East Asia Partnership: Showing What the Gospel Looks Like
Some 75 people from churches across the country recently gathered in Atlanta to further the work of the East Asia Partnership—a 10-year-old network of churches which seeks to spread the gospel in that area of the world. Mission to the World (MTW) sends out the 25 people currently serving under this partnership, and provides other support as well.
“We want to show what the gospel looks like in different parts of society in this culture—things like how to balance faith and work, how to raise children,” said the administrator of the East Asia Partnership. “Because the culture doesn’t have that right now.”
The 40 churches in the East Asia Partnership work together in many ways to accomplish their stated goal: planting churches to see cities transformed by the gospel. Currently, that happens in a number of ways, including facilitating theological training, offering church-planting training, distributing theological materials, and providing finances, prayer, and short-term missions teams.
“For the first time this year, there are a number of field staff dedicated to the East Asia Partnership,” said Paul Taylor, MTW’s international director for the Asia/Pacific region. “We hope this will lead to more ministry opportunities—like cultural exchanges between churches in the Partnership and the field, prayerwalking trips, and other professional exchanges. Above all, we want to identify and support church-planting efforts in any way we can.”
“It has been exciting to have these 25 people serving on the field,” said Taylor. “Many are two-year workers, so that means we need more long-term leadership who can serve as team leaders or coordinators for work in each city. We’re delighted that that longer-term field leadership is now coming together.”
To learn more about the East Asia Partnership, contact Paul Taylor at paul.taylor@mtw.org.
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Jerry Maguire
Concord MA
But I still don't know Asia very well and when you say East Asia, it would be helpful for many of us Westerners if you would tell us just what countries are a part.
Hope this helps,
Jerry
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Rev John C
SC
How can we avoid creating dependencies in these "partnerships" such as Glenn Schwartz warns of in articles like:
http://www.wmausa.org/page.aspx?id=83809
In our zeal, we may be making some fundamental mission mistakes. The same ones that were commonly made 100 years ago. Please respond.
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Rev John C
SC
Thanks for your concern regarding dependency. That is a constant concern for MTW as we do missions particularly in developing countries. After trying many things in many places I've come to the conclusion that there is no answer that works everywhere. Ministries do need to get started and that does normally require some sort of initial funding. In some places we do support national church planters. In some places we use a firm reducing scale of support. In some places we support national missionaries who will work in an area for maybe three to five years to get some churches going there, but then we will not support the more permanent pastors that come after them. But in other areas each of these strategies could be a mistake. Pray for wisdom as we seek to know what to do in each place.