Formed in community.Equipped for work.Sent to make disciples.
We are praying and working toward a Christ-centered training community in Sri Lanka where believers can grow through shared life, biblical learning, practical work, ministry experience, and cross-cultural preparation. Our hope is to serve the Church in South Asia by helping form disciples who can cross cultures humbly, communicate the gospel clearly, and make disciples wherever God sends them.
Discipleship is not one part of the program. It shapes everything.
Jesus did not form His disciples through classroom teaching alone. They travelled with Him, ate with Him, watched Him minister, asked questions, made mistakes, and gradually learned to obey Him.
We believe people are still formed in many of the same ways. Classes matter, but formation also happens around shared tables, through prayer, while doing difficult work, in honest conversations, and through serving people together.
We want Scripture, mentoring, hospitality, work, community, and mission to become part of the same life. The goal is not simply to help people know more about ministry. It is to help them become faithful disciples who can make disciples.
South Asia is not only a mission field. The Church in South Asia can also be a sending force.
Many people across South Asia still have little or no access to the gospel. At the same time, God has established churches throughout this region with believers who understand its languages, cultures, religious traditions, hardships, and ways of life.
Equip
Help believers develop a biblical foundation, grow in character, understand culture, and learn to communicate the gospel in ways that are faithful to Scripture and meaningful within the local setting.
Mobilize
Help churches recognize people God may be calling and give them opportunities to serve, learn, make mistakes, receive guidance, and test that calling within community.
Send
Support local churches as they commission workers, remain connected with them, care for their families, and walk with them through the joys and difficulties of cross-cultural ministry.
Many of these believers may never have been encouraged to consider cross-cultural ministry. Others may sense God’s call but lack training, mentoring, financial support, or a church structure that can send and care for them.
We want to come alongside local churches as they disciple their own people, recognize God’s calling, prepare workers, and send them well.
Willingness is not the same as readiness.
A century ago, fewer than one in five Christians lived in the Global South. Today more than two in three do. Mission now goes from everywhere to everywhere, and believers in South Asia are increasingly among those being sent, often to neighbours who share a border but not a faith, a language or a caste.
Across South Asia, many Bible schools faithfully teach God’s Word. Alongside them, there is a growing need for training that prepares believers for the cross-cultural task itself.
Share of the world’s Christians living in the Global South
Figures on the Global South: Center for the Study of Global Christianity, Status of Global Christianity 2026.
What the School is being designed to do
The School of Cross-Cultural Ministry is being designed as an in-person programme in South Asia that brings three things together.
Biblical foundations, with mission in view
A solid grounding in Scripture and theology, taught with the nations in mind.
Cross-cultural skills
Learning to communicate across cultures, understand a people’s worldview, learn their language and express the gospel faithfully in their context.
Formation for life on the field
Spiritual formation, practical ministry experience and the habits that help those who are sent to stay well.
Cross-cultural ministry is learned by living it. So students will learn in community, alongside believers from other cultures, among South Asian peoples, with mentors walking with them.
Planned programmes
- One-year certificate
- Two-year associate degree
- Four-year bachelor’s degree
We are exploring a partnership with an accredited institution so that degree pathways can be offered.
Much of the unfinished task is closer than we may realize.
Rev. Dr. John A. Mayer of City Vision developed the Circle of Significance to show how much of the world’s population, religious diversity, and unreached peoples are concentrated within a 2,224-mile radius.
Source: Rev. Dr. John A. Mayer, City Vision and Deo Volente, as presented at GACX 2022. Used with permission. cityvisiontc.org/circle-of-significance
Sri Lanka is geographically positioned within reach of this vast and diverse region. This does not mean that one training center can understand or serve every culture. It does mean that believers in Sri Lanka and across South Asia are close to many communities where the gospel is still not clearly known.
Our desire is to help prepare people who will enter these communities as learners—listening before speaking, building relationships before introducing programs, and serving alongside local believers wherever possible.
Live. Learn. Work. Serve. Send.
Live
Share everyday life in a community shaped by prayer, hospitality, honesty, accountability, and healthy relationships.
Cross-cultural ministry exposes what is already happening within us. Community gives us a place to grow in character, deal with conflict, learn from others, and practice the kind of life we hope to reproduce.
01Learn
Build a strong biblical foundation while learning to understand culture, worldview, religion, history, and relationships.
We do not want to train people to carry their own culture into another community and mistake it for the gospel. We want them to learn how to remain faithful to Scripture while communicating and living out the gospel in ways local people can understand.
02Work
Develop practical skills by doing real work, solving problems, carrying responsibility, and learning to serve others with excellence.
Work is not separate from discipleship. It reveals character, creates relationships, meets real needs, and can become part of a faithful Christian witness.
03Serve
Serve alongside churches and communities with humility. Listen before trying to lead, learn from local believers, and allow relationships to shape the ministry.
Cross-cultural workers should not arrive as people who have all the answers. They must be willing to learn how the community understands life before deciding how ministry should be done.
04Send
Go with tested character, useful skills, the blessing of the local church, and a community committed to continuing the relationship.
We do not simply want people to finish a course and leave. We want workers to be known, prepared, commissioned, and cared for as they go.
