
ACC International Missions Ltd
ABN: 66 077 367 223
Address: Suite 525, 44 Lakeview Dr
Scoresby VIC 3179, Australia
Email: info@accim.org.au
Phone: +61 3 8516 9600
ACCI has launched a Disaster Relief Appeal in response to the 2022 Floods, affecting many areas in QLD and NSW. ACCI is partnering with Chaplaincy Australia and ACC churches in affected areas to effectively help communities in need.
To support this work, please click on the button below.
ACCI has launched a Disaster Relief Appeal in response to the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Ukraine. ACCI will be partnering with our ACCI Field Workers and Partners, along with their contacts in Europe, to effectively help people in need.
To support this work, please click on the button below.
ACCI Missions is the missionary sending and support agency for the Australian Christian Churches movement
Our Vision is for a world where all people have an opportunity to hear the gospel and the freedom to choose, believe and express their faith. We believe in a world where Christian principles of justice and equality are actualised. Where individuals, families and communities are empowered to influence decisions affecting their own lives, advocate for their own rights as human beings with equal voice and equal value under the premise that all life has intrinsic value before God who created life. Where every child’s right to a family is upheld and defended.
Our Mission is to see whole life transformation in individuals, families and communities by empowering our people to love well and develop holistic and sustainable solutions to combat injustice, reverse the effects of human poverty and to engage communities as active participants in their own development.
We Believe that all people, regardless of race, gender or social status have intrinsic value and inherent dignity. The church has a crucial role to play in defending the rights of the marginalised. The root cause of poverty is injustice and social exclusion. Those living in poverty are rights holders not objects of charity. The process of development should be empowering and should amplify the voice of the marginalised. We abide by the ACC Statement of Faith.
I’m excited about leading ACCI because I believe God has graced our movement to influence the world. Our culture, leadership, structures and approach, combined with our peculiar mix of both pragmatism and idealism, is unique. And we uncompromisingly get the job done.
While the effects of the COVID restrictions has had an impact on donation revenue this year, the generosity of our church and individual donors to our Australian National Bushfire Appeal was overwhelming. Over $400,000 was received through the height of the fires in January through March 2020, with another $600,000 received though our sister organisation, ACCI Relief.
2020 wasn’t the year that any of our field workers expected. As well as having their plans for the year thrown into chaos by COVID-19, many also found themselves ‘stuck’ in Australia for much of the year. Here, they share some of their thoughts, highlights and learnings from an unexpected season.
“We came back to Australia on a long overdue home assignment. We were due to move back to Thailand on the 30th of March 2020 but flights shut down a week before that. We were therefore unable to leave Australia until we finally got a flight on the 30th of November 2020.
“I was separated from my husband and our Thai team for over seven months — in fact, it was a lot longer [than it would have been otherwise] because I had already been in Australia caring for my Mum over the Christmas season. Mum recovered enough to be moved to a nursing home and I flew back to Thailand but within a week, had to return to Australia. COVID-19 had been declared a global pandemic. Flights would be cancelled by the end of that week. I could not risk a long separation from Mum, as I was the only one amongst my siblings able to get to her. I arrived in Brisbane on the 25th of March and went straight into 14-day self-quarantine. Mum died on the 28th… Needless to say, it was a tough time of isolation and separation. From there on, I wasn’t able to go back to Thailand for many months.
“I went to Australia early March; the plan was for one month to celebrate my mum’s 90th birthday – I am an only child. Halfway through the month, the crisis came to a head and I contacted Blair in Georgia to see what we should do. Should I return before the month or stay as planned to honour my Mum? I chose to stay. When my return date of early April came, I was not able to return.
In a nutshell, what does the ‘sending’ process look like? “We like to think of the sending process as a coaching process. Every field worker applicant already comes with a range of skills, training, experiences and qualifications, and our goal is to help them move from where they are now, to using all that previous learning, skills and experience on the mission field…
“Why didn’t somebody tell me about this before I came here?” Preparing for life and ministry in another cultural context is no trivial matter! Particularly if it’s someone’s first time engaging in long-term overseas missions. We’ve heard this agonised question too many times! In response, ACCI has created a new online intercultural missions training course, which covers the perspectives and skills most relevant to engaging in effective cross-cultural life and ministry.
In 2017, Eugene and Fiona Gebert planted WakuWaku Life Church in Fukuoka, Japan.
WakuWaku means ‘exciting’ and the couple’s goal is to create a church environment that’s fun and welcoming for the whole family. But most importantly, they’re focused on helping people experience the life-changing power of God’s love and commit their lives to following Him. Beyond that, the Geberts want to help raise up the next generation of leaders who will plant and grow other life-giving churches throughout Japan.
J and A live amongst the Kurds – the world’s largest stateless people group, who are spread across Iraq, Syria, Iran and Turkey. The Kurdish people have known decades of instability, oppression by their hosts, conflict, genocide and displacement. Without a nation of their own, these generous and hospitable mountain people have been neglected and unengaged by missions for centuries. J and A, along with their three children, are believing that God will bring healing to these people and lay the foundations of a pioneering Kurdish church.
When Jesus gave the Great Commission, he asked his disciples to make disciples of all nations, including those which would reject him or be resistant to God’s message. In Central Asia, one ACCI missionary couple is risking it all to ensure that people have an opportunity to hear the word of God and can apply it to their lives.
While we’re not able to share their names, or the country they work in, for security reasons, we know you’ll be inspired by their story.
