The Marketplace is a Mission Field

Buck Jacobs

From: A Light Shines Bright in Babylon

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Many Christian business owners and operators simply do not see the large, immensely hungry mission that is all around them. These business owners may send money to missionaries overseas, which is good, and they may give time to their church outreach programs, which also is good. But somehow they fail to recognize a huge nearby group of persons with whom they have a unique opportunity to evangelize, disciple and touch.

Who makes up this great, “unseen” mass? It is our employees, our customers, our suppliers, our trade associates and our competitors. They are our marketplace mission field, a normal and natural part of each of our businesses. We already have relationships with them, so we need look no further for an incredibly fruitful mission outreach.

We deal with this mission field regularly. They are there every day, every month, each year. We encourage them, motivate them, solicit them, correct them, seek them, influence them, hire them, fire them, negotiate with them, placate them, buy from them, sell to them and on and on.

Even the smallest business is likely to have 250 persons or so with whom it has contact in a year. Most modest businesses have thousands! If you think I am exaggerating, try this test. Get out a pencil and paper and start adding these numbers:

1. How many employees do you have? Write the number down. Do you have contact with their families? Could you have contact with their families if you wanted to? If so, add again that number.

2.  How many persons knock on your door looking for work each year?

3. How many suppliers do you deal with? Include those you use and those who solicit your business.

4. How many customers will you have contact with this year? Include those who buy and those who you call on but don’t buy from you.

5. How many other trade association friends and competitors do you relate to in a year? Include those who are in your market area, and also those who are outside your market.

Add all the totals together to get a rough estimate of the size of the mission field that you are responsible for. Think about it. Your business touches more lives than many churches!

How many testimonies of missionaries have you heard who have dedicated their entire lives to reach a fraction of that number in some far off jungle? We honor and revere them for their commitment, as we should, but we also need to realize that the “harvest is white” right around our own company.

Every business has built within its natural function perhaps the greatest opportunity to give our testimony to the gospel that we will ever have. This is because it is so unusual to find Christ in the marketplace. Most people expect to be exploited or manipulated by others in the marketplace. The rules by which the world plays are rough. When people encounter the love of God in this darkness, that love shines even brighter.

Do you realize that each soul that your company touches is just as precious to God as any in the most far away jungle? Each lost person that passes your way in the course of doing business is one that your Savior died for, just as certainly as He dies for you?

In every relationship there exists the potential to share the gospel somehow. Some opportunities are very brief and limited, some very personal and intense. But in each relational contact, the potential exists.

So what can you do? Where do you go from here? Five suggestions:

First, recognize that your business is a vehicle that you can use to reach out and share the love of Christ in many different ways.

Second, take the time to identify and understand the make up of your marketplace mission field. In other words, spend some time putting your finger on the many people who in one way or another come in contact with your firm during the course of a year.

Third, ask God to open your eyes to the opportunity that He has given you and lead you into creative ways to exploit it.

Fourth, seek out other like-minded men and women to share fellowship with, learn from, and to whom you can be accountable.

Fifth, begin to minister as God leads you. Do at least one thing, little or big, to start.

What You Don’t Say is as Important as What You Do Say

Shortly after I became a Christian, I saw a pamphlet in a book rack at church with the title “What Religion Are You Teaching Your Children?” The very first sentence of that book said, in effect, “Even if you are teaching no religion to your children you are teaching them that no religion is important.”

I realized that my life, my actions, and what I actually did portrayed my true self including, my religion, to my child. And I had never even tried to talk with her about religion!

If our testimony is real and good, those with whom we relate through the business will be influenced toward God. If it is false and shallow, they are turned from Him. If your company is saying nothing about Christ, then isn’t it reasonable to assume that those you make contact with through the business will subconsciously conclude that you do not think that Christ is important in the marketplace?

The truth is we should always be sharing the gospel as we relate to other people – the gospel as we really understand it or believe it. We share it by what we say, what we do, and who we are. We share it through our actions over time. This is our testimony. We give it in hundreds and thousands of ways, every minute of every day.

From : A Light Shines Bring in Babylon: A Handbook for Christian Business Owners, © Buck Jacobs, 1995. Used by permission.

Buck Jacobs is the Founder and President of The C12 Group (www.thec12group.com), an organization that brings Christian business owners together to increase their business skills and show them how to use business as a platform for Christian ministry for Jesus.

Before founding C12, Buck served as director and vice-president of sales of the S.H. Mack Co. Inc. in St. Charles, Illinois.