The YWAM Business As Mission Resource Team just celebrated its seventh birthday. And what gift is the team giving itself? Its members are relocating from YWAM Harpenden, England to Chiang Mai, Thailand this fall where they can more easily train people to start Christian businesses among the unreached—right in the heart of the developing world of Asia.

In the Bible, the number seven represents a full circle or completion.

“We came in 2001 on (YWAM Chairman) Lynn Green’s invitation to form the Business As Mission Team here. We thought we’d just be here for two years and then move to Thailand. Seven years later, we’re finally moving to Thailand,” says Josie, founding member of the BAM Resource Team. In the beginning, the purpose of the team was to explore what was happening in an emerging movement now known as Business As Mission and how YWAM could be part of it.

During the past seven years, the BAM team did research on what was happening in this field and gathered essential information so that YWAM leadership could embrace business as mission; team members were also at the forefront of what God was doing in this emerging discipline. After convening small consultations within YWAM and a one-time training program in Central Asia, the team organized a larger gathering in Thailand in January 2003. This brought over 170 people from YWAM and other organizations, as well as business people and a few academics, and represented the first conference that began painting a picture of a broad interest in Business As Mission.

In fall 2003, Josie was invited along with the team to help facilitate the first Business As Mission Consultation convened by Mats Tunehag, under the auspices of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization (LCfWE). The Team networked and connected with over 100 BAM practitioners, mission leaders, as well as a few academics and theologians. After an 18 month process, some 80 people gathered in Thailand in September 2004 to finalize what is now the landmark paper on Business As Mission (Read the Lausanne Occasional Paper).

“Because we set out to serve the Business As Mission movement the Lord gave us favor to be on the cutting-edge,” explains Josie. This process, clearly led by God, enabled the team to work with YWAM senior leadership to consider what this means for all of YWAM. In 2006, YWAM’s Global Leadership Team endorsed Business As Mission as a missions strategy affirmed and released in YWAM (Read YWAM’s Business As Mission Statements and Key Principles).

“The truth is that at the start of 2006, Lynn and I were asking God whether the team (which was only Josie at the time) was going to come to its natural end or whether He would revive it with new life,” Josie says. By the end of that year, five team members had come on board with a new mandate: to promote BAM within YWAM and to develop training courses. Thirteen months later, the team ran the first Introduction to Business As Mission Course in Thailand. Although a real challenge for the team, 20 participants from all over the world completed the six-week course, which included a week-long field visit to a business in the region. Through the course, the BAM team serves not only YWAM, but also the wider movement of Business As Mission. After its relocation to Thailand, the team will run the introductory course for a second time from January 24 to March 7 in Chiang Mai. In the next few months, they will also launch a new website that will help connect them to practitioners.

“Our purpose is to be closer to those on the field to help meet their needs and support them better,” according to Mark, current BAM team leader.

To find out more about what God is doing in Business As Mission visit www.businessasmission.com. You can also subscribe to the BAM ezine by going to www.businessasmission.com/pages/ezine. The Introduction to Business as Mission Course will run in Chiang Mai, Thailand, from January 24 to March 7, 2009. For more information and an application package please visit www.businessasmission.com/pages/thecourse or e-mail the team at bamtraining@oval.com.