Missions
Missions is
the middle name of Christian & Missionary Alliance.
Every year a whole week is set aside to emphasis the importance of missions around the world. The C&MA has 1300 missionaries in 60 some countries.
Missionary Info
Trying to find out current information on a C&MA missionary? Visit the NEW
Missionary Locator, a database-driven site updated by the missionaries themselves. It contains current photos, ministry updates, and prayer requests.
“You represent something that is remarkable!” a C&MA worker in the Holy Land told a gathering of believers. What is astonishing is that 72 Alliance church leaders, consisting mostly of Arabs, Jews, and internationals, recently came in one accord to worship Jesus together.
The theme of the multicultural, multilingual event was to unite the groups in a common cause—peace through Jesus Christ. As one Arab attendee put it, “My identity as a believer comes before any political agenda.” An Arab woman added, “Jesus’ death was not just for us to enjoy heaven but to enjoy each other.”
Awed by the scene of these believers sharing Communion, an Alliance leader marveled, “Cultural enemies partaking of the bread and cup together in the Lord’s presence. Now that’s powerful!”
The Christian and Missionary Alliance began its work in the Holy Land more than 100 years ago. Today, this region has 1,000 Alliance-related believers praying for their fellow countrymen—inviting them to drop their earthly weapons and come to Jesus.
A national church worker says, “Our growth is due to new believers telling their families, friends, and neighbors. These people see the change in the new believers’ lives.” The Church in the Holy Land is meeting physical needs first—providing clinics, schools, summer camps for children, and irrigation systems.
“We believe that we’ll be able to reach the villages for Christ as we do relief and development work among them first and then do church planting based on their acceptance of us,” explains a C&MA church leader. “But it will take time.”
In one fully organized, self-supporting Alliance congregation of 200, worshipers line the stairs and fill the porch of a church that seats only sixty people. Since the 1980s, God has moved in the hearts of this Arab congregation. “We see new faces every Sunday,” says the pastor. “By the time we finish our expansion to accommodate 150 people, [the maximum possible] it already will have been filled!” Members of this church believe they are called to reach out to Muslims.
While listening to a Christian Arab radio station, one Muslim man heard that Islam focuses on the outside behavior, but Jesus looks into a man’s heart. “When I met him, he was like a ripe fruit,” says an Alliance church worker. “All I had to do was touch it, and it fell into my hand.”
The young man believed and put his trust in Christ. His family would not let him come home for 60 days. He used that time to read the Bible and pray. When he called his parents on the 60th day, his mother said, “Come home.” As he entered his village, his uncles took his Bible and tore it in pieces.
Thinking they had solved the problem, they said, “Now you can stay.” But the young man stayed strong in his faith because he had spent 60 days hiding the Word in his heart. Currently, he is seeking training to minister to his fellow Muslims.
Another believer said, “I am a Muslim. Does that disturb or surprise you? My culture, my country, my worldview, the way I think are Muslim. But I come from a Christian background. My family can trace its Christian roots back 1,300 years to the Arabian Peninsula when Islam came into being and kidnapped Arabs from Christianity. My father came to know Christ in a personal way when U.S. C&MA missionaries explained the good news to him.”
This man believes he is called to share the gospel with Muslims. “My heart is crushed,” he said. “They need to meet Jesus in a personal, free way.”
The Middle Eastern Christians attending the multicultural gathering agreed that the key to ministry among Muslims is to love them. “The techniques will fall into place as the Holy Spirit works in and through us. But it is love that paves the way.”
At the closing of the conference, a Bible college director said, “I am with another mission and denomination, but there is no other ministry or mission here that can bring about a meeting like this except the C&MA. Bringing Jews and Arabs together is being done only in the C&MA.”
C&MA Missions
We seek to evangelize among people groups who have not yet received an understandable presentation of the gospel and among whom there is no indigenous church effectively evangelizing those peoples. We also desire to plant churches among peoples responsive to the gospel, regardless of their previous exposure to Christianity, with a view to equipping those churches to evangelize unreached peoples and to plant missionary churches among them.
• More than 1,000 missionaries serve in 51 of the 67 countries where the C&MA has ministries.
• CAMA Services has 35 missionary associates serving in 11 countries.
• 60 IFAP professionals serve in 12 countries. |
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