What is Mission Anabaino?
For an answer, watch this (beautiful!) 5-minute film: Powerfully Relying on God: Introducing Mission Anabaino.
Or read this profile of Mission Anabaino in a recent issue of Multiply, the Presbyterian Church in America's newsletter.
Or simply read on, below!
Our Mission:
As far back as the Acts of the Apostles, history has shown that the best way to reach new generations, new residents, and new people groups for the Gospel of Jesus Christ is quite simply to get people to the person of Christ himself! At Mission Anabaino, we believe that during Christ’s ascension ministry today, Christ has an address at every place where there is an apostolic, Christ-centered church. T. F. Torrance in Royal Priesthood explained it like this:
The Spirit operates by creating out of the word a body, which St. Paul calls the Body of Christ…. As such this body becomes matched to Christ as His vis-à-vis in history and as the instrument of His saving purpose in the Gospel. It is the sphere where through the presence of the Spirit the salvation-events of the birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension are operative here and now in history, the sphere where within the old creation the new creation has broken in with power.
Mission Anabaino, anchored by Christ Presbyterian Church, Southern Connecticut (CPC) and its growing number of affiliate churches and partners, is gathering, energizing, deploying, and focusing our resources into a collaborative effort to plant churches in locations where Christ’s five mark presence is not geographically or socio-culturally accessible.
More specifically:
Mission Anabaino (MA) is mission “I am ascending” (Grk.“anabaino” c.f. John 20:17). It seeks to fulfill the “greater things” of Christ’s great expectations regarding his ascension ministry today (John 14:12) through both Church planting and a collaborative movement in missional ecclesiology.
We Are a Church Planting Network:
As a community of church planters, we are committed to strategically targeting sites on the “frontier” needing church planting movements informed by a Total Christ, or Five Mark, understanding of the church. Immediately, MA is committed to planting 10 churches in Southern Connecticut and 10 global churches (nationally/internationally) in 10 years (by 2023; cf. James 4:15). MA is actively involved with defining and executing church planting strategy; encouraging, coaching and supporting planters; recruiting, assessing, and developing interns; fostering a church planting culture; and cultivating and allocating financial and other resources toward church planting. For more information about church planting with MA click here.
We Are a Collaborative in Mission Ecclesiology:
As a collaborative enterprise, MA extends beyond any local church or particular denomination in the formation of an ecumenical collaborative in missional ecclesiology. MA hosts monthly local and global collaboratives and an annual global collaborative conference geared to a Total Christ vision, while building collegial relationships among church planters with outside entities, networks, and partners. For more information about our Collaborations click here.
We Are a Collaborative of Anchor Churches for Church Planting:
MA is administratively hosted by Christ Presbyterian Church, New Haven, but we operate as a collaboration of like-minded anchor churches committed to a Total Christ, Five Mark Vision for church renewal and planting. Together, anchor churches help fund and govern MA's vision and execution. As a multi-congregational church planting network and theological collaborative, local-facing parish churches are empowered to be directly involved in the sorts of global-facing missional ventures that are too often reserved for much larger churches. Each member anchor church participates in the funding, theological collaboration, and development of a church planting and church renewal strategy; together with jointly approving projects and church planters. To put it simply, MA's opportunity is as big as our growing anchor church movement. For more information about becoming a full partner anchor church in MA click here.
Funding:
MA began with the seed gift of a $3.5 million venture capital fund by anchor church, Christ Presbyterian Church, New Haven. This original seed gift is combined with the financial backing of other anchor churches and individuals making donations to MA generally and/or designations to local church plants affiliated with MA. We are currently seeking other anchor churches with a shared theological vision and strategy who can join CPC in planting churches that are local to each anchor church as well as around the globe.
These Are Exciting Times!
Whether you choose to participate in MA with prayer and financial support, recommend a site for church planting, help gather or join a church planting launch team, become a Mission Anabaino Anchor Church, or become a Mission Anabaino church planter, we welcome your participation with us in helping to plant the mediatorial presence of Christ throughout the world! Join us!
Several short films capturing the work of Mission Anabaino may be found here.
A short article about us in the Presbyterian Church in America's byFaith magazine may be found here.
The Fall 2019 Issue of Multiply, the Presbyterian Church in America's Mission to North America newsletter, features Mission Anabaino, and may be found here.