Over 40 years ago World Impact recognized its call to urban missions—to make disciples in the city who would go on to plant churches and launch indigenous movements among the poor. It has been a long and fascinating journey, with many “dangers, toils, and snares” as the beloved hymn suggests. One constant through it all has been our ongoing friendship with mission-minded churches who’ve stood with us. These churches have been with us from the start. Since our recent global expansion with TUMI, they are now expanding their roles to take an active part in our mission, including everything from underwriting translation expenses to starting TUMI sites in far away places.

In 2014 we started an initiative called the TUMI Advancement Council--a group of churches, mission leaders, lead pastors, and donors who have banded together to find ways to support the training of leaders among the urban poor worldwide. What started as a humble idea has quickly grown into an amazing mission phenomenon! In our recent meeting, 45 mission leaders and pastors gathered to share testimony on how they are expanding our influence worldwide, and brainstormed options in how to meet our Board-directed expansion plan for the next seven years. This handful of churches and ministries have led to the formation of TUMI sites in eight nations, and have begun to fund translations of our resources for leadership development. They are feverishly seeking to help us translate our resources into multiple languages!

If you are interested in finding out more about what it would take to facilitate this kind of meeting of churches, mission leaders, pastors and donors in your area, please contact Rev. Al Ewert, our Senior Leader, Partership Development for TUMI.