MBA Ministry

Living Intentionally No Matter What

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Thu, 30 Jan 2020 15:25:16 +0000

Gordon Govier

Living Intentionally No Matter What

When MBA student Liz Dong was asked to help plan and moderate a Believers in Business conference panel on dealing with disappointments, she had plenty of experience to draw from.

After immigrating from China to the US in fourth grade, Liz studied hard and excelled in school. But her hopes for future success were devastated when she and her mother discovered paperwork mistakes by their immigration attorney left them without proper documentation. Liz and her mother trusted in God though and, as she explained in a Christianity Today testimony, God miraculously opened the doors at Northwestern University, where she graduated in 2011.

Finding work was difficult because of her immigration status, even with a college degree. As soon as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) was implemented in 2012, which provided Liz and many other immigrants a temporary work authorization, Liz took a marketing job with a small eCommerce company. Then, as she took the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course through her church, she began to discover ways to apply her faith and use her own immigrant background to help other immigrants.

She moved into an apartment complex in suburban Chicago and joined a small intentional Christian community that was living among and serving their many immigrant and refugee neighbors. On nights and weekends, Liz gave rides, worked with children, and offered other practical support. “We were neighbors and friends,” she said. “I helped them, but I was also blessed by my immigrant neighbors.”

Then she changed jobs to work with World Relief and the Evangelical Immigration Table, advocating for immigration issues from a Christian perspective and drawing from her rich background of experience.

Back in School Again

Liz dreamed of going to graduate school to study management. Chances did not look promising as she tried to make ends meet on her non-profit salary. But she reconnected with the same foundation that had supported her as an undergrad at Northwestern, applied at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, and found herself admitted.

Her focus on management could have led her to stay in the nonprofit world or to a job in business. Either way, she knew she wanted to integrate her faith with her vocation. After a conversation with a missionary who was visiting her church she decided to learn more about that integration by attending Urbana 15, ��ñ��’s Student Missions Conference in St. Louis.

At Urbana, Liz discovered other business students who shared her conviction. “The Business as Mission track was highly applicable and practical for understanding the theology of work and that all work is ordained by God when it's done in a way that honors God,” she said. That was also where she met Mark Washington, who directs ��ñ��’s MBA Ministry.

Mark urged her to join Christians in Business, ��ñ��’s fellowship at Booth, where she eventually became one of the leaders. He also recommended the annual Believers in Business (BiB) conference that’s held in New York City each winter (This year’s dates are February 21-22).

Believers in Business

The first time she went to BiB, Liz found it refreshing and challenging to hear from business leaders who shared about their work experience and how they integrated faith into their workplace. The second year she went as a finalist in a Business as Mission competition. Her team helped a Christian company grow its profitability, invest in the communities where it employed workers, and advance other objectives that supported God’s kingdom. She described it as an enriching experience. Her team placed third.

Although the Booth MBA program normally lasts two years, Liz worked full time and went to school part time, stretching it to three years and allowing her an additional opportunity to attend BiB. For her third year, Liz served as a planner and moderator of the panel on dealing with disappointment.

“That topic was important to me,” she said. “It’s good to showcase more than just the successes. In our failures and disappointments, we discover God sees success differently than how we see it.”

Today, Liz no longer lives in the midst of an immigrant community. She also has a new job, working with a financial advising service. But she still advocates for immigrants and refugees in her spare time.

Liz is thankful for the path that God has led her on, particularly through the challenges of graduate school.

“I knew that everywhere I went, whatever I did, I wanted to somehow integrate my faith with the thing that I did, in the place where I was at,” she said. “Christians in Business, the campus fellowship at Booth, provided me a means to do that.”

Looking back at the seemingly insurmountable challenges she faced before both her undergrad and graduate school experiences, she sees God’s faithfulness.

“Each step of the way that God has led me, God has opened doors. Sometimes even unbeknownst to me at the time, God has prepared me for the next step. But I also know that God has used and is using all of my experiences in the past to prepare me for what he will have me doing next.”

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MBA Ministry

Believers in Business

University of Chicago

Booth

Northwestern University

Christians in Business

MBA Ministry Flourishes in Chicago

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Mon, 07 Nov 2016 20:17:02 +0000

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Gordon Govier

MBA Ministry Flourishes in Chicago

Moises (Moy) Mendez identifies with characters in the Old Testament, perhaps more than most of us. Just as God called Abram to leave his home and travel to a new land, God called Moy out of business school to seminary. So Moy followed God’s leading, not knowing where he would end up.

Moy joined the staff at his church and helped develop its ministry in several areas. However, like David, who was invited to fight Goliath wearing Saul’s ill-fitting armor, Moy felt uncomfortable with the idea of becoming a senior pastor at the church. That was not where God wanted him.

But when a mutual friend connected Moy with Mark Washington, the director of ��ñ��’s MBA ministry—part of our Graduate and Faculty Ministries—he knew he had found his calling. “[MBA ministry] is helping students understand the integration of faith and work,” he said. In this sense he feels a connection with Frederick Buechner, who famously said, “The place God calls you to is to a place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

Moy works with students in two of the top business schools in the country, Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Both schools have an ��ñ�� chapter for full-time students as well as a chapter for part-time students.

Moy identifies with students who have a desire not only to be successful in business, but also to succeed in a way that honors God and testifies to his role in their lives. “There’s a large body of believers who seek to do the same thing that I want to do, honor God in the workplace,” he said. “It’s a genuine desire to honor and worship God.”

In academic cultures that produce some of the top business leaders in the world, it’s not always easy to be known as a Christian. “As soon as somebody finds out you’re a Christian, right away they take 15 points off of [their perception of] your IQ,” Moy said. But regular Bible studies as well as occasional conferences give the students new perspectives on ways to be better at business while following biblical principles. Almost 80 students recently turned out for a conference on private equity sponsored by the two MBA fellowships at Booth, about double the usual attendance.

