About

WHO WE ARE

EECMY-IMS is an Ethiopian global mission organization sending workers from Ethiopia to other countries. It was established in 2008 (1999 E.C) by the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus and has so far sent around 25 missionaries, including tentmakers, to countries around the world. Today, some 16 workers serve God in several African countries. Another 8 people are ready to be deployed in 2023.

IMS is now part of the great movement of missionaries from the Global South, making Christ known among people groups of the world. The reason for this is:

  • The population of the world today is 8 billion.
  • There are 16,542 people groups in the world. Of these, 2.5 billion people are still cut off from the gospel.
  • 4,400 of these people groups are in the 10/40 window.

(The 10/40 Window is the rectangular area of North Africa, the Middle East and Asia, approximately between 10 degrees north and 40 degrees north latitude).

  • 86% of all Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus will never meet a Christ follower during their lifetime.
  • In 1900 there were 9 million Christians in Africa. Today there are 630 million.
  • Today, 80% of Christians live in the global south, but only 20% of missionaries are sent.
  • EECMY-IMS is focusing on equipping and sending missionaries to unreached people groups in the 10/40 window.

EECMY-IMS Background

At the turn of the 19th century, Ethiopian Christians began proclaiming the Gospel with the help of the Lutheran missions in the country. From these joint efforts the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY) was instituted as a national church in 1959 with 20,000 communicant members.

Mekane Yesus

Mekane Yesus means the “Place (or home) of Jesus.”

Today Mekane Yesus members number 11,056 466 in 10,636 congregations. EECMY is a Church that was born and has grown this far as an outcome of Christ’s Great Commission and God’s missionary action. Ethiopia has been reached by the ceaseless sacrificial commitment of western missionaries and mission agencies as well as Ethiopian evangelists and church leaders.

What we believe

The church professes that the holy scriptures of the Old and the New Testaments are the holy Word of God and the only guiding source and infallible doctrine and method of all the church’s principles and practices. The EECMY believes that all powers and duties exercised by the church are committed to her for the furtherance of the gospel through the word and the sacraments.

A church called by God

The EECMY believes from the Word of God that she, too, has been called by the triune God to proclaim Christ to his people in diverse social and cultural contexts and geographical settings, not just in Ethiopia, but around Africa and the whole world. She therefore lives and acts to fulfill the Great Commission. Mekane Yesus, with her holistic approach of “Serving the whole person” has therefore ventured into frontiers which cover north and south, east and west inside and outside of Ethiopia to reach communities and individuals by providing services such as improved health care, clean water sources, training in reading and writing to tackle illiteracy, activities protecting the environment, encouraging economics and more. These services are all in addition to and furthering the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in vernacular languages of indigenous communities.

From mission field to mission force

EECMY has been a mission field itself for many decades. Now the long-awaited time for which we have been longing has come! Henceforth we are mature enough as a Church to be a mission force for global mission, all for God’s greater glory, to reach the Unreached People Groups and to provide a benchmark for the global mission growth.

Mekane Yesus’ 17th General Assembly in January 2008, in the same month when that Church itself had been established (January 1959),  passed a resolution to implement our world outreach vision and objectives and establish the International Mission Society (IMS). EECMY, which had been a mission field itself would now be forevermore a mission force for global mission. From that time on, EECMY has envisioned itself to be a “Missional Church”and has striven to become a mission force by starting international mission initiatives.

Realizing that being missional means much more than just proclaiming about missions or organizing an international mission society, Mekane Yesus, through our International Mission Society, began calling, training, equipping and sending missionaries from Mekane Yesus to countries and continents beyond our border. Having ourselves benefited from missionaries sent to us, we are now a sending Church. Ever since its establishment, IMS has accomplished extensive work to help all Mekane Yesus congregations to become deeply rooted in Christ’s call to be missionally minded as missional communities always engaged in reaching out and organizing new missionary communities and congregations.

MY-IMS Vision

Vision:

To see that the world that knows Jesus, through ignited and inspired disciples and to see a global mission movement in every unreached people group.

