Business and Faith III - Small Business.

Wednesday, Sept 9, 2009. We are talking about the relation between Christian faith and business. Today we think about being a businessman, or a woman who runs some business. What role is faith playing here?

Different people have quite different ideas about what it means to run a business. I am thinking about a small business currently, i.e. where someone provides some service or manufactures some product on his own or together with some employees. In a small business things are different from the situation for large enterprises. Here everyone knows everyone, the human factor plays an important role. Faith can play an important role for small businesses.

Let's take the risk first. An entrepreneur usually carries the full risk of his business. If things go wrong, he pays. If he prepares things for a customer, but the customer turns and offer down or does not pay, he needs to pay. He might earn money, but he might also loose money. For his employees the risk is usually much less. They get their monthly salary and they do not bear any risk. They know exactly what they gain, but the entrepreneur does not know. Being in a situation where the future is unclear brings us closer to faith usually. We might want to pray to God to help us with our business, and we should. We are in his hands, and he can do a lot in our life. But still God loves everyone and he is definitely not a machine to let our wishes come true. Often people try to use God as a magic helper to reach their personal goals - but that does not work. He wants to be the Lord and Father, who guides our life, who fills our mind and leads us to truth, love and peace in the middle of a busy day.

A Christian will always pray for the people around him, for God's spirit in their life, for his presence and help for them. As entrepreneur we should do this for our suppliers and for our customers. We should also pray for all the people we employ. Every day we need to ask God to be with them as he is with us. Every day we need to ask him to let his kingdom grow in our business - even if we do not completely know what this means in practice. He can lead us on, he can teach us, he can show us much more step by step.

Being a Christian entrepreneur means that I will be as reliable as possible to care for the people I employ. Of course I have limits. I can only spend money that I have, I cannot employ someone if there is no work for him. But I can be fair. I can share the resources in a reasonable way, giving everyone a share in the earnings. The earnings should be proportional to a mixture of work load, dedication, quality and risk. Good work should get a good salary, bad work should get less. But the principles of mercy and care should also be active all the time. We are all equal before God, we will all stand before his thrown and he will be the Lord of everything and everyone. He has given everyone many talents and he values and loves ever person deeply. We should keep that in mind when we do our daily business. [R.W.E.P., jesusnetwork.eu]

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