One of the “blue book” topics is something called “business mission”, which describes new ways to do “business mission”. This is something beyond tent-making, self-supporting business for mission. “Business mission” is something to be obeyed, and something commanded by Jesus, according to UBF. And it is a way to “conquer the world with the gospel”.
Here is a presentation from 2005 regarding the teaching of “business mission” by some high-level UBF missionaries:
UBF has already created some businesses and front-groups, especially in Europe.
Bible Study front-groups
Seed at Penn State:
http://seed.pennstateubf.org/
Seed at NYU:
http://www.nyuseed.com/
Seed at University of Waterloo:
http://seedsofwaterloo.blogspot.com/
Narrow Gate at University of Toledo:
http://www.utchristians.com/index.php/resources/biblestudymaterials/cat_view/14-narrow-gate-resources
UBF Club at York University:
http://www.yorkubf.org/XE/Forum/3162
“EMPNG” – Empowering The Next Generation:
http://www.empoweringubfnewgen.org/
Medical Mission:
http://www.ubfmedicalmission.com/
ABC Bible Study Group:
https://sites.google.com/site/bonnubfabcbibelkreis/
Businesses:
Honors Review: Princeton Branch (New Jersey ties)
http://princetonhonors.com/en/?page_id=72
“5L2F” – 5 Loaves & 2 Fish Orchestra (New Jersey/Germany ties):
http://newjerseyubf.org/fiveloavestwofish
CO-WORLD GmbH: Ximeta Technology partner (defunct?; Germany ties)
http://www.coworldcs.com/en/products/sd_dualdrive.php Note: CO-WORLD stands for “conquer the world” per the UBF Business Mission document link above.
FIAA GmbH (precursor to Nest41?; New Jersey and Bonn/Germany ties)
http://www.linkedin.com/company/fiaa-gmbh
http://www.fiaagames.com/
Nest41 GmbH (successor of CO-WORLD GmbH?; Germany ties)
http://www.nest41.com/company_1.php
Note: The “41” is curiously similar to the Business Mission prayer topic to raise 100,000 UBF missionaries by 2041.
Nest41 has a Core Value statement eerily similar to UBF material:
NEST41’s Core Value
Next Generation
Valuing the next generation is our corporate social
responsibility. We aim to motivate, educate and
train young people to extend their vision to grow as
the next generation of leaders in the industry,
who can give influence to transform our world.
Extraordinary
Being innovative and creative. Having the courage
to pioneer a new business area.
Strategy
Strategy is about decisions.
We aim for a well planed strategy for a long run.
Keen analysis on market, competitor,
required resources will be our tool.
Trust
We believe in trust in our partnership. We define
trust as assured reliance on the character, ability,
strength, and truth of a business.
Brian, who provides the “seed” money to start up a new business? Is it from accumulated tithes, or special offerings, or perhaps from rich family members?? Or perhaps it starts with using peoples talents – esp. talents of other members – for one’s own money making business?
cc, the common UBF principle is “self-support” and “volunteering”. So money and resources almost always comes from UBF members. The new idea for money is a donation plan, as described on page 92 of the 50th Anniversary book. UBF plans to adopt a “stepping-seed bank book” which they found in welfare facilities run by some government (the book does not specify exactly where this came from).
And it should be noted that any “self-support” work is almost always required to be in addition to tithe and additional offerings (which can total more than 30% of one’s income if the normal UBF offering scheme is obeyed absolutely.)
I am not clear what you mean by “self-support” work required beyond tithing and addtl offerings. Do you mean that a UBF member is supporting the ministry in special ways with his/her money–e.g. offering donations to put up a business? But wouldn’t that be considered a special offering? And if members do put up seed offerings to establish a business, are they then part owners? or does only the leader reap the profits?? (whether in Germany or in the US, or elswhere) I think to set up a tutoring business in the USA would cost at least $100,000. If such a business is established with offering money, then the church should receive all profits, but a church is not or should not be in a moneymaking business.
What is a “stepping-seed bank book” exactly? a welfare plan?
I can’t speak for the other groups, but at least one Seed group is not officially tied to UBF (although it’s a de facto UBF organization) and the university provides a budget to publish a semesterly newsletter.
Hi anon,
Just want to clarify for everyone…The Seed groups (campus Bible study groups) are not the same as the “seed bank accounts” mentioned in the 50th Anniversary book.
Thanks for sharing, but I don’t follow your logic: You are saying that one of the Seed groups is not tied to UBF, but it is a UBF organization? What does that mean?
Do you mean that the Seed groups are supported by UBF but do not propagate the UBF spiritual heritage or disagree with typical UBF ideas?
Would you explain further? Thanks!
Oh, okay. I’ve actually been meaning to get a hold of one of those. I had around five minutes with one right before worship service a couple months ago (I remember laughing out loud as I read about marriage by faith), but it’d be good to have a thorough read through one.
As for the Seed Club:
When I said a “de facto” UBF organization, I meant while there are no official ties to UBF and is officially a campus club/organization, many of the members, including pretty much all the leaders, attend UBF. And while we don’t directly invite anyone to UBF, we encourage everyone to attend a church (which we should be doing) with UBF being first on the list (which is more or less understandable since most of us go there). But as far as club activities go, UBF itself is far from our minds.
That isn’t to say that UBF doesn’t have a strong influence (again, understandable since the leaders attend UBF). In fact, we’ve been studying Genesis the past school year. And one of the main pillars of the club is the “mentorship program,” i.e. one-to-one Bible study, (which itself can be a very positive thing).
So it seems to me that you are describing “UBF church” and “UBF para-church”. Yes, I think most of the loosely connected campus groups are of the para-church style ministry. UBF began that way.
