FAQs

The application process is fairly simple and can be done online. It includes:

1. Paying a $35 application fee
2. Completing the online application
3. Submitting your resume
4. Providing four references

The MDE Review Team (MRT) will review your application, usually within a week of receiving your last reference form, and then contact you with the Next Steps, which include:

1. Signing the MDE Statement of Faith
2. Undergoing a background check
3. Completing the MMPI psychological evaluation

For BAM membership steps, see the BAM FAQs below.

MDE provides a variety of services to you and connects you to vetted resources that enable you to be missional in the unreached community to which God has called you. These services vary depending on whether you are serving the unreached community as a disciple-making employee, BAMer, or community developer, but generally include:

• Connecting you with opportunities in unreached communities that fit your individual skills and dreams.
• Connecting you with similar Christ-followers to team with in disciple-making and church planting endeavors.
• Providing you with resources (training, venture capital, coaches, advisers, security advice, etc.) to accomplish your call.
• Helping you develop specific ministry plans that tie directly into a disciple-making and church planting effort.
• Providing accountability partners to help you stay on course to achieve your vocational and ministry goals.
• Providing personal support in the logistics and challenges of living cross-cultural.

DME
Individual Membership: $50/month
Couples’ Membership (where both are members): $75/month

BAM
Venture Membership: $300/month

Any country you do! Our mission is to serve our members in whatever country God places them. Our only requirement is that the community be one in which there is no vital, self-sustaining witness for Christ. We currently have members in Europe, Asia, and Africa.

For some folks—none. We use these two terms to distinguish between a member who is working for someone else as an employee and a member who is running a business as an entrepreneur. Both develop relationships with people in their unreached communities (co-workers, employees, vendors, bosses, customers, neighbors, etc.) and are committed to sharing the love and message of Christ. However, while some needs of disciple-making employees and BAMers are similar, some are not. So we provide each group with similar, but different, services designed to help them meet their unique needs.

We do not recruit people to complete a process that we run in order to place them on a team we’ve built in a particular place we’ve picked in order to engage in a specific project we oversee. We are a service organization that partners with and supports believers God has called to engage the unreached through the marketplaces or workplaces of their communities. You tell us the place to which God is calling you and we connect you with fellow believers (either nationals or expats) who are engaged in disciple-making and who will draw you into their church planting community.

We connect you with training materials and programs that others have developed or run. (There are many good ones out there, therefore we don’t need to build our own.) The training can happen in a time or place that you choose, in person or online. If you have already been trained or have experience in an area, we don’t require you to be trained again in that area.

In fact, the only thing we require of our members is that they commit to growing in Christ and to sharing the gospel in an unreached community with those who need to hear it. Otherwise, we are here to serve you—not the other way around.

The nature of BAM ventures requires a very fluid membership intake process. The steps to be taken and the sequence of those steps will vary based on the individual’s business experience, ministry experience, business capital needs, familiarity with the targeted unreached community, foreign language skills, teaming needs, and other similar issues.

Before becoming an MDE member, potential members and the MDE Director meet to review the proposed BAM venture’s missional business concept, its legal structure and ownership, and our vision and values alignment. If both feel comfortable moving ahead, the potential member completes the membership process.

In addition to the general membership steps given above, BAM applicants must also complete an Initial Business Questionnaire to give us a sense of needs and resources.

Upon acceptance into membership, the member is assigned a BAM Team Manager who works with the member to:

• Build a support team
• Complete a missional business plan
• Complete pre-launch steps
• Launch
• Fulfill the member’s vision to see disciples made and churches planted in an unreached community!

We believe there are many. However, our primary distinctive is that we partner with you as you build, launch, and scale your BAM venture. We connect you with advisors and coaches, but we go beyond that by connecting you with believers who help you resolve specific issues and achieve your goals. We find answers to your legal questions. We have an accountant answer your QuickBooks questions. We have a combination of MDE staff and volunteers develop a legal structure for your business or work out an arrangement to use or plug into ours. We build a team around you that meets with you regularly to move your venture forward. Many BAMers understand what they need to do but don’t have the resources to actually do it. Our corporate mission is to step into that gap.

In addition, we have developed a step-by-step process that we utilize to help you organize your business, hone your product or service, sharpen your business plan, and articulate your vision and mission. We understand that a partnership creates responsibilities for each partner. MDE commits to providing our services in a timely, professional, effective manner.

We are not a mission agency; we are a service organization made up of business people seeking to be missional. We understand both the vital role entrepreneurs play in the evolving marketplace missions movement and their unique needs. We have built our organization to meet those needs and to foster a community that values and supports missional business people.

Pretty much any and all. We find volunteer advisors in all business areas. In the past, we’ve taken a manufacturing process expert to Albania to help improve the production of wood-burning stoves made by Roma workers we hired. An attorney went to Spain to meet with a lawyer there to set up a corporation that will house a scuba diving business. Dairy farms, shuttle services, coffee roasters, IT providers, nationals and expats are some of the ventures and people we are currently serving.

There are many great organizations doing incredible things in the community development world. MDE is not one of them. We are a service and networking organization that partners with individuals or organizations that God has called to bring value to an unreached community and to help that community work through social and economic issues.

We help you find the resources you need to enhance and improve your vision and mission. As with all our members, we work with you to develop a plan for sharing Christ with those God brings your way as you engage in your work as a developer.

MDE’s key service to students is the provision of a mentor. Your mentor will help you grow in your understanding of what it means to serve as a Disciple-Making Employee, what you need to do now to prepare for service after school, encourage and hold you accountable in your spiritual growth, and advise you on professional development that will position you well for finding a job abroad after you finish your studies.

Church partnership with MDE is primarily about making the opportunities to get involved known to your members. MDE depends on our network of volunteers to serve as advisors and mentors. You can add MDE to your list of ministries, highlight opportunities on a regular basis, or even invite an MDE staff member to speak at your church.