Download the "Why AFM" brochure here, or read the text below:

AFM’s Vision is to do Frontier Missions Anglicanly, planting biblically-based, multiplying, indigenous churches and dioceses where the church is not yet established, among the 3 billion people and 7,000 unreached people groups still waiting to hear the gospel for the very first time. Partnering with members of the worldwide Anglican Communion and other Christians who live near or among unreached peoples, AFM equips and sends short- and long-term missionaries who harness the spiritually formational power, practices, and rhythms of the sacraments, liturgy, and church tradition to disciple believers from Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, animistic, and secular backgrounds. We serve Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Africa.

Having a sending agency is valuable. Spreading the gospel among unreached people groups in frontier mission fields is a grand and glorious calling, full of many hardships but much joy. Initial and ongoing training, an effective entry platform, and a well-developed strategy to reach people are a few of the future missionary’s essential concerns. Safety and security, raising kids on the mission field, and unforeseen emotional responses to the stress of living in a new culture are additional factors every future missionary needs to prepare for. The father of the modern missionary movement, William Carey, once said, “I’ll go down into the pit if you’ll hold the ropes.”

The role of Anglican Frontier Missions (AFM) is to “hold the ropes” for our missionaries, that they may be equipped and supported to thrive as they serve in areas of deep spiritual darkness. We “hold the ropes” by providing a host of essential support systems and services.

1. Training
AFM’s staff customizes pre-field training to each missionary’s specific needs and goals. Our training team has a combined 50 years of experience in church planting among frontier unreached people groups and works together to welcome, prepare, and equip missionaries to flourish in their country of service. Training topics include language and culture acquisition, safety and security, ministry development, missiological and theological formation, professional development, sender relationships with one’s home church, family and team relationship building, spiritual formation, and overall integration with staff. While the bulk of training occurs before missionaries launch to their country of service, AFM’s training continues throughout missionaries’ tenure with AFM. We provide several critical areas of training: Entry Strategy & Cultural/Linguistic Acquisition, Security and Safety, Fundraising, Forming a Home Church Support Team, and Anglican Theology and Missiology.

2. Member Care
One of our core values is taking care of our missionaries’ mental, familial, and spiritual health. We are blessed with exceptionally experienced, qualified, and fun member care coordinators. During the pre-field stage, AFM missionaries spend five days with our member care coordinators. They get to know each other as they work through a debriefing intensive that allows them to reflect upon how God has been at work in their lives to that point. Once missionaries arrive on the field, our member care coordinators strengthen this relationship through monthly video conferences, ensuring that missionaries’ spiritual, emotional, and familial needs are being met.

3. Financial Services
AFM has a financial system in place that receives and processes donations and then disburses funds as needed to support the missionary’s ministry. Our financial system ensures timely reporting and IRS recordkeeping compliance—both are intended to make financial decision-making on the field simple and worry-free. We also encourage each missionary to save for retirement, and we can facilitate regular deposits into IRAs. AFM’s assessment on each gift received is 12.5%, which is less than most mission agencies. This assessment on gifts to missionaries, in conjunction with fundraising done by the Executive Director, is used to cover the cost of the services that we provide.

4. Prayer
Prayer is the undergirding of AFM’s entire ministry. We send out monthly prayer bulletins to all our supporters and partners. We also gather weekly to pray for specific needs shared by our missionaries. When missionaries serve through AFM, they can be assured that we will regularly cover them in prayer and that their urgent prayer needs will be promptly brought before the throne of grace.

If you’re reading this brochure, you’re clearly gripped with Jesus’ Great Commission (Mt. 28:18–20). Praise the Lord! If you feel called to serve God as a missionary, we suggest you ask yourself:

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1. Who will equip me/ us professionally, culturally, linguistically, emotionally, and (especially) spiritually to go to the mission field?

2. Who can connect my ministry to the larger church in America and the Anglican Communion throughout the world?

3. Who will add credibility to my future ministry as I visit churches and individuals, asking them for financial support?

4. Who will provide legal, logistical, financial, and member care support?

AFM has been sending short- and long-term missionaries to frontier fields for over 25 years. Our heart is to serve God through serving Christ-followers like you who are called into frontier missions. So why AFM? Because holding the ropes is what we do.

I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.” Rev. 7:9–10