About CBMC International
Monday morning arrives.
The church building is mostly empty.
Christians scatter into offices, shops, factories, hospitals, construction sites, conference rooms, airports, schools, restaurants, and businesses.
For the next five days, many will spend more waking hours around coworkers and clients than around people from their church.
They will make decisions.
Manage people.
Handle money.
Resolve conflict.
Hire employees.
Serve customers.
Negotiate.
Lead organizations.
Build friendships.
Encounter people who may never voluntarily walk into a church.
CBMC International looks at that enormous part of ordinary life and sees something more than employment.
It sees a mission field.
Don't Leave Your Faith in the Parking Lot
Many Christians unintentionally divide life into two worlds.
Sunday belongs to God.
Monday belongs to work.
Prayer happens at church.
Business happens at the office.
CBMC challenges that separation.
If Jesus is Lord of a Christian's life, then faith should influence the way that person leads a company, treats employees, serves customers, responds to pressure, handles money, makes ethical decisions, and interacts with colleagues.
CBMC calls this marketplace ministry.
It isn't primarily about turning every workplace into a church service.
It is about Christians understanding that wherever God has placed them, they represent Christ there.
The Marketplace Is Filled With People
“Marketplace” can sound impersonal.
CBMC sees relationships.
The customer you've known for five years.
The employee going through a divorce.
The executive whose career is successful while everything else is falling apart.
The colleague asking questions about faith.
The entrepreneur carrying enormous pressure alone.
The young professional trying to determine whether following Christ will help or hurt a career.
These aren't interruptions to ministry.
For CBMC, they are where ministry happens.
Business creates relationships.
Relationships create trust.
Trust creates opportunities for deeper conversations.
And sometimes those conversations create opportunities to share Jesus Christ.
Start With Evangelism
CBMC is unapologetically evangelistic.
Its vision is tied directly to Christ's Great Commission.
Business success isn't the ultimate goal.
Professional networking isn't the ultimate goal.
Better leadership isn't even the ultimate goal.
CBMC wants men and women to know Jesus Christ.
That means helping Christian professionals become comfortable communicating the Gospel naturally within the relationships God has already given them.
Not manipulating a customer.
Not turning employees into evangelistic targets.
Not forcing religious conversations.
Rather, living openly as a Christian, caring genuinely about people, building relationships, and being prepared to explain the hope behind your life when opportunities arise.
The workplace becomes a place where the Gospel can travel through ordinary relationships.
Don't Stop When Someone Believes
Evangelism is only the beginning.
Jesus didn't simply command Christians to make converts.
He commanded them to make disciples.
That distinction shaped one of CBMC's most influential approaches to ministry:
life-on-life discipleship.
A mature Christian walks intentionally with another person.
They study Scripture.
Talk about life.
Pray.
Discuss decisions.
Work through struggles.
Learn obedience.
And eventually the person being discipled learns to disciple someone else.
CBMC isn't trying merely to add Christians to a membership database.
It wants disciples who reproduce disciples.
Operation Timothy
During the 1970s, that philosophy took shape through Operation Timothy.
The name comes from Paul's relationship with Timothy.
Paul didn't simply teach Timothy information.
He invested his life in him.
Timothy learned.
Matured.
Became a leader.
And was instructed to entrust what he had learned to faithful people who could teach others.
That pattern from 2 Timothy 2:2 became foundational to CBMC.
One disciple.
Another disciple.
Another generation.
Multiplication.
Operation Timothy developed into a structured tool that Christians could use in personal discipleship relationships.
Decades later, that same multiplication principle remains central to CBMC's global strategy.
Turn Successful Leaders Into Spiritual Reproducers
A person can be remarkably successful in business and spiritually immature.
Leadership skill doesn't automatically produce Christian character.
Revenue doesn't equal righteousness.
Influence doesn't guarantee wisdom.
CBMC therefore tries to develop what it calls Marketplace Ambassadors for Christ.
The concept comes from Paul's description of Christians as Christ's ambassadors.
