About Adventist Frontier Missions
There are still entire communities around the world where someone could live their whole life without meaningful access to the Gospel.
Adventist Frontier Missions (AFM) exists specifically for those places.
AFM is a mission organization focused on reaching unreached communities where barriers have left people with little or no access to a viable Christian witness.
Rather than simply visiting these communities for short-term outreach, AFM takes a long-term approach. Missionaries learn the language and culture, build relationships, share the Gospel, make disciples, plant churches, and eventually equip local believers to continue the mission themselves.
The goal is to establish something that remains long after the original missionaries are gone.
How It All Began
AFM's story began with a small gathering of seminary students.
In the fall of 1984, students began meeting at the home of Clyde and Cathy Morgan to learn about missions and encourage greater involvement in reaching people with the Gospel.
That small gathering developed into something much bigger. In September 1985, Adventist Frontier Missions officially incorporated, with Clyde Morgan serving as its president and executive director.
Two years later, AFM sent its first missionary family.
In March 1987, Marc and Aunie Scalzi and their children traveled to the Philippines to begin planting a church among the Ifugao people of northern Luzon.
After six years of ministry, they left behind an established church of approximately 100 baptized believers along with several smaller groups. Within roughly two more years, the Ifugao church had doubled in membership.
That early project demonstrated the model that would continue shaping AFM: reach an unreached community, make disciples, establish a local church, develop local believers, and equip them to carry the Gospel forward.
Reaching the Unreached
AFM's mission centers on Jesus' call to take the Gospel to every nation, tribe, language, and people.
The ministry specifically goes where there is no established Seventh-day Adventist presence and where people may have little opportunity to encounter the Gospel.
Many of these communities are located within the 10/40 Window, a region stretching across northern Africa, the Middle East, and much of Asia where many of the world's unreached people groups live.
Reaching these communities often isn't simple.
Missionaries may encounter unfamiliar languages, deeply rooted religious traditions, cultural differences, geographic isolation, or social and political barriers. Because of this, AFM emphasizes patient, cross-cultural ministry rather than expecting immediate results.
A Long-Term Church-Planting Approach
AFM missionaries seek to understand a community before expecting to effectively minister within it.
As relationships develop and people respond to the Gospel, missionaries begin discipling new believers and preparing them to take increasing responsibility for the ministry.
Local believers eventually become the ones sharing Christ, discipling others, developing leaders, and expanding the church within their own culture.
When an AFM project reaches maturity, the churches established through it are transferred to the leadership of the wider Seventh-day Adventist Church.
The missionary can move on, but the local church remains.
Giving People an Opportunity to Know Jesus
AFM ultimately exists because it believes geography, language, culture, or isolation shouldn't prevent someone from having an opportunity to hear about Christ.
Its vision isn't simply to send missionaries into difficult places. It's to see communities that once had little access to the Gospel develop thriving local churches capable of reaching others themselves.
For Adventist Frontier Missions, reaching the unreached means going where the Gospel has little presence, staying long enough to build something lasting, and equipping local believers to carry the mission forward for generations.
