For ninety-six years, CBMC (Connecting Business and Marketplace to Christ) has been forming and equipping spiritual leaders in the world of business. Our vision is simple: connect business and professional leaders to Jesus Christ, build them up through relational discipleship, and send them back into their families, their companies, and their communities as a living bridge between the workplace and the local church.
Have you ever wondered why so many business owners and professionals drift away from the church, or feel that their faith has nothing to say to the problems waiting for them on Monday morning? The answer is uncomfortable. They cannot find anything in the church that speaks to the demands of a shifting and aggressive market.
What they see instead is a church disconnected from the world they work in, so they go looking for answers somewhere else.
Changing that will take a divine touch of revelation: seeing that the workplace is a harvest field as sacred as the altar. Jesus did not call the Twelve in a seminary. He called them at the fishing boat, at the tax table, and in the public square. Paul never quarantined his faith from his trade. He made tents with Aquila and Priscilla in Corinth, and lives were transformed while he worked.
Discipleship is the transfer of life
Discipleship in business is not a study manual. It is spiritual fatherhood, one life poured into another. At CBMC, together with the vision of the Movimiento Cumbre de Discipuladores, we believe in whole-life discipleship that multiplies and that takes in faith, family, and professional leadership together. The goal reaches deeper than reformed behavior.
It is the Holy Spirit remaking a person’s worldview, values, and character from the inside out while that person lives and works in business.
We are about our Father’s business (Luke 2:49).
The strategy of proximity
In the business world, discipleship happens over coffee, in the office, and in small groups. Through a relationship of trust in the pattern of Paul and Timothy, a mature leader helps another discover his calling, live with resilience, and carry the principles of the Word into his financial and professional decisions. When a business leader grasps that his company is his Kingdom assignment, a spiritual multiplication is set loose that has no precedent in his life.
The fulfillment of Acts 2:17-18
“In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy…” That outpouring was never confined to the four walls of the temple. The Holy Spirit is being poured out on executives and entrepreneurs right in the marketplace. God is stirring up visions and dreams in the corporate world so that his people can be salt, light, and a supernatural answer in the middle of the darkness.
A call to act and to answer
We are called to be rivers of living water, and what flows out of us is meant to reach everyone standing nearby. This article is not looking to have the last word. It is looking to start a conversation that changes something.
If you are a pastor or a leader: are you ready to release your fears, equip the business people in your church, and send them out as workers into their own field?
If you are a business owner or professional: are you living your business as sacred ground for discipleship, or only as a source of income?
We want to hear from you.
1. What has been your greatest challenge in trying to disciple, or be discipled, in your workplace?
2. How can CBMC help you start a discipleship group where you work?
If this challenges the way you think, do not keep it to yourself. Send it to three businesspeople, professionals, or pastors in your network.
Harold E. Cardona, CBMC Director, South America
Originally published in Spanish as “De ‘Ovejas’ en la Banca a Discípulos ‘Leones’ de los Negocios”
