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Vol 33, Issue 1 Welcome to Anvil ANVIL Journal of Theology and Mission Missional entrepreneurship VOL 33, ISSUE 1 WELCOME TO ANVIL THIS EDITION OF ANVIL EXPLORES salvation and church growth rather than the healing of all things, the coming of the kingdom of God here on THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN earth in all areas of life. And what do we imagine when MISSION AND ENTERPRISE. we hear the word entrepreneurship? Can we imagine The relationship between these two things is nothing business that is not just about the financial bottom line, new for the Church Mission Society whose founders maximising profit and keeping shareholders happy? met as part of the eclectic society in a small group to discuss and dream of ways of making a better world As with the last edition of Anvil there is a mix of longer motivated by their faith in Jesus Christ. This led to articles and shorter reflections on practice. Our hope is both sharing the gospel in parts of the world where that held together with the longer articles these help to Christ was not known and to campaigning for the ground some of the ideas and theory. On the web site abolition of slavery along with a whole lot of other there are also links to a series of short video interviews initiatives. Slavery was big business so one of the about missional entrepreneurship. We are struck by how greatest challenges they faced was developing an much imagination is at the heart - imagining what it is alternative economic imagination. to be human, to image God, to look after God’s world, to unfold creation in ways that love God and neighbour We use the term missional entrepreneurship, which and God’s world, to see trade and enterprise as part of admittedly is something of a mouthful but there are that unfolding, to imagine a different kind of economy, a few reasons why we have come to find it helpful. It and in response to the brokenness of the world to avoids a few common ways of thinking about business imagine business for good, business that can be part of and mission that are reductionist. One of those is that the salvation (healing) of all things. profit made in business is given to support mission endeavours. There are large numbers of foundations In some ways this is a subject that has been around for and trusts that are set up in this way. Whilst there is eons, but it is also an area which is quite new in current nothing wrong with that per se it easily fails to pay thinking about mission. I suspect it is quite new for attention to the purpose of business itself – it’s reduced example that in the suite of Common Awards in Durham to being a means to a financial end. Another is that University used by many for ministry training there business enables people to travel to countries where are two modules that can be selected on missional it would not otherwise be possible to go to share the entrepreneurship. Make Good, the residential week that gospel. Business here is something of a Trojan horse. we run with CMS pioneers, uses one of these modules. Again there is nothing necessarily wrong with that We have found as we have developed training in the either but it is also a reduction of business to being a area of missional entrepreneurship with pioneers at means to an end – this time an evangelistic one. And a CMS that we have had to do lots of reflecting ourselves third is to develop a ‘Christian’ business which produces because there still isn’t a whole lot of thinking and products for a Christian market. Again there is nothing conversation available in this area. We hope this edition intrinsically wrong with that but it also reduces business of Anvil can be a small contribution to the debate and – this time to a churchy sphere of life. To use the would love to hear from you in response. adjective missional with entrepreneurship or enterprise Jonny Baker and Mark Sampson opens up the idea that another way of thinking about mission and business is to imagine that business in and of itself can be a means of participation in God’s mission. Of course part of the challenge here is also one of imagination. What do we imagine when we hear the word mission? That too has at times been reduced into a private sphere of life of personal piety and church activity so that mission then becomes personal CHURCHMISSIONSOCIETY.ORG/ANVIL – MISSIONAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP 2 THE PROMISE (AND PERIL) OF MISSIONAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP ANVIL: Journal of Theology and Mission VOL 33, ISSUE 1 Mark Sampson 3 ANVIL: JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY AND MISSION – VOLUME 33: ISSUE 1 WHY MISSIONAL entrepreneurship’, it is helpful to frame it within this ENTREPRENEURSHIP? broader discourse. Exploring the challenges and opportunities related to social enterpreneurship opens There are two contexts that help make sense of the up insights into how these might relate to missional intriguing combination of the adjective ‘missional’ entrepreneurship. with