CMN and AGWM Engaged in Ongoing Missions Collaboration

What happens when two separately established church-focused groups combine forces to share resources, experiences, and knowledge that serve one another? Thousands of peoples are moved towards global church planting, reaching the unreached, and living the Great Commission every day.

The Church Multiplication Network (CMN) and Assemblies of God World Missions (AGWM) are working together to carry out their shared vision of establishing the Church. Their current collaboration is built on shared foundations and common future goals, and can be seen most recently in On The Way, an AGWM campaign.

CMN is a church planting organization that works to see a healthy church in every community in the United States. AGWM is the global missions side of the Assemblies of God, whose purpose is to establish the Church among all peoples everywhere.

Gerad Strong, CMN’s director of leadership and training, believes CMN and AGWM have a very important aspect in common: they are built on the sending of the local church’s sons and daughters. The idea of “sons and daughters” is a recent focus of John Easter, AGWM executive director.

Strong says, “When I talk to pastors in the states, and when I go back to when I pastored, and I look at the young men and women that were in my church – those are our sons and daughters. We’re not just writing a check to support a missionary. We’re actually discipling and raising up our sons and daughters to be sent, whether it’s to plant a church in the states or to go overseas and reach a people group and bring gospel access.”

Strong continues, “Gospel access only happens when sons and daughters go. That’s the deeper movement between us that is being unified.”

In recent years, CMN and AGWM have built an intentional relationship, creating opportunities to learn from and serve each other.

One of AGWM’s current focuses is reaching the Buddhist Hindu world through the Buddhist Hindu Priority (BHP). The BHP consists of three main goals: resource and relate to 50,000 prayer partners, send 150 new global workers to the BHP peoples, and raise funds that meet the most urgent ministry needs among Buddhist and Hindu peoples.

The collaboration between AGWM and CMN is especially apparent with On The Way, AGWM’s campaign focused on the Buddhist Hindu world.

On The Way helps people engage with the need in the Buddhist Hindu world and learn to walk “on the way” with those of different beliefs. On The Way materials are made for anyone from one person to a small group or whole church, and consist of podcasts, videos, an interactive 21-day journal, and more.

A recent vision trip to North India sparked a collaboration between CMN and On The Way, giving leaders from AGWM and CMN firsthand exposure to missions in the Buddhist Hindu world.

Commenting about the trip, Steve Turley, AGWM U.S. relations team lead, says, “It’s about being in the context. Not vision of ‘Am I called to this,’ but vision in the sense of, ‘What does this mean for us as a whole?’"

Strong says, “The vision trip reinforced our collaborative relationship and exposed some of our church planters and leaders to the exciting things that God is doing through planting and through AGWM.”

Those on the vision trip had opportunity to see AGWM global workers and national workers in the field, and then consider what steps to take next to continue their engagement. Rodney Wardwell, lead pastor of NewHope Church in Washington state, says this about the trip: “[It was] eye-opening to get to experience firsthand what our workers on the field are doing. … You can hear about it, and be told stories, but until you are there, and you can smell the smells and hear the sounds … it’s a whole other level.”

CMN and AGWM leaders wanted to share this experience with others. Turley says, “They came away from that trip with new categories created in their minds and hearts and spirits, and then that ripple effect is expressed most explicitly in what they did at the CMN conference this year.”

CMN’s annual conference in 2024 had several special focuses on On The Way and the BHP. Vision trip participants, including AGWM Executive Director John Easter, were invited to share their experience on a panel. CMN and On The Way partnered to give On The Way starter kits to every conference participant, more than 2,000 people. Finally, CMN contributed $50,000 to On The Way and the BHP.

As a tangible reminder of CMN’s overlap with AGWM, AGWM created jackets that combined the mission statements of both groups. The jackets read: “Establishing a healthy church in every community among all peoples everywhere.”

Following the conference, CMN invited every attendee to On The Way’s next virtual event — a meaningful step toward further collaboration. A global worker involved with On The Way says, “They [CMN] took all of the content, they reworked it to fit their audience, and the invitation didn’t come from us, it came from them, which is way more effective. … It’s exciting.”

Commenting on the strengthening relationship between On The Way and CMN, this global worker continues: “For us in the East, relationships are everything. This feels natural. I think this is how the Kingdom works. It’s not a program. It’s not a formula. It’s just, we’re all people.”

Though On The Way is focused on the BHP, its contents go deeper. It is designed as a discipleship journey.

Turley affirms this idea: “The On The Way materials, and in fact, On The Way itself, is designed as a discipleship path. … It’s compelling stuff. It’s extremely well done.” Turley encourages pastors and churches to be part of that discipleship through On The Way.

Wardwell, one of the members of the vision trip, has done exactly that. After the vision trip, Wardwell came back to his church with a broadened perspective of missions and what it means to walk alongside non-believers. In response to this, his church made “On The Way” their 2024 theme. Wardwell says, “On this trip, God specifically showed me we bring His kingdom on earth, as it is in heaven, on the way. On the way to work, on the way to school, on the way to our kids’ sporting activities, on the way to the grocery store, wherever it is we go.”

Wardwell has already experienced “on the way” moments with people in his daily life asking for prayer or coming to Christ. He and his church are praying for more testimonies to come this year.

To continue growing AGWM and CMN’s relationship, Strong has begun incorporating an AGWM section into CMN’s training materials – the first time this has been done.

Strong explains, “We’ve highlighted AGWM, but now I’m actually putting a small teaching about it in all of our training elements. … How powerful for a new church starting and making missions a priority at the start. Not just missions in the community that we’re planting, but missions around the world.”

CMN is also supplying every new church planter with a copy of John Easter’s book, Your Sons and Daughters, to help them understand churches’ sons and daughters and their role in missions.

“There is a kingdom principle that happens when we invest and sow seed in another field,” Strong assesses. “When we invest in On The Way, when we invest in AG World Missions, when we invest in sons and daughters or we invest in sending, we also reap a harvest at home.”

The relationship between AGWM and CMN is an ongoing one and will continue to grow and produce fruit, as it has with the On The Way campaign. Though both organizations work in different areas, they are united in their mission of establishing the Church and providing people with gospel access.

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