Business as Mission (BAM) proves a growing opportunity for followers of Christ to spread the gospel while doing great work in the world. While BAM includes abundant possibilities, it also requires mission, message, and model clarity. Faithful Christians must make sure they embody gospel witness with value creation. Failing to bring both to the customer ensures an underwhelming experience. Although misattributed to Luther, the quote still bears worth mentioning: “The Christian shoemaker does his Christian duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship.” Our good deeds shine a light back to our God (Matt 5:16). The world needs both word and deed, not either or.

In Business as Mission in a Nutshell, Neal Johnson discusses the various BAM models. His resume commands credibility—45 years of experience in banking, legal work, and businesses both internationally and domestically. BAM is a form of mission that taps into various talents and expectations and can look vastly different from one cultural context to another, making it challenging to examine and understand what that looks like from one individual to another. That’s what makes Johnson’s holistic approach so necessary.

The book starts with the foundation for what BAM is and how it became what it is today in its various forms. From there, Johnson calls readers to examine themselves, their motives, and their families to determine whether BAM is right for them. Throughout the book, Johnson stresses the importance of thinking of your family and how they will adjust and thrive in different environments. The book is fair and balanced in addressing the hardships and struggles involved with this path but also acknowledges the accompanying joys and opportunities of BAM.

Johnson never separates the necessity for a heart to reach the lost from the necessity for a mind to serve the marketplace. He exhorts us to increase our prayer life with God and our business skills with people. In Part 2, Johnson addresses the questions related to the practice of BAM. He shows that business people would do well to leverage their currency of marketplace talent to create a bigger change, pointing people to the Savior who canceled our debt while we were still sinners.

The book demands the need to love others stemming from a love of God and a desire to share him with others. However, that passion must also be tested and tempered by wisdom and practical skills. The book rightly calls us to examine our current talents and understanding in order to see possible blind spots and areas that might trip us up later. To accomplish this, the author includes several practical self-quizzes in the book that could be helpful for those still exploring BAM as a calling. One of these is Steven D. Strauss’s Entrepreneurial Self-Exam on page 90.

The book includes practical knowledge of how to run a business. This is predominantly found in part 3, “How Can You Own Your Own Business?” and part 5, “How Do You Lead and Manage a BAM Company?” Johnson covers topics such as loans, business structures, biblical leadership, and how to acquire or start a business. He gives readers a good sense of what choices need to be made and how individual context affects those decisions.

There are some excellent examples of how some businesses have succeeded in the past by doing BAM work internationally. The case studies give practical examples of what it looks like to have a kingdom impact through a business internationally. One thing I wish would have been covered in more detail was domestic businesses. The book mentions it as a possibility but does not cover domestic BAM in detail. Overall, the book gives a good sense of what BAM is, whether an individual is suited for it, what options are available for BAM, and some practical next steps to consider.

The author advises us, “Never in Scripture are we guaranteed ‘success’ as the world defines it. We are only told to use our gifts in His service, to ‘go’ where He leads us, and to ‘do’ all we can to be obedient to Him and His ‘Way’––the ‘Jesus Way,’ as prescribed for us in His Holy Word” (p. 426). We are not called to succeed or to be great but to be faithful and obedient to Christ. In BAM, we are wise to avoid extremes: the ditch of seeking success over kingdom impact or failing to lead a business well and, in turn, being unable to have any impact.