The full-time students at Booth also sponsor a weeklong business ethics conference every year. Last year the dean of the school opened the conference, and attendance was around 700. It also won an award from the school for the quality of its programming. Members of all four Chicago chapters participate in the annual Believers in Business conference in New York City as well.

The part-time groups at both schools are composed of busy professionals who are working while taking classes. Some participants in the executives’ program fly in from other states for weekend classes. Moy uses technology to keep in touch with them, including social media and video conferencing.

His own immersion in the world of manufacturing and business began in high school, operating lathes and mills for a tool company. Moy’s employers recognized and rewarded his skills and interest by underwriting further education for him. He became an aerospace machinist, educating himself on computer robotics and international business relations in his business school classes.

At the same time, he was also yearning to honor God with his life and his work. “It was there in business school that I started having this crazy idea for full-time ministry,” Moy said.

Moy joined ��ñ�� staff in January of 2015. Mark Washington says Moy is a fast learner and the MBA ministry in Chicago is flourishing under his leadership. “We are very excited to have someone who combines experience in vocational ministry with business experience, in addition to having a love for students and faculty,” Mark said.

Moy said that one of the reasons his work is flourishing is ��ñ��’s culture. “I’ve never known of a Christian organization that has such a deep desire to know God through the Scriptures and also looks to balance that out in such a holistic way,” he said.

Moy shares that culture with students at Booth and Kellogg, believing that it will become part of the businesses that they work in for the next few years and for decades to come.

News Keywords

University of Chicago

Northwestern University

MBA Ministry

Kellogg School of Management

Booth School of Business

Integrating Faith and Business

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Thu, 06 Feb 2014 21:04:22 +0000

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Gordon Govier

Integrating Faith and Business

Life is fragile, and all that we value can be taken from us in a split second. That was the realization that led Mark Washington to invite Jesus Christ into his life. It happened just after he had broken up with his girlfriend and survived a car-bike smash-up.

“The people that hit me with the car thought for sure I was dead when I flew over the car,” he said. “I wasn’t but it sure shook me up.”

Today Mark helps business school students look at the broader issues of life as the national coordinator of ��ñ��’s MBA Ministry, a part of Graduate and Faculty Ministries. He also works with ��ñ�� business students at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Integrating Faith and Vocation

Working with business students energizes Mark because MBA students clearly are intent on becoming world changers. “MBA students by virtue of where they will be working, will have significant impact on the world one way or another,” he said.

��ñ��’s ministry vision is to see students and faculty transformed, campuses renewed, and world changers developed. MBA Ministry is focused on developing Christian leaders who seek God in both their professional and private lives. ��ñ�� currently has MBA chapters in 17 of the top business schools.

During a recent sabbatical, Mark visited and conferred with leaders of nine national organizations that focus on integrating faith and vocation. Based on these visits and input from ��ñ�� staff, student leaders, and alumni, Mark spearheaded a new, five year strategic plan for MBA Ministry that will develop better resources for training students and double the number of chapters in business schools.

His vision for integrating faith and vocation also extends beyond business schools. “I would like to see communities of world changers develop for students after they graduate,” he said. “Because historically, the way change occurs is not through individuals but through communities.”

Catalytic Events

One of the best opportunities to focus on the integration of faith and vocation is the annual Believers in Business (BiB) Conference, which will be held this year on February 14-15 at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. Hosted by the Yale School of Business Management Christian Fellowship (affiliated with ��ñ��), and an advisory board of MBA students from 13 other business schools, the BiB conference presents strategies to help business leaders live out their faith in the marketplace. Mark has played a key role in developing the BiB conference into a national gathering for Christian business students.

��ñ��’s commitment to integrating faith and vocation extends back many years and includes national Marketplace Ministry conferences in 1980, 1983, and 1986. More recently, Mark helped lead Business as Mission and Business Changing the World tracks as a part of ��ñ��’s triennial Urbana student missions conferences. Integrating faith and vocation was also a major focus of ��ñ��’s Following Christ conferences, hosted by Graduate and Faculty Ministries in Atlanta in 2003 and in Chicago in 2008.

��ñ��’s theology of serving God in the marketplace through ethical business practices has attracted interest not only from individual business students but also leaders of business schools who want to present a solid ethical component to their program. “��ñ�� has some unique things to offer for MBA programs, including a theology of the workplace and business,” Mark said.

Finding His Own Way

Having experienced, as a new Christian, the disappointment of working for Christian business owners whose business practices did not reflect their Christian values, Mark developed an early appreciation for the integration of faith and vocation as a powerful witness to those both inside and outside the business community.

Mark’s first contact with ��ñ�� was Jack Irvine, a long-time volunteer staff member in California, who he met through his church. He was amazed that Jack would spend several hours at a time with him every week, talking about the Christian faith. “Here’s a man who is not a part of my family, loving me, caring for me, nurturing me, and seeing something worthwhile in me,” he marveled.

“Seeking to learn more about integrating faith and vocation, Mark left California and entered a dual degree program at North Park Theological Seminary, in Chicago. While working on a Master of Arts in Theological Studies and a Master of Business Administration Degree, he was also hired as the seminary’s Director of Admissions.”

As Admissions Director he negotiated partnerships for the seminary with ��ñ�� and other organizations, and began attending ��ñ�� meetings. He got an insider’s perspective on the fellowship and as he considered his career options after seminary, he began to think about joining ��ñ��, which he did in 2003.

Mark reflects on how God has been at work in his own life, integrating faith and vocation, and is thankful for a job where he can see God doing it again and again in the lives of MBA students who are committed to living out their faith in the marketplace.

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MBA Ministry

World changers