the noun ‘entrepreneurship’. The first is the development of an understanding of mission that There are good reasons to be suspicious of missional rejects the sacred/secular divide that has characterised entrerpeneurship. The 2008 financial crisis, the a significant proportion, though not all, of Christian effects of which still linger, and the growing economic witness and (lack of) engagement in the public square inequality experienced both globally and also within in modernity. This recognises that mission has a social Western nations should make us wary of uncritically as well as personal dynamic. Consider the Anglican endorsing enterprise and entrepreneurship. The Communion’s ‘Five Mark’s of Mission’1: contribution that enterprise makes to the common good, beyond that of wealth creation, is contested in To proclaim the good news of the kingdom contemporary society. This article will explore some of these challenges and, in light of these, consider To teach, baptise and nurture new believers the promise (and peril) of missional entrepreneurship. To respond to human need by loving service I will consider the potential peril of missional entrepreneurship by engaging with the critics of To transform unjust human structure of society, social entrepreneurship who suggest that this is just to challenge violence of every kind and pursue another aspect of the marketisation of society, which peace and reconciliation has significant negative implications. Having explored To strive to safeguard the inegrity of creation, whether missional entrepreneurship can escape this and sustain and renew the life of the earth peril, I will consider its promise by looking an aspect of the theological framework, and its economic implications, that gives substance and direction This articulation of the holistic nature and character to missional entrepreneurship, suggesting that it of mission – and others similar to it - enables the is a useful and important way in which to consider potential of the adjective ‘missional’ modifying a whole contemporary mission with an alternative economic series of new nouns, of which ‘entrepreneurship’ is one. imagination. The emerging conversation about missional entrepreneurship, or missional enterprise, is also DEFINING SOCIAL ENTERPRISE made possible by the much larger discourse on social In order to understand the critics of social entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneurship, or at entrepreneurship, or social enterprise, it is helpful least its recent version, has emerged as a result of to further explore the definition of social enterprise. the blurring of the boundaries between state, market Whilst it is inevitably a generalisation, it is possible to and civil society, which has created new forms of identify two different schools of thought regarding the organisations at the overlap between government, nature of a social enterprise. business and charity. Though, as we will explore, it is more complicated than this, at one level social The first places social enterprise within the broader enterprise is result of the blurring of the boundary and more-defined literature on entrepreneurship between business and charity. This discourse has and enterprise. Social enterprise is simply a variety opened up the possibility of identifying particular of enterprise, “Social entrepreneurs are one species understandings of entrepreneurship that have a in the genus entrepreneur.”2 An example of this type broader purpose and design – social in origin and of definition can be seen in Pomerantz who argues intent - than just commercial or financial. At this that social enterprise, “involves taking a business early stage of the development of critical reflection like, innovative approach to the mission of delivering regarding the ideas and practice related to ‘missional community services… maximizing revenue generation from programs by applying principles from for-profit 1 Five Marks of Mission, accessed 17 March, 2017, http://www.anglicancommunion.org/identity/marks-of-mission.aspx 2 Dees in Ana Maria Peredo and Murdith McLean, “Social Entrepreneurship: A Critical Review of the Concept,” Journal of World Business 41 (2006): 56-65, 57. CHURCHMISSIONSOCIETY.ORG/ANVIL – MISSIONAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP 4 business without neglecting the core mission.”3 The women do not want to default on loan repayments as qualifier ‘without neglecting the core mission’ is that would let down the other women in the group. particularly revealing. This interpretation of a social Not only do the borrowers receive a low interest rate, enterprise simply adds an objective or goal to a profit they are also issued shares in the bank with 94% of the making business. The business is structurally similar to bank owned by borrowers. Yunus is explicit about his other kinds of business; it just adopts a ‘double bottom attempt to create a ‘social’ business in contrast to the line’. This discourse tends to consider itself a critique capitalist model.
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