God is at Work in the Marketplace

It’s been three weeks of taking in the wonder that is India—its vibrant colors, the delicious food, its immense complexity and diversity, and the warm and kind people who have greeted, been with, and served us as guests in their home country.

I have spent the last three weeks with fourteen Calvin College students and two colleagues, Leonard and Karen Van Drunen, on the Business as Mission India Interim trip. We are here to learn about best business practices from Indian business people, and to observe and learn from our neighbors how God is at work in the marketplace.

I have spent the last three weeks with fourteen Calvin College students and two colleagues on the Business as Mission India Interim trip.

We started in Delhi, headed to Agra, on to Hyderabad, and I write from Pune where we are finishing up our travels and learning before heading to Mumbai for a last stop before traveling back to Michigan. 

Our time here in India has been centered on engaging business men and women about if and how they see their business as mission, what practices that entails, and how faith connects with or informs their business.

We’ve been observing and debriefing as a group with our local hosts about how the businesses we have visited with do justice in their practices, how they steward their resources, how they are making a profit to be sustainable, and how they love their neighbor, specifically their customers and employees.

We’ve received the knowledge and wisdom and gracious hospitality of those running businesses whose profit goes to fund non-profits rehabilitating women and girls from sex trafficking, to I.T. companies particular about hiring women programmers and creating a staff environment where the trust resembles that of a family, to a medical migration center preparing migrants and immigrants for travel abroad, to bi-vocational architect-farmers and self-starting real estate owners building into a local economy.

It is inspiring to see how involved and willing to take risks and invest in business the folks we have met are. One of our hosts was commenting on how the vast majority of people in India (1.4 billion people, mind you) are involved in business of some kind, even if a very small business venture.

It is inspiring to see how involved and willing to take risks and invest in business the folks we have met are.

There’s an attitude and perspective of the worth of risk-taking, and that has contributed to India being one of the key players that are growing in stature and importance in the global economy and commerce. That is why the premise of this Interim trip to India is that students interested in or studying business ought to become more familiar with India.

We started the interim back in Delhi talking about how the term business often has negative connotations in the way we use it: when one partner cheats another for unfair profit, we may say, “It’s just business;” or when a dog leaves a surprise on the neighbor’s lawn, the dog is “doing its business.” There is often, perhaps particularly in Christian circles, a negative connotation or inherent dirtiness associated with business.

But business is what allows things to run—God has given people the innovation, creativity, skills, and talents to create, start, run, and grow businesses. We need business in the world. Business in itself is not a bad thing, it is good. And the people that do business are using their God-given gifts. The business people we have met in India, all of them men and women of Christian faith, know and live the importance of business.

This is may be obvious at this point but let me say it anyway—there does not need to be a divide, a separation, or inconsistency between business and one’s Christian faith—faith and business are not mutually exclusive, as we are brilliantly seeing being demonstrated here in India.

I have been guilty of not seriously considering business as a vocation given by God. I’m reforming on that count.

One businessman in particular, upon learning I was the pastor in the group accompanying the students and professors said, “One of the hardest things is to tell our pastors, business is not bad! Business is good.” And it made me sad to realize that yes, that would be something some (perhaps many) clergy folk would need to be convinced of, and that yes, I have been guilty of not seriously considering business as a vocation given by God to sisters and brothers of mine, but as just something you do. I’m reforming on that count.

God is at work in the marketplace. It’s a deep privilege to accompany my students and colleagues on this trip, learning from them in their field of business, accounting, human resources, information systems, entrepreneurship, and finance, and learning from my brothers and sisters here in India who are living their faith and running their businesses.