CrossWorld

CrossWorld is an international evangelical Christian outreach organization, with over 400 member missionaries organized into over 80 teams in 25 regions around the world.

Purpose

CrossWorld serves the church by mobilizing teams to make disciples and train leaders, which will result in movements of reproducing churches among unreached people groups. [1]

Short Term Missions Trips

CrossWorld has many Short Term trips to Africa, Asia, South America, Central America and Europe. Academic credit is available in cooperation with major Christian colleges and universities.

History

CrossWorld began as the Unevangelized Fields Mission in 1931, when 36 missionaries already serving in Brazil and the Congo formed a new agency centered in London, UK. From the beginning, the organization was characterized by prayer, sacrifice, and a commitment to reach the unreached.

The reasoning for their original name went as follows: Unevangelized because of the many unreached regions of the world with people groups who had never heard the name of Jesus, which UFM sought to reach; Fields because of a commitment to having missionaries on the field (geographical region) organizing themselves and setting their direction for ministry without top-down bureaucracy; Mission because of its goal to help fulfill what Jesus left as His Great Commission.

The North American office was located in Toronto until 1941, when it moved to Philadelphia and then to Bala Cynwyd (a suburb of Philadelphia) in 1954. The mission owes much to its founders Edwin and Lilian Pudney, who led UFM until their retirement in 1961. Much of the growth of UFM took place under the administration of Alfred Larson, who served as General Director from 1966 to 1991). Through the years, many new fields were opened and smaller missions merged with UFM (World Christian Crusade – 1949; Alpine Mission to France – 1962; Egypt General Mission – 1964; Mexican Indian Mission – 1971; International Asian Mission – 1985; Berean Mission – 2000).

Many inspirational stories of God's power highlight the 75-year history of UFM/CrossWorld. They include the turning of the Brazil Wai Wai people group to Christ, as told in Christ’s Witchdoctor and Christ’s Jungle and the mass turning to Christ of the Dani people group of Papua, Indonesia in the 1960s. CrossWorlders have translated the entire Bible into the Wai Wai and Dani languages.

Crisis engulfed UFM in 1935 with the killing of the Three Freds (three missionaries named Fred), who sought to reach the feared Kayapo of Brazil’s Amazon. Today, however, there is a Kayapo New Testament and a church in most of their villages. Nineteen UFMers were killed in the Congo in 1964; yet today, 1300 churches are a testimony to God’s grace in a troubled country.

Today, missionaries from historic fields like Brazil and Haiti are transitioning to more unreached areas. In recent years, CrossWorld has moving into the Muslim-dominated world in Indonesia, the Balkans, several areas in Central Asia. CrossWorld also has a strong presence in Europe, focusing on people who are unreached with the Gospel. [2]

External links

• Official website