Every year, ACCI supporters and churches generously give up a day’s income to help people and communities in need. In 2020, these incredible donations for Missions amounted to $47,122, enabling 1Day to support vital work in nine countries around the world. One of these projects is the Teen Challenge Centre for Women in Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, which Rebekah and Matthew Rodda helped start.
Rebekah and Matthew have served with Teen Challenge Georgia since 2017 in the Adjara region. Matt oversees a local church plant, while Rebekah runs a street outreach program to women exploited by the sex trade. While the Teen Challenge Men’s program has been running for many years, there has been nothing similar for women.
Short-term missions (STM) is about participating in God’s plan for the world and is grounded in the desire to share God’s love and to support and benefit communities overseas. Trips are designed to either have a learning focus – imparting knowledge about local and global issues and challenging visiting teams’ assumptions. Or they’re exposure trips; focused on giving people an inside perspective on other countries, cultures and contexts.
In the case of learning trips, teams will often come home and take some type of post-trip action – whether that’s immediately upon their return or over a longer period of time. Exposure trips are often taken up by people who are sensing a longer-term call to missions or overseas development, and can be an opportunity to explore that calling and to get a more realistic sense of what it might be like to live in that country.
COVID travel restrictions have, of course, put the brakes on all of this and there is still a significant amount of uncertainty about what the ‘new normal’ of short-term overseas travel will look like as borders reopen. Yet even though our bags are gathering dust, we can still engage in learning. It might be an opportune time for you, as a church or individual, to assess your approach to short-term missions and think about what your participation really means.
Several years ago, ACCI developed a website – ethicalmissionstrips.org – to open up the conversation about how to engage more ethically and more effectively in short-term missions. Rather than a list of do’s and don’ts, the website provides a structured way of thinking through what constitutes ‘good’ and ‘right’ (the basis of ethics) in short-term missions and how to apply it to different contexts.
Good intentions are a great starting point for short-term missions but we must be careful not to stop there. Without thinking these things through, our short-term missions and volunteering efforts might not contribute to the lasting change we deeply desire. In fact, they may actually hurt the communities and people we aim to assist.
We invite you to work through our ethicalmissionstrips.org website, to think through the four key considerations that make up the ethical framework and to consider how you apply them to your short-term missions program or trip. By doing so, you will be better positioned to relaunch your short-term mission – when the time comes – and have a positive impact on the people and places you plan to visit.
In the first week of August, field workers, mission partners and pastors from around the world came together for PanAsia 2020. Like many events last year, it was a virtual gathering – with people tuning in from their loungerooms, home offices and kitchens to hear from the ACCI team, guest speakers and our amazing field workers.
Making use of Facebook, YouTube and Instagram, the five days saw a mix of pre-recorded devotions, sermons and field worker updates, along with live prayer sessions and informal coffee chats conducted over Zoom. Even in this format, there was a real sense of community and family togetherness – something many found encouraging during such tumultuous times.
Field workers and church partners alike were thrilled to have a new way to connect with the work being done around the world and with each other. Engagement across the three platforms was high throughout the five days, with a huge 29,330+ views recorded on Facebook alone.
Here are a few comments we received online from field workers and Australian supporters who ‘attended’ PanAsia in 2020 – some for the very first time!
Missions Director, ACC
International
Lead Pastor, Desert Life Church
Campus Pastor, Faith Christian Church.
Appointed February, 2020
Head of Social Justice,
Hillsong Australia
Global Director, Enjoy Church
State President, ACC QLD & NT.
Appointed April, 2020
ACCI Missions is an ACNC registered charity.
This means ACCI Missions is listed on the ACNC’s Charity Register and is regulated by the ACNC. The Register has information about charities’ operations, including who runs it, how charities spend their money, if they are up to date with their reporting and if any compliance action has been taken against them.
ACCI Missions is a Missions Interlink member.
Missions Interlink Associates that are incorporated within Australia accept and adhere to the Missions Interlink Accreditation Standards.
The ACNC External Conduct Standards will impact on how Australian churches manage their overseas missions program. ACCI Missions & Relief has had to comply with external standards of good practice in overseas missions for many years and we have in place existing policies and procedures that will ensure our compliance with these standards. Based on our experience and our understanding of ACC Churches and their missions programs, we have tried to provide a pathway through this challenging new area of compliance.
For more information read our External Conduct Standards FAQ.
ACCI Missions recognises that listening to and responding to feedback, concerns and complaints is integral to our commitment to achieving the high standards and ensures accountability to all stakeholders.
Anyone wishing to provide feedback or lodge a complaint regarding the conduct of ACCI Missions, please contact the General Manager at complaints@acci.org.au or the Director at info@accim.org.au
The total revenue for ACCI Missions for 2020 was $3.7 million. The graph below provides a high-level overview of how funds were spent.
A copy of the full audited General Purpose Financial Statements for ACC International Missions Inc is available for download here.
ACCI One Life partners support the growth of global missions by giving towards ACCI’s administrative costs. The generosity of these partners allows us to staff our operations centre with skilled and passionate people who can provide vital support and advice to our missionaries and field workers around the world.
OneLife partnerships have also helped fund the development of our Intercultural Missions Course, which will train the next generation of missionaries. Lastly, OneLife support enables us to help churches throughout Australia see the difference their giving is making in the field.
Thank you!
ACCI Missions endeavours to make information about our activities readily available to donors and stakeholders.