What Is In Your Tool Chest for City Transformation – Part I

There is a new – old – Christian narrative in my city and it’s getting louder and louder. Out of a love for humans made in the image of God, Christians have always been on the front lines of caring for the widows, the orphans, and the impoverished.

There is nothing new about that, it is an old story ever since Christians created the first hospitals for the common man centuries ago. What is fresh and remarkable is that business people who are followers of Jesus Christ are beginning to look at their workplace through a new set of glasses; seeing themselves – and their businesses – as being “sent” by God to their cities for such a time as this as solution bringers for complex problems. The old Christian paradigm view had business people seeing themselves and being seen as primarily cash generators to fund others engaged in the “real” work of ministry.

Indeed, monetary generosity is a tremendous and beneficial blessing to the cause of Christ, but rather one-dimensional if we think of ourselves solely as checkbooks. It’s tantamount to having a magnificent chest of tools but confining oneself to only being able to use the screwdriver.

Hank and Susan Binkowski are grocery chain owners with multiple Buy For Less, Super Mercado and lately Uptown Grocery sites in the greater Oklahoma City area.

The “Aha!” moment for them came when they realized that God’s gift of their grocery stores was more than just enabling them to financially assist various ministries, but that they could leverage that asset to serve Christ by helping redeem a community. As Hank said, “There’s a better way to do business. It really is about the ministry of the work.” It is the work of bringing vitality, entrepreneurship and human dignity to a part of the city that has been bereft of a great deal of all three.

It begins with a grocery store…

SALLT

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