Mission:

To do so, IMS has advanced the following missional goals:

  • To accomplish the call of the Church, IMS mobilizes her whole potential to reach the global call and play a catalytic role to engage EECMY with her divine call and destiny, which is to impact the globe with God’s mission.
  • Mobilizing, recruiting, deploying, and providing care for missionaries, always partnering with the indigenous mission organizations which have a major role.
  • Engaging the whole Mekane Yesus structure and system for mission, including community mobilization for mission, league mobilization, resource mobilization, and diaspora for mobilization as mission forces in order to produce changes of attitude and activity.
  • Mobilize congregations to be missionally active as members of the body of Christ in sending missionaries.
  • Partnering and working mutually with like–minded churches, congregations, and mission organizations around the world.

 

MY-IMS is committed to:

  • Imparting a mission vision throughout every level of the EECMY.
  • Proclaiming the love of Christ which renews people and places.
  • Raising pioneer leaders who forge new paths of transformation.
  • Sending missionaries to the unreached world.
  • Seeing people on the margins flourish.
  • Demonstrate the freedom and healing of creation.
  • Planting missional minded, biblically faithful, and culturally relevant indigenous churches.

 

Distinctive of MY-IMS 

  • Bible Based: Our understanding and practice of mission is grounded in God’s word, the Bible.
  • Gospel priority:In all our ministries, we strive to see people turn to Christ and become mature disciples of Him.
  • Long-term focus: Serving long-term in mission requires in-depth training, so we value Bible-based theological education, followed by specialized mission preparation. We value long-term mission in partnership with and under the authority of EECMY.
  • Planting churches and equipping native church leaders for new planted churches: The conversion of new believers creates great needs in discipleship, Bible training and leadership development to build the local Church on Lutheran Teaching.

INVITATION TO…….

In the past years MY-IMS has been partnering with different organizations around the globe which have a similar vision for mission in order for us to achieve our goals. For and to these partners we give our heartful thanks and prayers to God.

We continue to seek and to extend our hands to new partners and to cooperate mutually with all like-minded missional Churches and mission organizations with the intention of fulfilling the Great Commission, with a special focus on reaching out together to the unreached people groups and unreached people everywhere in the world.

Invitation to join us in our plans for a Mission Center establishment

The project of establishing MY-IMS Mission Center is a project to be owned by the EECMY and run by MY-IMS on regular basis after the site construction work is completed by IMS, Church Units and partners’ support.

The Church has already started sending missionaries to various African countries and beyond, through MY-IMS. In general, the project is intended to serve multi-faceted purposes that would tackle, among others, lack of Missionaries’ Training Center and shortage of accommodation for MY-IMS missionaries upon returning to their country for various reasons, for several weeks or months.

In order to have a competent cross-cultural and practical mission works training center for Mekane Yesus missionaries; for national and foreign field levels use, and to meet the ever increasing need for missionaries around the globe, the center may also generate reasonable revenue from rendering its services to local evangelism programs, which in turn will help to fulfill the purpose of augmenting income and sustaining financial capacity of the MY-IMS that it would intensify its career effectively. To carry out the Great Commission, EECMY-IMS has planned to establish a Mission Center through resource mobilization from her partners, donors, other likeminded pioneer mission societies, congregations, districts, groups para-church organizations and individuals committed for the mission of God, and more fully with her own Church members and staff throughout the Church structure.

So, we invite, and call all interested partners to join with us in a united effort to disseminate the Good News through providing financial support and training. Therefore, we call upon individual Christians, congregations, churches, and mission institutions to visit us, learn about us,   enter into mutual mission work together, and also support us as you are able, working together for the Kingdom expansion to every corner of the world.

Invitation to support IMS in the global mission movement:

Your support can be done through many ways:

  • Become a registered member of IMS and support us on a regular basis through becoming an individual member, trustee member and/or institutional member register here.
  • Support a missionary/missionaries financially.
  • Support a country or a people group monthly.
  • Support a student studying in the Far East.
  • Support in fundraising on the annual MY-IMS mission day, in the second week of January.
  • Contribute towards Mission training center project for a long-term mission sustainability.
  • Request to partner for MY-IMS in local and global missions.
  • Continuous prayer that God may open closed doors for mission in so-called creative access nations.

