AIM’s Values

AIM International shares these 7 core values which reflect the organizational culture and aims, and inform the ways in which we do ministry.

Christ-Centered

Compelled by Christ’s love (2 Cor 5:14), we love, pray for, and proclaim the Gospel to Africa’s unreached peoples. Our sufficiency, hope, and ministry flow from our relationship with Christ. We serve by His grace and strength and submit to His will. All other AIM values flow from this.

Church Connections

We are sent by churches (Acts 13:1-3) and whenever possible, minister to and through churches. We serve, equip, and mobilize churches and believers from the global Church, and particularly from Africa, to join in the Great Commission (Matt 28:18-20).

Caring Communities

We foster caring communities among AIM members, ministry partners, and local believers. Loving, serving, encouraging, and admonishing each other, we grow in unity and demonstrate the truth of Jesus to the world (John 17:21-23).

Incarnational

We follow the model and teaching of Jesus, who became incarnate among us (John 20:21, 1 Cor 9: 19-22). In our varied ministries, we walk in humility, build relationships, embrace learner attitudes, learn languages and cultures, and strive to live as belongers in our communities.

Intercultural

We seek to be an intercultural organization, where members and leaders from many cultures and nations feel welcome and actively participate. In this we celebrate the diversity, beauty, and glorious future of the Lord’s Church (Rev 5:9-10, Gal 3:28).

Collaboration

We seek collaboration with like-minded churches, organizations, and individuals to see the name of Jesus worshipped by all African peoples, recognizing and rejoicing that the Great Commission is for the whole Body of Christ and its different parts (Eph 4: 15-16).

Creativity

We value continual learning, reflection, and creativity. The Lord does not change (Mal 3:6) but does new things (Is 43:19). Faithfulness to Him and His calling leads us to grow, adapt, and innovate to fit our changing ministry contexts.

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AIM Statement on Racism

In God’s grace, the message of the kingdom that missionaries helped take to Africa has become yeast that has transformed the lives of millions. It continues to grow. Like a mustard seed, tiny in places but determined, it can be smothered, crushed, set back, but it keeps growing. It grows despite, or because of, its weakness. In large swathes of Africa, it has become ‘the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that birds can perch in its shade’ (Mark 4:32).

The glorious gospel, that we as followers of Jesus share, starts with our sovereign creator God making mankind in his image. Each person created with equal dignity. The Bible is clear that all people should be treated with equal value. Racism – prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, even if done unconsciously – is contrary to the gospel. It is sinful.

As you read the history of the growth of the church in Africa, there is no shortage of evidence of mission agencies and individual missionaries displaying attitudes and behaviors that do not reflect our calling as followers of Jesus, to love others as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:39). There have been times in AIM’s 125 year history when racism has occurred; we are not immune to racist attitudes and behaviors today. We reject them and repent of them.

In obedience to Christ, and spurred on by the fact that there are millions of Africans still living and dying without an opportunity to hear of Christ, we cannot keep the gospel to ourselves. We proclaim Jesus to the lost in multi-cultural teams, working together as equals, bound together through our unity in Christ. We partner with Africans and African churches as they pioneer work among unreached populations. We go, as Jesus commanded, as an overflow of God’s love to us, a love that cannot be contained.