An ambassador represents someone else.
For a Christian professional, that means professional influence carries spiritual responsibility.
How you lead says something.
How you treat people says something.
How you respond when nobody is watching says something.
Integrity becomes part of witness.
Give Leaders Somewhere They Can Be Honest
Leadership can also be lonely.
The higher someone moves in an organization, the fewer people may feel comfortable challenging them.
Employees may tell a leader what they think the leader wants to hear.
Business relationships can become transactional.
Personal struggles stay hidden.
CBMC creates environments where professionals can build relationships with other Christians who understand those pressures.
Small teams meet.
People pray.
Study Scripture.
Discuss business and life.
Encourage one another.
Challenge one another.
That kind of accountability matters because Christian leadership isn't supposed to mean appearing spiritually invulnerable.
Leaders need discipleship too.
Connect Three Relationships
CBMC's Connect3 Teams capture this relational model.
The three connections are straightforward:
Connect with God.
Connect with one another.
Connect with the Great Commission.
Teams bring Christian professionals together regularly for prayer, support, biblical formation, and marketplace discipleship.
The group becomes more than professional networking.
A networking group asks:
Who can help my business?
A discipleship group begins asking:
How can we help one another follow Christ?
That difference changes the purpose of the relationship.
Let Experience Become Mentorship
CBMC also recognizes that generations of Christian professionals possess knowledge younger leaders need.
Young professionals are navigating career decisions, ambition, relationships, ethics, leadership, money, and questions about how openly Christian faith should shape professional life.
Older believers have already walked through many of those tensions.
CBMC's Young Professionals ministry intentionally brings those generations together.
Experienced executives can mentor younger professionals.
Younger leaders bring new perspectives.
Faith and professional wisdom are passed forward.
The goal isn't merely career advancement.
It is developing a generation that understands success through a Christian worldview.
Build Businesses Without Letting Business Build Your Identity
CBMC doesn't teach that business itself is something Christians should escape.
Business can create tremendous good.
Companies provide employment.
Entrepreneurs solve problems.
Products serve people.
Investment creates opportunity.
Leaders shape organizational cultures.
Wealth can become generosity.
The danger comes when success becomes identity.
The marketplace constantly offers alternative measures of human worth:
title.
salary.
revenue.
company size.
influence.
prestige.
CBMC continually brings the Christian professional back to another identity.
Follower of Jesus Christ.
Everything else comes underneath that.
Bring Christ Into the Boardroom
CBMC's Trusted Advisor Forums apply this worldview to leaders carrying significant responsibility.
Business owners and executives need strategic counsel.
But CBMC believes Christian leaders need something beyond conventional business advice.
They need counsel that takes both business excellence and biblical faithfulness seriously.
A decision may increase profit and still raise ethical concerns.
Growth may be possible while damaging family life.
A leadership strategy may work while treating people poorly.
Trusted relationships give Christian executives somewhere to examine those tensions with other leaders who understand both business and faith.
The question becomes larger than:
Will this work?
It becomes:
Can I honor Christ while doing it?
Give Christians Something on Monday Morning
CBMC's Monday Manna reflects another side of the ministry.
These short workplace devotionals bring biblical principles into ordinary professional situations.
Leadership.
Communication.
Stress.
Integrity.
Decision-making.
Failure.
Relationships.
Success.
Purpose.
Rather than leaving biblical teaching disconnected from work, Monday Manna asks what Scripture has to say when the Christian walks back into the marketplace.
It is intentionally practical.
Sunday's faith should survive Monday morning.
Use Technology to Cross Borders
A ministry built around relationships once depended heavily on physical meetings and printed materials.
Technology has changed what is possible.
CBMC's digital Marketplace Ambassador Advancement System, or MAAS, makes discipleship and evangelism resources accessible internationally.
Operation Timothy Global.
Monday Manna.
Evangelism training.
Disciple-making resources.
Multilingual content.
Material that once moved slowly from country to country can now travel almost instantly.