05One calling can take many vocational forms.
Not everyone will serve in the same way. Some may serve through church planting, teaching, business, community development, hospitality, agriculture, technology, or another profession. The vocational pathway may differ, but the foundation remains the same: discipleship, cultural humility, meaningful work, faithful witness, and a commitment to making disciples.
Cross-Cultural Ministry
This pathway could include biblical and missiological formation, contextualization, language learning, understanding other faiths, cultural research, hands-on ministry, and preparation for long-term service.
Christian Montessori Education
This pathway could prepare Christian educators to serve children and families through Montessori education.
Business as Mission
Business as Mission is not about using a business as a cover for ministry. A healthy business can itself become part of our Christian witness.
Vocational Development
Other possible pathways may include digital work, hospitality, agriculture, administration, skilled trades, and other forms of entrepreneurship.
Students would learn to observe carefully, ask good questions, understand how people see the world, and communicate the gospel without unnecessarily separating people from their culture and community.
It may include Montessori formation, supervised classroom experience, spiritual formation, cultural learning, and practical preparation for working with children from different backgrounds.
Education is more than transferring information. It shapes how children understand themselves, their communities, their responsibilities, and the world around them. We want Christian educators who respect the child, understand the local culture, and see teaching as a form of faithful service.
Any Montessori training or certification would be developed carefully and offered only when the necessary educational, legal, and professional requirements are in place.
Businesses can solve real problems, serve customers honestly, create dignified work, develop people, strengthen communities, and provide long-term sustainability for workers and ministry.
This pathway could help believers connect entrepreneurship, character, stewardship, cultural understanding, and mission.
Practical skills can help cross-cultural workers serve communities, build genuine relationships, contribute rather than only consume, and remain in places where traditional ministry roles may not be possible.
A strategic location shaped by God’s leading
We are pursuing this vision in Sri Lanka because we believe God has been leading us in this direction.
Sri Lanka is also geographically well positioned for cross-cultural ministry. Located just south of India and near many of the least-reached peoples of South Asia, it provides a natural base for preparing and sending believers throughout the region and beyond.
Sri Lanka’s religious diversity, cultural setting, and connections with the wider region make it a valuable place for learning how to serve across cultures.
However, geographical proximity does not automatically produce cultural understanding. Every country, ethnic group, language, and local community is different. Workers must enter each setting as learners and allow local relationships to guide how ministry develops.
Our desire is to see a training community rooted in Sri Lanka, increasingly led by Sri Lankan and South Asian believers, and closely connected with local churches throughout the region.
This is the long-term vision. We are willing to begin much smaller.
We imagine a place with prayer rooms and classrooms, homes and shared tables, children’s learning spaces and places of work, gardens and room to welcome guests.
The purpose is not to build an impressive campus. It is to create an environment where people can follow Jesus together, practice hospitality, work responsibly, serve others, learn across cultures, and prepare to go.
We do not believe that buildings create a movement. People, relationships, obedience, and the work of the Holy Spirit must come first.
We have not acquired a property. We want the physical development of the project to grow at the same pace as the leadership, community, partnerships, and character needed to carry the vision.
We want to build slowly, carefully, and through relationships.
Begin with one healthy business
Start with a sustainable business that meets a real need, creates meaningful work, develops people, and gives us a practical setting in which to live out Business as Mission.
Develop the discipleship community
Bring together a small group of believers for shared life, prayer, biblical formation, mentoring, practical work, and ministry experience.
We would rather begin deeply with a few people than build a large program before the community is ready.
Begin Montessori when we are ready
Develop a Christian Montessori learning environment and educator-formation pathway when the appropriate leadership, facilities, legal structure, trained guides, and local partnerships are in place.
Grow church and sending partnerships
Work with local churches to provide discipleship, mentoring, cross-cultural preparation, ministry experience, and ongoing care for those who are sent.
Multiply through local leaders
Prepare Sri Lankan and South Asian leaders to guide the work, disciple others, develop locally appropriate expressions of the vision, and help churches send people into new cultural settings.
The goal is not to create dependence on one organization or foreign leadership. The goal is to see disciples, leaders, churches, and training communities multiply.
We are still listening, praying, and building relationships.
We do not have every part of this vision figured out. We want to move forward prayerfully, learn from others, and allow God to shape the work through the people and churches He brings alongside us.
Let’s talk.
If this vision stirs something in you, we would love to hear from you.
Start a ConversationWe need mature Christian leaders, praying churches, educators, entrepreneurs, missiologists, mentors, and friends who are willing to help us begin carefully.
You may be able to help through prayer, mentoring, teaching, business development, educational guidance, cultural research, ministry opportunities, financial support, or simply by sharing what you have learned.
We are especially interested in relationships with people who believe that discipleship, work, community, cultural understanding, and mission belong together.
We are not simply preparing people to travel somewhere.
Cross-cultural ministry is more than entering another country. It requires the humility to listen, the patience to build relationships, the willingness to learn another way of seeing the world, and the wisdom to communicate the gospel without confusing it with our own culture.
We want to help form disciples who can live faithfully, work responsibly, love people well, learn across cultures, strengthen local churches, and make disciples wherever God sends them.