YWAM ministry offers help for Christians in business
By
Kevin Heinrichs
ChristianWeek staff
KELOWNA, BC–How should a Christian operate a business differently from anyone else?
A relatively new outreach of Youth With a Mission called Marketplace Ministries hopes to provide answers. Extending YWAM’s mission statement to include "To know God and make him known in the marketplace," the ministry focuses on discipling business, professional and working people.
"Eighty percent of people who go to church are in business in some way and they are not being discipled in their context," contends director Mike McLoughlin. "Christian businesspeople don’t get enough attention paid to them. Churches often see them as just a source of money," he says, adding that little church teaching applies to their everyday context.
To help remedy that, McLoughlin used his business background to develop a ministry specifically targeted to Christians working in business. His own background has been in fundraising, operating a cherry orchard, and he currently runs a marketing consulting business. He earned an MBA in the early 1980s.
The ministry was officially launched in 1996, though McLoughlin was doing a similar ministry with YWAM in Zambia for the two previous years. He says one of the challenges there was to counteract the prevailing attitude that anything goes, as long as you make a profit. "Many don’t have the Judeo-Christian heritage, they don’t understand that honesty and integrity in business is what makes it work," he says.
More recently, McLoughlin went to Singapore where he taught business seminars sponsored by the Centre for Entrepeneurs and Economic Development under YWAM’s University of the Nations.
Among the programs of YWAM Marketplace Ministries:
• a seminar that teaches biblical principles and business skills;
• a fund that grants small capital loans for business start up or expansion;
• a short-wave radio program called Business Basics that provides information and biblical teaching for Christian entrepeneurs;
• consulting services for business owners
The flagship resource of the ministry is an extensive website called Scruples For Marketplace Christians (www.scruples.org). The site, built and maintained by McLoughlin from his Kelowna home, contains hundreds of links to articles, discussion forums, directories of Christian ministries, calendars and seminar schedules.
The site is dedicated to "all Christians in the marketplace who walk out their faith in difficult and challenging circumstances. Not only do they risk their capital and their efforts but they put their faith on the line as they serve God and others in the marketplace."
McLoughlin says businesspeople need to be challenged with questions such as "How is he Lord of my business?" or "How do you fire someone in a Christian way?"
People from more than 50 countries have accessed the site, from United Arab Emirates to Philippines to Malaysia.
