One day FLASH SALE! Today is your chance to get to learn from the passionate and talented Lauren Pinkston. Use code “lauren” when you purchase any workshop and get 50% off.

My first assignment on the field was to teach English at an adult college. Over time, my teammate and I learned that we were next to one of the largest hospitals in our province which had been started by cross-cultural workers years and years before we arrived. Our school was originally started by them as well, as a place to educate hospital employees. I remember the pride I had that believers had built something that outlasted them and was still doing good for society. I was also saddened that so many didn’t know the Name of the One who moved people to start them.

In response to physical and educational needs, the 1800s and early 1900s saw many in our faith on the cutting edge of providing hospitals and schools. Many of you, like me, currently might serve at or in institutions that began because others started hospitals or schools. 

I’m so grateful for them! And for you who are the hands and feet of Jesus who need medical and educational services.

But let’s not stop there.

Another arena also needs Christ’s touch: commerce. In this month’s workshop, Lauren Pinkston pushes back on one of Satan’s great lies, that business is for the world, and service is for the Kingdom of God. She’s has a great line in the workshop, “BAM is the holy collision of faith and commerce.”

Even if you are not involved in starting a business, I was challenged by this workshop because I have been involved when a ministry needed to pivot in response to societal, political, or technological changes. I have also been a part of “smaller” endeavors such as starting a new outreach on the field and needing to think through how launch it, how to involve locals, and how to communicate with my supporters. 

In many ways launching,involving others, and communicatingrequire more “business skills” than I thought I would need on the field!

In the first part of how to “Bootstrap Your Overseas Business,” Lauren looks at eight sectors of a community that will be positively affected by bringing faith into work. In the second half, Lauren defines bootstrapping as how to start something without raising lots of funds and looks at eight guiding principles.

Though geared for business, this might be just what you need to jumpstart your thinking about a new project or think about existing local co-workers you have from a fresh perspective. Lauren passionately keeps our eyes on how we can do better in the name of Christ and be known as people who have positive impacts on our local communities.

Those cross-cultural workers who came to Sichuan province years before I did, had to leave when political winds changed, but what they had invested in society was deemed valuable and necessary. Years later, followers of The Way were allowed to return and the church is strong in that area.  

One of the skills you and I need to invest in is how to build things that do good and can outlast us.

Questions for you to consider:

1. What are you currently investing in that will outlast you?

2. Rank these skills from strongest to weakest: launching, involving others, and communicating

3. What could you learn from another discipline that could help your current work?

4. How could your home and home life benefit from the skills of launching, involving others, and communicating?

Bootstrapping Your Overseas Business will always be available for you to participate in, but the sale price goes up soon.

Photo by 蔡 嘉宇 on Unsplash