Mission Global

PAOC INTERNATIONAL MISSIONS HAS CHANGED ITS NAME: Mission Global!

MURRAY CORNELIUS

On April 21, 2022, the PAOC General Conference voted, and we want to share the news that we are now Mission Global!

You are a part of an extraordinary story of Canadian Pentecostals choosing to participate in God’s mission to all of humanity. For 100 years, partners like you in churches, colleges, and ministries across the country have mobilized this collective movement to make disciples.

In that century of mission together, we have seen unprecedented changes. As a Fellowship, we have responded together with innovation and a spirit of generosity. Mission Global is the next step in that journey. It reflects where we have come from and the incredible future that the Holy Spirit is calling us to.

Reimagining Our Shared Future – We Are Mission Global

Beyond a simple name change, Mission Global represents how we bring reconciliation through Jesus to a world that is often broken and fragmented.

Our new logo visualizes this reality through the use of a circle in motion, moving from brokenness toward completeness. By working in the margins, the white spaces show a foundation of growth and the increasing possibilities and impacts of holistic change.

OUR MISSION STATEMENT

Our name is changing, but our values have not. Our mission is to glorify God by making disciples across cultural boundaries by proclaiming and practising the gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Flowing from this statement, as Mission Global, these are our commitments to you.

PROMISE STATEMENTS

We promise to passionately pursue every opportunity and use every means possible to give those with little or no access to the gospel an opportunity to hear the message of hope that is Jesus, a message that offers them reconciliation with their Creator.

We promise to sensitively seek Christ-centred holistic, sustainable solutions to injustice and poverty and to help build communities of Jesus followers that reconcile the vulnerable and the marginalized with their God, their communities, and their fellow humankind.

IMPACT STATEMENT

When we fulfil these promises, our collective impact will be the establishment of self-sustaining, multiplying church movements and ministries that reflect the compassionate heart of Jesus for their communities, nations, and the world.

REIMAGINING MISSION TOGETHER

Changing a brand is difficult work and will have real impact across the Fellowship. So what is the rationale for changing it now?

At the end of 2018, we began a “reimagining” process to guide our future together. As a part of that process, we conducted focus groups with pastors and other groups across Canada. You overwhelmingly told us three things: to “make it simple,” to “go big,” and to “do it together.”

“GO BIG” – OUR STRATEGIC FOCUS

Your feedback encouraged us to increase our scope while also concentrating our strategic focus on two categories of people:

The Least Reached – people with little or no access to the gospel.
The Socio-economically Vulnerable – people with little or no access to the necessities of life: food, clean water, education, a sustainable livelihood, and safety.

In our world today, the 3.1 billion people without a gospel witness and the three billion people who live on less than $3 per day often overlap, forming our strategic centre. This is where we believe that we can be the most effective together.

You also identified three urgent reasons for us to rebrand ourselves.

“MAKE IT SIMPLE”

Complexity

As we have grown together, PAOC International Missions has served our Fellowship by sending global workers to reach, plant, equip, and care. This has led us to establish three charities (ERDO, RAN and VOH Africa)¹, to adopt Mission Link from our German Branch, and to establish RPEC International as our U.S. charity. We have also established programs with their own unique brands to engage churches, partners, and prospective global workers.

All of these endeavours have served to increase our collective capacity for mission. But they have also created structural complexity and, at times, confusion for our partners, pastors, and churches. Our desire is to increase our partnership with you by making every experience you have with us easier and less confusing. As a result, the Mission Global brand allows us to realign ourselves and simplify our structures.

Calling the NextGen

We also need to adjust to the changing needs of the next generation so that we can empower their call to mission without compromising our collective vision. This means we need to represent our work in an aligned and attractional way so that our entire multi-generational Fellowship can offer themselves to give, go, and serve. Mission Global aligns with Mission Canada and reinvents our brand with a “future forward” name that is more appealing to a younger demographic.

“DO IT TOGETHER”

Collaboration

The charitable sector in Canada has become increasingly competitive. Every pastor in the Fellowship receives multiple opportunities from an increasing number of charities. The same goes for our individual and organizational partners. In contrast to this competition, the PAOC exists to foster collaboration and to provide a collective expression of a single integrated mission. Mission Global allows us to present the work you are mobilizing in an integrated way that reflects the deep collaboration between donors, churches, our charities, PAOC global workers, and partners overseas. The mission of God is diverse and expansive in scope, and it requires collaborative partnerships.

As we look ahead to the future, we are excited to begin this season with a new name—Mission Global.

Mission Global aligns with the naming convention of Mission Canada, thereby reinforcing the PAOC’s focus of our mission, both in Canada and around the world.

Mission Global is focused on communicating an integrated mission, including the work of RAN in places where the gospel is restricted, ERDO in global humanitarian work, and Villages of Hope in holistic care to the vulnerable children of Africa.

Although our mission has not changed, our new name reinforces our sharpened strategic focus and increased alignment with our charitable entities. We pray for God’s continued wisdom and guidance in the season ahead.

Together We Can!

On mission,
Murray Cornelius
Mission Global Executive Director

This article appeared in the July/August/September 2022 issue of testimony/Enrich, a quarterly publication of The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada. © 2022 The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada. Photo by Ben White on Unsplash.