    Invitation to pray with us:

    • Pray for IMS missionaries on the mission field, for protection, well-being, and fruitfulness.
    • Pray for a country or people group on a regular basis.
    • Pray that God would call and raise up prospective candidates.
    • Pray that the EECMY members and other Ethiopian evangelical churches would be saturated with God’s love for the lost and be united in fulfilling the Great Commission
    • Pray for the IMS board and staff, for wisdom to serve in this mission with commitment.

OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FOR IMS

Opportunities and favorable conditions for the Mission Society

“…Who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. …” Titus 2፡14b.

  • The church has acquired dedicated missionaries in both quality and quantity when we call for them.
  • Our understanding of the concept of mission and the Great Commission has increased day in and day out.
  • Participation in our “Mission Day “celebration has continued as a custom both locally and abroad.
  • Inquiries for missionaries from different countries has increased steadily over time.
  • Our EECMY congregations have continued to provide unreserved support to the mission’s vision of the Church without becoming entangled in exhausting sector activities.
  • Our deployed missionaries have become fruitful in their mission fields which inspires both greater support and an increased supply of potential missionaries for us to equip and send in future missions.

 

Two major resources:

  1. Missionary recruitment is by the recommendation of church units, tarting starting from congregations.
  2. All financial resources are raised from the congregations, the IMS members and trustee members.

By the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, our steady evangelism efforts to reach fellow Ethiopians–including unreached people groups, traditional nature worshippers, Muslims and others within Ethiopia– has resulted in a steady, rapid growth in EECMY itself, which has spurred on our International Missions. In 2021 the number of EECMY members was 10,825,875 and the most recent statistical data of church membership (August 2022) is 11,056,466 (eleven million and fifty-six thousand), a 2.13% growth in a matter of months. This growth is also in other areas including ministers and congregations.

Some factors for the growth of EECMY are as follows:

  1. The first is the active experience of charismatic gifts and the reviving power of Holy Spirit that resulted in evangelistic success.
  2. A lay evangelism movement that expresses itself in the form of strong personal volunteerism and evangelism. The active lay ministry is the mark of the EECMY members both past and present. According to the research conducted in 70s, 80 percent of the church members say that they came to receive Jesus Christ after being witnessed to by other church members, be it friends or family members. This means that our entire church is a missionary church, and every member is personally testifying the good news. The recent statistical report also shows that the great majority of the church’s service is run by lay ministers, including lay leaders and lay ministers called evangelists by local congregations.
  3. The church’s credibility and reputation for holistic service prioritizes meeting the real physical needs of the community first, ahead of proclaiming the Gospel and evangelizing which always follows.
  4. The use of vernacular/indigenous languages for Bible translation and instruction is also very important factor.
  5. Graduates from our one-year Bible schools are given a responsibility to establish churches and care for the spiritual wellbeing of the newly established churches.
  6. The availability of the clear structure that has been there since the establishment of the Church is another reason. The EECMY structure as well as its congregations’ organizational structures secures efficiency in the flow of information and checks power abuse by decentralizing power and involving the people significantly. So also, the missionary effort centers in the individual Christian witnesses of every member, depending on how all the believers are thinking about their own missionary obligation and action.
  7. All the above factors contribute together to the mission of the church both as the moral authority to proclaim the reconciling Gospel of Jesus Christ to Ethiopian people, and to consolidate the Spiritual Gifts, financial giving, and other resources of the Church members for effective use in God’s mission.
  8. Mission is intentionally and constantly focused on prayer. If a report is heard from one mission field, or prayer is going to be offered for missionaries that are serving in different parts of the world, the entire church body prays and celebrates. This has the important effect of keeping the fire of mission burning hot and bright among the mission friends, and fans the eagerness of the leaders to pass on the call and excitement for mission to the next generation.
  9. Our focus on unreached people groups and people contributes greatly to evangelization of those who still need to meet and come to know Christ. Inspired volunteers, university and high school students among us are ready to preach and get involved by serving in mission among the unreached people during the summertime when their institutions are closed. They stay in the community to disseminate the good News and plant new outreach points. They sacrifice their breakfast and collect money in order to send a missionary to plant a church and then to nurture the new believers who are welcomed to Christ.

