23 Jan Two Large Mission Organizations to Merge

On October 1, 2011, the memberships of CrossGlobal Link (formerly IFMA) and The Mission Exchange (formerly EFMA) agreed to merge. The new group will represent 35,000 evangelical missionaries from over 190 agencies and churches.

This historic decision took place on the heels of the North American Mission Leaders Conference. Present during the conference were Jeff Bleijerveld, our Global Ministries director, and Dave Datema, a member of the Global Ministries Leadership Team who is director of Frontier Missionary Fellowship at the US Center for World Mission.

The organization’s new name will be announced in early 2012 at a special Bi-Centennial Celebration in Salem, Mass. It was there, 200 years ago, that the first North American missionaries were commissioned for overseas service by an organized mission society.

The decision to form one new mission entity was not motivated by a desire to preserve “what is” but rather to better position them to pursue “what could be.” Five desired outcomes for the new organization were stated:

1. Provide a powerful model of a unified, broadly based, evangelical, forward-thinking national mission movement for the rest of the world.
2. Leverage the combined strengths of these two organizations to envision new ways to increase the effectiveness of the Great Commission community in North America.
3. Provide a single point of entry for leaders from the majority world/global south to engage with missin-focused evangelicals in North America.
4. Harness the collective wisdom and expertise of the most inclusive (church, business, education, mission) network of North American Great Commission oriented evangelicals.
5. Attract growing numbers of next-generation mission leaders as well as innovative pioneers who operate on the periphery of the traditional mission enterprise.