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Friday, January 11, 2019

Thinking In Decades



I received an e-mail from a local organization about their 30-year plan to care for a forest. The subject line read: “How To Think In Decades.” Great advice!

I thought about "thinking in decades" in connection with my friend Jon Sween, President of Marketplace Connections, based near Seattle.

Like the early Moravian missionaries, Jon has a passion to “multiply disciples through Kingdom-centered business and gospel expressions.” Marketplace Connections trains followers of Christ to develop Kingdom-centered businesses in distant places of the world such as India, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, as well as in the USA, working in cooperation with such groups as Youth With A Mission, and Children of the Nations.

Entrepreneurial Leadership Training courses are taught by Christian business leaders who share their acumen with local followers of Christ. They teach them income-producing skills, and help them to know how live out biblically-informed faith in the context of the "real world." 

As Jon puts it, “It’s so exciting so see western business people sharing their vast business experience around the world.  Christian business people are often underutilized in the local church, and this vision catches their heart. We are now training trainers in many countries so Christ-followers can do a more effective job of contextualizing their faith through Kingdom-centered business." 

Marketplace Connections has provided training in the cities of Hyderabad, Udaipur and Vizag in India, where 6 businesses have been started by graduates. In Rwanda, 6 other business have been started. 40 followers of Christ have been trained in Uganda. Others have been trained in Malawi, and the list goes on. Efforts are now being made to expand to Kenya.

In the process, people are coming to know Christ. 

The “Five Big Ideas” behind Marketplace Connections are:

1. God designs and calls us to use our gifts and creativity to expand his work and express his character.

2. God enables us to take risks to create something new for kingdom work.

3. God calls business people to create wealth and build enterprises that provide jobs and advance the gospel.

4. God uses transformational leaders to lead people to new places of living and uses profits from business to address social issues.

5. God shapes our character and ethics to express his love, grace and truth.

Visit http://marketplaceconnections.org/ for more information. 

Here is a short interview with two graduates of the ELT course in Uganda: