Church Planting

Church Planting and Growth Movement through Native Missionaries and Local Churches
Church planting and growth is the third pillar of the AKIM mission after prayer and
leadership development. We pray and develop believers as leaders for the purpose of building
up the body of Christ, the church (Ephesians 4:11-12). Remember that as the Body of Christ, the
Church shares in the same nature, mission and destiny with Christ. In fact we could not attempt
to separate Christ from his Body that is the Church. For in the same way it is an unhealthy task
to separate a physical head from its trunk one shall not attempt to define Christ apart from his
Body. That is the main teaching of the epistle of Paul to the Ephesians (Ephesians 1:22-23;
2:20-22; 3:10-11,20-21; 4:11-16; 5:23-32).
Since ministering to the Church means ministering to Christ himself, we as a mission take
the ministry to the Church, the Body of Christ very seriously. We are committed to the building
up of the Body of Christ, to its planting into new territories among new peoples and tribes and
nations. And we are committed to its growth, expansion and development in all human
communities around the world in obedience to the great commission of our Lord and Savior
Christ Jesus to go in the nations to preach the Gospel and make disciples of all the nations
(Mark 16:15; Matthew 28:18-20).
But the great commission for AKIM is not just about preaching the Gospel in a random
way as we move around, but it is foremost connected to the building up of the Church. We
preach the Gospel in order that healthy local and/or native churches can come up as a result. In
fact we do not go anywhere if we cannot do it through some local or native churches or native
missionaries with whom we want to work in partnership to plant, nurture and grow healthy
local churches under the leadership of these native missionaries.
We can support these native missionaries or native churches with various resources such
as training, short term mission trips, logistics and financial resources, but one thing we will
never do and refuse to do is to replace them with missionaries sent from western countries. We
consider these native missionaries as our partners in the mission, preaching the Gospel
together and planting churches together, nurturing them together and seeing them grow
together as commissionaires with Christ Jesus, the Master of the Harvest and the Giver of the
Great Commission.