Technology doesn't replace life-on-life discipleship.
It helps equip it.
A Movement Born During Economic Despair
CBMC's story began during one of the darkest economic periods in modern American history.
In 1930, the Great Depression was devastating businesses, families, and livelihoods.
Christian businessmen in Chicago saw more than an economic crisis.
They saw spiritual need.
They began gathering for prayer and evangelistic outreach among businesspeople.
Similar movements appeared in places including San Francisco and Seattle.
Those groups eventually came together.
By 1937, CBMC had taken recognizable organizational form.
In 1938, Chicago hosted the first CBMC International Conference.
Something that began among businessmen responding to spiritual despair in American cities was beginning to cross borders.
From Chicago to Six Continents
The movement kept spreading.
Australia in 1950.
South Korea in 1952.
Mexico during the 1950s.
The Netherlands in 1956.
South Africa in 1972.
Eventually CBMC developed ministry across Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and North America.
In 1987, CBMC International became a distinct global association supported by its own independent board.
Today, professionals participate across more than 90 nations.
The marketplace that CBMC once understood mainly through local businessmen has become genuinely global.
Men and Women in the Marketplace
Its historical roots were among Christian businessmen.
The modern ministry is broader.
CBMC International describes itself as an association of Christian business and professional leaders and operates co-ed ministry teams internationally.
Men and women participate in marketplace evangelism, discipleship, leadership development, mentoring, and professional ministry.
The underlying strategy hasn't changed.
Reach people where they spend their lives.
Equip Christians already there.
Let disciples make disciples.
Stay Rooted in the Gospel
CBMC's theology is explicitly evangelical.
It affirms the inspiration and authority of Scripture.
One God eternally existing as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The full deity and humanity of Jesus Christ.
Human sinfulness.
Christ's substitutionary death.
His bodily resurrection and ascension.
Salvation through personal faith in Jesus Christ.
The work of the Holy Spirit.
Christ's future return.
Bodily resurrection and eternal judgment.
Those convictions aren't peripheral.
CBMC says its statement of faith governs everything the ministry does.
Marketplace ministry is therefore not merely an attempt to make professionals more ethical.
It is an evangelistic and disciple-making mission built around the Gospel.
Send the Church Back Into the World
CBMC isn't trying to replace the local church.
Its current strategy increasingly emphasizes partnership with churches.
The reasoning is simple.
The church gathers Christians.
Then those Christians scatter into society.
CBMC wants to help churches disciple believers for what happens after they scatter.
A pastor may have a business owner sitting in the congregation.
A physician.
Accountant.
Manager.
Engineer.
Sales representative.
Entrepreneur.
Executive.
Teacher.
Tradesperson.
Those people already have access to relationships the pastor may never have.
Equip them.
And the Church's missionary presence expands into thousands of workplaces.
Your Desk Can Be a Mission Field
CBMC ultimately challenges a common assumption about Christian mission.
You don't necessarily have to quit your job and travel overseas to enter a mission field.
You may already be standing in one.
The coworker across the hallway.
The employee sitting in your office.
The client you've known for years.
The executive sitting beside you at lunch.
The young professional asking for advice.
Business brings people together every day.
CBMC wants Christians to recognize those relationships as opportunities for faithful presence, genuine friendship, Gospel witness, and discipleship.
At the heart of CBMC International is the conviction that the Great Commission belongs in the marketplace. What began among Christian businessmen praying and evangelizing during the Great Depression in 1930 has developed into a global movement of more than 50,000 business and professional leaders across more than 90 nations. CBMC equips Christians to integrate faith with work, share the Gospel through genuine relationships, disciple others personally, lead with biblical integrity, mentor emerging professionals, and reproduce disciples who will do the same. Its strategy doesn't ask every Christian professional to leave the marketplace for ministry. It asks them to recognize that God may have placed them in the marketplace for ministry. The office, factory, boardroom, job site, hospital, shop, and business meeting become places where an ordinary working life can participate in the Great Commission.
