At CIU in recent years you have heard our president speak of our mission to equip students to serve the Lord as "professional minsters" as well as "ministering professionals" in the local church, as missionaries, and/or through the marketplace.

This semester I am team-teaching our graduate level course in "Creative Access and Business as Missions (BAM)." My team teachers and I have years of experience living and working through the marketplace for the sake of the Great Commission. I think the critical issue in engaging the mission of God through the marketplace is the false dichotomy that exists in our faith worldview regarding the separation of sacred from secular. Our personal separation of sacred time (Sunday mornings, Bible study night) from secular (the rest of our lives) supports a faith/church paradigm that is not biblical and certainly not useful for advancing the mission of God.

One classic issue that continues to haunt our mission agencies is the refusal to acknowledge how marketplace time is true ministry. Questions persist: How can you be a minster if you work in the marketplace? When would you have time for ministry? Tentmaker legend Ruth Siemens fought this mentality throughout her life. For her, as an educator in foreign lands, every minute spent in the school house was missions. This upside down dichotomous paradigm is absolutely the greatest challenge for our students and marketplace practitioners moving forward.

One of the best resources for our BAM students is the "Business as Missions Network" website managed by Justin Forman. This site serves as a nexus of information and resources for marketplacers around the world.

Justin's blog post this week is about the passing of a legend in the modern tentmaking and BAM world. I remember visiting Ken Crowell's Galtronics factory in Israel in 1990 to see what a business created with the mission of God in mind really looked like. Truly, Ken and his wife Margie, understood that there was no dichotomy between sacred and secular when it came to their work.

Thanks Justin for your blog and testimony! Read Justin's post below...

Dr. Mike Barnett
Dean of CIU's College of Intercultural Studies

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I wish I could build a "Cooperstown" for Work as Worship Heroes.

Instead of collecting old baseball gloves and jerseys marking hall of fame careers I'd fill it with authentic stories. The kind that are filled with adventure but are soaked in humility and obedience. They would highlight men and women who moved the mission forward, mostly when nobody was looking. But despite the cloak of humility their light was so bright that people at home and abroad couldn't help but see that there was something different about the way they worked and lived. They didn't see a divide between Sunday and Monday. Instead they embraced work as one of our greatest opportunities to worship.

Ken and Margie Crowell would be one of the first stories I'd feature in that Hall of Fame.

Some of you heard that last week Ken passed away on January 25th after a long battle with Myelofibrosis.

It’s sad to see any life come to an end but today Ken's story continues on as a couple hundred Arabs, Jews and Christians will show up to work at Galtronics, the company that he and Margie started in the early 70's in Israel.

Thousands of lives have been impacted. And thousands more will be inspired by their story. Ten years ago at business student at Baylor, Ken's story helped me discover meaning in my work. Today his legacy leaves this thirty one year old challenged to take the baton from the previous generation and run the race with everything I've got.

Before Ken's death the couple shared their story with CBN news. I'd also suggest reading the cover story from Christianity Today nearly 5 years ago.

Justin Forman
Director Business as Mission Network

What are the most effective BAM projects that you know of? What makes them effective? Please share your thoughts below...