from May 16, 2010 prayer email

ACMC is a 35 year old missions mobilization organization. We were an independent organization until three years ago when we came under Pioneers umbrella. This reflection is part 2 in an effort to better familiarize you with Pioneers.


Our mission statement reads “Pioneers mobilizes teams to glorify God among unreached peoples by initiating church planting movements in partnership with local churches.”

In my last reflections, I listed Pioneers eight core values. Today I will focus in on the first two: passion for God and unreached peoples.

PASSION FOR GOD. This should be the foundation for all Christian service. Sadly, I regularly meet good people who have a passion for ministry, but lack a passion for God. Unfortunately, this was my personal experience for many years. These individuals’ service is sincere, but self energized, hollow, and lacking power. It is only as the life of Jesus Christ is lived out through us that we are supernaturally empowered to truly serve His Church and the lost of this world. As consumed as the apostle Paul was with his missionary work, he had a greater passion. That passion was to know Christ. “I consider everything a lost compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ … I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death.” (Philippians 3:8, 10). I seek to keep this as the consuming passion of my life as well.

UNREACHED PEOPLES. Missiologists define an unreached people group as a people group that is less than 2% evangelical Christian (in many cases a fraction of 1%). Years of missionary work have repeatedly demonstrated this to be a threshold that must be broken through before the Church of Jesus Christ within that people group has the capacity to complete the job of evangelizing the rest of the group without dependence on outside missionary involvement. This is the work of frontier missions. The apostle Paul was deeply committed to missionary work among unreached peoples. “It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation.” (Romans 20:15). 97% of the world’s unreached people groups lie within a geographic area called the 10-40 window (north Africa, Middle East, central / south / east Asia). Joshua project has identified 639 unreached people groups of 100,000 plus people. From a strategic vantage point, these people groups should be the top priority of our missionary efforts today.

from May 3, 2010 prayer email

Although ACMC is a 35 year old missions mobilization organization, we were an independent organization until three years ago when we came under Pioneers umbrella. I intend to devote several of my upcoming twice-a-month updates to helping you get more familiar with Pioneers.


Our mission statement reads “Pioneers mobilizes teams to glorify God among unreached peoples by initiating church planting movements in partnership with local churches.” I resonate with every word of Pioneers’ mission statement.

Pioneers has eight core values that direct much of the organization’s day-to-day behavior and decision making.
1. passion for God
2. unreached peoples
3. church planting movements
4. ethos of grace
5. the local church
6. team centered
7. innovation and flexibility
8. participatory servant leadership

As I have looked at the core values of different churches and organizations, I have encountered two kinds of core values (aspirational values and actual values). All eight of Pioneers core values are actual. And you may notice that four of our eight core values overlap with key phrases in our mission statement – teams, unreached peoples, church planting movements, local church.

The mission statement, core values, and the quality of the U.S. leadership of Pioneers are the things that drew me to the organization when I came on board three years ago. And they are what keep me with Pioneers today.

Pioneers recently celebrated its 30th anniversary. We work exclusively among unreached peoples (less than 2% evangelical Christian) in six regions of the world (East Asia, Eurasia & Americas, Mid Asia, North Africa & Middle East, Southeast Asia & Pacific, and Sub-Saharan Africa). We have 1958 workers on 191 church planting teams in 84 countries serving 130 people groups in 65 languages. Our U.S. headquarters is in Orlando, FL, with 62% of our world-wide workers coming from the U.S. There are 7 other mobilization bases around the globe (Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ghana, Great Britain, New Zealand, and Singapore).