Twenty business and educational professionals began The Clapham Institute’s third MBA Program (“Moral Business Administration”) in October of 2007.  Meeting twice a month at Dynasplint’s headquarters, the course helps business professionals reframe faith so that they connect Sunday to Monday.  The MBA program only accepts candidates who acknowledge the incoherence of most attempts to “bring Christianity into the marketplace.”  “They frankly don’t work,” said TCI President and Senior Mentor Mike Metzger.  “They sound great and have a lot of religious language, but most people cannot take Sunday school and connect it to business school.

 

A large number of candidates were turned away for this year’s course.  “The response has been far greater than we anticipated.  It’s very gratifying,” said Metzger.  While the MBA course has been improved and expanded, it’s still modeled after the “blue ocean” idea popularized by two Harvard Business School professors.  In blue oceans, companies reinvent their niche by reframing the message.  Businesses that keep using the same language are fishing in red oceans – that is, in industries already existing where companies compete by grabbing for a greater share of limited demand.  The Clapham Institute has developed a way to reframe faith so that people can connect Sunday to Monday.  “Christianity today is primarily relegated to a day called Sunday and a place called church,” said Metzger.  “It’s pretty much incoherent and inconsequential.  We have plenty of “faith and work” ministries out there.  But no one has a language that is meaningful to colleagues who don’t embrace religion,” said Metzger.