Maranatha Fellowship Church

With the onset of our annual Missions Conference, I thought it would be appropriate to provide a little introduction into the missions emphasis of our own denomination.  A better understanding of our roots will reveal the source of the intense passion for missions that so many of our churches embody. 

Our church belongs to a large family of Protestant churches known as the Christian & Missionary Alliance (C&MA).  The C&MA was founded in 1897 by the notable New York Presbyterian minister Rev. Albert Benjamin (A.B.) Simpson.  A.B. Simpson was an acclaimed revivalist preacher in New York City where he pastored a church called the Gospel Tabernacle, which welcomed people of all social classes and denominational background.  Simpson, and the Gospel Tabernacle, quickly grew to prominent status becoming a catalyst for the “holiness movement” which ultimately led to various church denominations.  Additionally, though, Simpson was also influential in helping to fuel what would become the “modern ecumenical missions movement” in the early 20th century.

Despite the nature of our organization today, the C&MA (a.k.a. “The Alliance) was not originally intended to become an alternative denomination.  Simpson was simply responding to the overwhelming needs of the lost people in his community and to the larger challenge of evangelizing the world.  That’s why he gathered together an eclectic team of fellow Christian servants to pool resources that would make a greater impact.  In doing so, he loosely organized the C&MA to manage the functions of a growing association with the goal of taking the gospel to all nations.  His urgency for world evangelization was inspired by Jesus’ statement in Matthew 24:14, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.” (NKJ)

Year’s after A.B. Simpson’s death, it became necessary to shift the organization’s leadership from the control of individuals to more of an ecclesiastical authority structure.  Therefore, the C&MA became a full functioning denomination, complete with its own statement of faith and its core distinctives.  However, the C&MA has never lost its zeal for missions and for the development and installation of international missionaries.  Although the organization looks somewhat different today than what Simpson has intended, it continues lead the way in mission activity throughout the world.

It’s been said that the C&MA sends the most number of missionaries per capita than any other Protestant denomination.  There are others that send more missionaries total, but none that send a greater percentage of its adherents to the mission field.  Compared to other church denominations we may be relatively small, but we’re big when it comes to missionary impact around the globe. 

The C&MA has been involved in sending missionaries to unreached peoples and places for over 100 years now.  Consequently, we’ve implemented a pretty good system to develop mission-minded churches in the groups that we reach with the gospel.  That’s why there are now other regions besides the Americas where C&MA churches are sending their own missionaries to foreign lands.  The Philippines has actually surpassed the United States in the number of missionaries that they send overseas. 

Ralph Winter, the late founder of the U.S. Center for World Mission, once remarked about the success of C&MA missions that, “In the United States in the last half-century, no one denominational mission board has a better record in starting mission-minded overseas churches than the Christian and Missionary Alliance.”  This means that others have acknowledged what has always been at the heart of our missions purpose.  We want to raise other indigenous churches to missions maturity.  In the case of the Philippine church, the mother church (USA) couldn’t be more happy about the daughter’s (Philippines) missions priority.  Praise God for the way He works through the efforts of missionaries around the world. 

The missions work of the C&MA cannot exist as a separate entity, though.  Missions in the C&MA has always been directly linked with the mission of the local church.  In other words, missions is part of the church’s mission!  The leadership of our missions board is under the same ecclesiastical authority that exists by the church.  The missionaries themselves are raised up in and called out from the local church.  The resources that supply the work of missions (such as finances, etc.) are funded by the local church.  C&MA cannot operate without the local church!  That’s why missions is so important to us.

Every year, our churches host a Missions Conference to create greater awareness, generate more interest, and encourage better participation in the work of missions.  We challenge everyone in the church to give sacrificially and enthusiastically to the Great Commission Fund (GCF), so that the work will continue until the task is complete.  There are also many opportunities throughout the year to join the work on short-term missions experiences.  In fact, there’s a new initiative in the Alliance for churches to have an increased partnership with individual missionaries or particular missions projects.  This would help create more “ownership” for us folks back home. 

For those of us in Alliance churches, we’ve always known that missions is part of our DNA.  I hope that now you can get a new appreciation of why it’s so important to us.  As long as their are people in this world that still have yet to trust Christ as Savior, we will continue to fan the flame for international and home missions.  We encourage you to join us in this necessary work.  Perhaps, then, missions will become part of your DNA too!