 

All these factors contribute to the mission’s efforts and the fruit that is accomplished by God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit working in and through our Church and all its members, for the greater glory of God as we practice mission outreach.

Challenges of the Mission Society

“To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne. …” Rev.3:21

If everything had been easy for the International Mission Society to accomplish, it would have been extremely scary. Instead, the many challenges arising from every corner are met with what we saw in service in the Kingdom of darkness. We are expanding the domain of the Almighty through achieving victory with Him.

We need your prayers because:

  • Some countries have closed their doors for evangelism.
  • There is a declining state of mission service efforts and support from previous mission partners.
  • There is a growing general and overall lack of focus and attention to missions.
  • There is an increasing gap between the finance required by us to send planned missionaries and the capacity of our International Missions Society.
  • We face the growing challenge of getting financial support sufficient to pay the salaries of our missionaries in the mission fields as costs and inflation rises.
  • The current assessment of the mission fields requires a holistic approach to service, not just preaching the Gospel, so we need to off er service such as providing clean water or education against illiteracy to demonstrate that we care for the community needs so they are primed to receive the Gospel by knowing we care for them through acts of loving service.
  • Unsustainable peace throughout the country affects the mission work that hinders travel for mobilization
    • There is a declining state of mission service efforts and support from previous mission partners.
    • There is a growing general and overall lack of focus and attention to missions.
    • There is an increasing gap between the finance required by us to send planned missionaries and the capacity of our International Missions Society.
    • We face the growing challenge of getting financial support sufficient to pay the salaries of our missionaries in the mission fields as costs and inflation rises.
    • The current assessment of the mission fields requires a holistic approach to service, not just preaching the Gospel, so we need to off er service such as providing clean water or education against illiteracy to demonstrate that we care for the community needs so they are primed to receive the Gospel by knowing we care for them through acts of loving service.
    • Unsustainable peace throughout the country affects the mission work that hinders travel for mobilization
    • The recent war and ongoing unrest have devastated resources and economy of the people, caused dislocation and in some parts of the country millions are seeking support from the government. This has affected the income we expected to collect from the community to support our missionaries.The recent war and ongoing unrest have devastated resources and economy of the people, caused dislocation and in some parts of the country millions are seeking support from the government. This has affected the income we expected to collect from the community to support our missionaries.

      Challenges of the Mission Society

      “To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne. …” Rev.3:21

      If everything had been easy for the International Mission Society to accomplish, it would have been extremely scary. Instead, the many challenges arising from every corner are met with what we saw in service in the Kingdom of darkness. We are expanding the domain of the Almighty through achieving victory with Him.

      We need your prayers because:

      • Some countries have closed their doors for evangelism.
      • There is a declining state of mission service efforts and support from previous mission partners.
      • There is a growing general and overall lack of focus and attention to missions.
      • There is an increasing gap between the finance required by us to send planned missionaries and the capacity of our International Missions Society.
      • We face the growing challenge of getting financial support sufficient to pay the salaries of our missionaries in the mission fields as costs and inflation rises.
      • The current assessment of the mission fields requires a holistic approach to service, not just preaching the Gospel, so we need to off er service such as providing clean water or education against illiteracy to demonstrate that we care for the community needs so they are primed to receive the Gospel by knowing we care for them through acts of loving service.
      • Unsustainable peace throughout the country affects the mission work that hinders travel for mobilization
      • The recent war and ongoing unrest have devastated resources and economy of the people, caused dislocation and in some parts of the country millions are seeking support from the government. This has affected the income we expected to collect from the community to support our missionaries.