About

Our mandate is King Jesus’ promise to renew humans through disciple-making.

Our mission is to help people practice a disciple-making lifestyle that multiplies.

Our means vary by context but are always relational and Jesus-centered.

Our why is rooted in a promise. King Jesus promised to exert His authority to renew humanity through disciple-making.

Despite secular promises of progress, planet earth and all humanity on it is profoundly broken. Wars rage, suffering persists, depression rises, and injustice reigns at every level of human interaction. Deep within every human heart— religious or otherwise—is a brokenness that keeps this status quo from changing (Rom 6:23). It is a brokenness that Jesus promises to be renewing, along with the rest of His created order (Rev 21:5-6) because He has become King of all creation through His defeat of death and victory of resurrection (Col 1:15-20).

The good news Jesus announced is that every human heart can be profoundly and beautifully renewed by personally trusting King Jesus and learning to obediently live this renewed life under His rule (Mk 1:15). This kind of living is called being a disciple of Jesus.

But 3 billion humans living today have little to no access to the Good News about this renewal. Billions more have a limited understanding experiencing limited renewal as a result. That’s why Jesus promises every disciple will be a witness of how profoundly beautiful renewal in human beings is yet possible (Jn 13:35) by inviting others to trust the King and learn to live life under His rule along with us.

This kind of lifestyle is called disciple-making. When the Holy Spirit moves on and through everyday people living this way, renewal happens in them and the places they live world-wide (Acts 2:42-47), birthing new expressions of church. This kind of renewal is called a Disciple-making Movement.

Why disciple-making? Because King Jesus promised profoundly beautiful world-wide renewal through it.

Our work is equally rooted in King Jesus’ promise to renew humans through disciple-making. Because of this promise, our disciple-making efforts embody a distinctly relational, Jesus-centered shape.

In over 110 countries, World Partners is helping all kinds of everyday people learn to make relational, Jesus-centered disciples to the fourth generation in their villages, neighborhoods, schools and workplaces. Disciple-making movements are locally sustainable, naturally reproducing and create profoundly beautiful renewal in people and the places they live.

World Partners connects North American churches and our partners in multi-national networks together to make disciples of all nations. Our partners may be American or citizens of any country worldwide. Our aim is to send, equip, network, and multiply disciple-makers to see disciple-making movements launched around the globe. Our work is guided by the three basic elements needed for a relational, Jesus-centered disciple-making movement.

A message.
This message is the Gospel of the Kingdom as Jesus preached it. It’s a message to trust Christ Jesus as the saving, sovereign King and learn to live a renewed, truly human life, under His rule by the Holy Spirit as disciples.

People renewed by this message.
If the message does not result in following Jesus as a disciple and experiencing profoundly beautiful change through it by the Holy Spirit, then it may not be Jesus’ message.

Relationships with people who don’t know the message.
This message spreads relationally. Three billion people have yet to hear this message from a renewed person.

The simplicity of these three basic elements cuts against our modern western instinct for systems and efficiency.

In our work we’ve learned the following to be true about disciple-making movements (DMMs):

1. Programs do not have the power to result in DMMs.
   Programs can be helpful, but they can also become the point and the thing we seek to multiply.
   
   
2. The message matters more than the method in DMMs.
   The power is in the message. The message is Jesus-centered while methods are human-centered.
   
   
3. Leaders are those who personally make and multiply disciples in DMMs.
   One cannot be a leader without also being a current practitioner of a disciple-making lifestyle.

When two late nineteenth century denominational mission groups merged in 1969 to become the Missionary Church, they brought together nearly two hundred missionaries serving in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, India, Brazil, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, and Cyprus. Some of them also ministered in the then Hawaiian Mission District and in six other countries with cooperating missionary societies.

By 1997, World Partners was referred to as the global mission arm of the Missionary Church, Inc. Since that time World Partners has extended its Gospel reach into over 110 countries world-wide with a growing emphasis of multiplying disciple-making movements resulting in renewal of human beings in the image of God through Christ the King.