted and the water will flow again. Now that I’ve answered why I am in a literal hole, perhaps you’re wondering what running a business has to do with planting churches?

We Started with a Humanitarian Organization

My family and I joined a team where there was already a humanitarian organization set up. Perfect, I thought. We could do one or two small projects a year and the authorities seemed perfectly content to issue us visas on this basis. We set about hiring language helpers and studying the culture and language. However, we soon began to struggle.

Living on the 8th floor of an apartment building, all our friends and neighbors spent the day away at work. How were we supposed to spend time in other people’s contexts in order to learn? It was tough! We tried hiring someone to come to our office two hours a day and also invited many people into our home for dinner but the “spending time in their natural environments” part, which is so important when learning language and culture was very difficult. We rationalized that it might take us longer, but we would eventually get there. It wasn’t until there was a sudden change in the humanitarian laws that affected our humanitarian platform that we realized working among the people we wanted to communicate with just might make more sense. For the first time, we started to think about a business as mission concept.

How could a tentmaking business affect our ministry?

If we had to have a tentmaking business, why not try to set one up that could be a benefit to our ministry rather than a hindrance? Could we create a kingdom business that would help us learn language, culture and build relationships? Slowly, we came to the realization that a blank slate gave us freedom to figure out which business as mission approach could affect the whole people group, rather than just one or two villages. In the end, we came to the conclusion that the best fit for all of these needs, gaining us access into the regions where T-people live, was an agricultural processing facility.

Business as Mission Concept Helped with Relationships & Language Learning

Finding a piece of land that the government would give us for a low cost was step one. With all the details of construction, contracts, ordering equipment, purchasing supplies, well, you can see how our lives suddenly seemed to get further and further away from our original purpose. Or so we were tempted to think. The truth is, this was the best thing for improving our language ability and giving us legitimacy in the community. Neighbors began to see me going to work just like they did.

Another benefit to this business as missions undertaking is there has never been a better way to study language. Whether I’m sitting with my employees as we run a batch through the line, admonishing a guard for being late, or ordering more coal from a supplier – all of this takes place in the native language. I had an open door to the culture that exposes their values, habits, and worldview in a way you’d NEVER get from someone hired to sit in an office with you for two hours a day.

The outcome I most appreciate is the relationships. My family went from having a few friends to having a very broad spectrum of people that we daily connect with, from people in government offices, suppliers, and remote village people who gather product from the forest that we process. All of these people were suddenly interacting with me on a regular basis!

Business Relationship Believes

One of these ladies met through our business asked if she might meet my wife to practice her English. They discovered a common interest in cooking and became friends. It became normal for her to be in our home several times a week and after a while she began to ask questions. She wanted to know about our worldview. What made our family so different? After a lot of foundational conversations had taken place, she decided to accept Christ’s saving work for her!

We know the Holy Spirit orchestrated everything about that relationship, desiring to bring one of His people to a saving knowledge of the Son. The loss of the humanitarian platform and the need to launch our own kingdom business was a part of this plan. This friend is only one of several whom we’ve been blessed to meet and develop relationships through the business. I am genuinely very excited to see what God is going to do in T-land; the people here are thirsting for His grace and truth.

This story, shared by a worker sent to North Asia, demonstrates how a business as mission approach can give access to people groups. It is a means for relationship building, language learning, and discipleship leading to the planting of a mature church. Not only this, but once the work is complete, the business is transferred to local people to support the local church and its efforts to reach their people.

Do you like the story above? Check out THIS STORY how another business is helping a church planting effort.

For more information about Business as Mission, check out THIS ARTICLE.

How can we help your church be equipped to join God in His mission both locally and globally? Contact us and let us know.