The larger UBF chapters in the USA have these para-church groups, and they seem to function more of a front-group (used to glean the most loyal seed people into UBF church) than a separate para-church.
In your case, do you think the para-church style was helpful?
Yes, I’d call it a campus Christian group, fellowship, or para-church (akin to CCC, Remnant, InterVarsity, etc.).
And having grown up in UBF, I really have no comparison. I guess it’s convenient to just group all my church/religious activities under “UBF,” but at the same time we have many members who go to other churches. While non-UBF members have been invited and come to UBF, to my knowledge they’ve never been asked to actually join. One did for a while before she joined a local church because the center was inconveniently located and she wanted a more college-focused ministry (which I thought was ironic since that’s what UBF is supposed to be, but then I had to agree with her assessment too). She currently serves as the president of the club.
My sense is that it started the way you described – a modernized fishing tool, but then it turned into its own thing.
I just can not undestand. What is the purpose of UBF (non-denominational Christian organization for campus ministry)church is they need have and support another para-churh organizations which have not oficcial connection to ubf. In this case UBF just should became usual biblical local church. I just can not see the point.
Hi David. This phenomenon is rather easy to understand,when you see the facts of what’s been going on. I’ll explain in today’s post.
Hi cc,
I’m not sure who you are or where you are from, but you seem to think like an American :)
1) The self-supporting work means volunteering (time, money, house, car, etc). To set up a tutoring business from scratch would indeed likely cost what you suggest. But you are thinking like an American. For a UBF Korean, the cost would be near zero. How? Well you have a willing, volunteer workforce. So the tutors are other UBF people who volunteer their time willingly (or out of gratitude). Also in the case of the NJ tutoring business, the business was already established. UBF just created a branch of the franchise, which probably has just a low fee requirement. The only cost would be books and materials, which would be charged back to the students.
Look at the address of the NJ tutoring business. It is in the same apartment complex as where several UBF people live. Probably someone started up the tutoring in their own apartment. As more students pay money, more could be done.
2) As an American I never heard the exact term “stepping-seed bank book”. A quick google search brings me back to my own blog, so it is really not a proper term people use. It seems like a welfare benefit plan, which in the US would be called a “419 Welfare Benefit Plan”. Such plans would be tricky to setup legally and could have tax implications. It sounds kindof like what parents did in the 60’s and 70’s by putting money in a special bank account when kids are 1 or 2 years old. Then the rather good interest rate compounds over their life, and family can add to it at life events, such as graduations. The kids cannot take money out until they get to be a certain age, usually 18. I looked into setting up such an acct for my kids a while ago, but such acct’s don’t seem to exist or have just a 0.5% rate instead of the much higher rate that used to exist.
My big concern with all this is just as you say. Why should this kind of bank business be part of our Christian mission? Perhaps churches should have a welfare operation but it seems like that should be left to specific welfare organizations like “My Father’s Business”. One church can’t do it all.
Also a huge concern of mine would be the requirements put on the “seed bank” account. In other words, who would get the money? When would they get the money? And what would they have to do to get the money? It seems like a major way to control people, especially with the potential to coerce children of UBF missionaries to conform to UBF ideals, if any of those would be required to get the welfare money.
I doubt this seed-bank idea would or could be done in America. It probably would be started in other nations with relaxed tax laws:
http://employment-law.freeadvice.com/employment-law/pensions_benefits/big-problems-with-419-welfare-benefit-plans-funded-by-life-insurance.htm
“Two big issues surrounding 419 schemes
There are two big issues surrounding 419 schemes, according to Burgess – paying taxes on the plan and finding out that individuals and companies no longer have any rights in the policy. He explained each issue:
Paying taxes. Although somebody has spent a great deal of money to set this thing up, the IRS tells them, ‘No, this doesn’t work.’ They now have to report the money they put into the policy as income and they owe the taxes on it. However, the policy’s got a big surrender charge on it and you can’t just take the money out of the policy to pay the taxes because there’s not enough available to you. That’s a very big issue.
No rights. The other issue is that once people get into these plans, they find out that the trust that was set up actually owns the policy, not the individual and not the corporation, and they no longer have any rights in that policy. So, they have to wait years and years and years to get anything back out.”
CC, some more answers:
“Do you mean that a UBF member is supporting the ministry in special ways with his/her money–e.g. offering donations to put up a business?”
>>> Perhaps there would be special offerings, but not likely. What I mean by self-support is that the money never flows through the offering. In other words, a UBF member would setup their own business with their own money, but willingly use it for UBF purposes, such as getting visas for more UBF missionaries. I am familiar with this because I have always wanted to setup my own business (and have succeeded). A UBF Korean explained to me once how I could use my business for “God’s glory” and help bring UBF missionaries to the US. I never pursued this.
“But wouldn’t that be considered a special offering?”
>>> If the money went through the offering system, yes. But normally such “business mission” is done outside of offering, which of course removes any hint of accountability.
“And if members do put up seed offerings to establish a business, are they then part owners? or does only the leader reap the profits??”
>>> The members would not be owners most likely and would receive no benefit most likely. Only the member who started the business would be an owner. I see no evidence that the director or leader reaps any profits. UBF Koreans are not hungry for money. They only want money as a means of “making priestly nations”. They normally live rather poorly.
However, a recent trend is for older UBF Koreans to become rather well off. They are not “fancy” by American standards, but they are becoming very well-secured. In fact UBF itself has stored up $12 million. UBF Koreans are not greedy, so they don’t normally want this money.
NOTE: Intuidex (http://www.intuidex.com/) is a legitimate new business and although founded by a UBF member, may not be part of the UBF business mission. I have removed it from my list above to avoid confusion. However, I leave it listed here in these comments because I know the people involved and am concerned that this business could become part of business mission, since it shows the most promise of any of the businesses listed above.