A new name for a renewed mission.

 

During our first five decades, there have been significant changes

in our sending countries, on the ‘Fields’, and in the media and

technology now available to us. Although we made some changes, it

became clear that we needed to make more.

 

This process began in 1997 and has led to more flexible decisionmaking,

a new fiscal structure, and now a new name to reflect both

a broader geographical reach and the use of newer methods of

communicating our unchanged calling to help Muslims find Jesus.

 

The process of finding a new name.

 

In 2007 God led us to a person experienced in helping

organizations like ours work through the process of ‘re-branding,’

which ostensibly starts with the name, but even more fundamentally,

necessitates rediscovering who we are.

 

Was this the right direction? We would need to commit to the costs,

resources, and the effort that an undertaking like this would require.

Or should we just keep working as we had been and aim to be more

effective, or merge with another agency, or even disband? After

much prayer and discussion, everyone at our 2007 International

meeting believed the Lord still had work for us to do and we

unanimously voted to rebrand.

 

Being led to a new name.

 

We looked forward excitedly, but anxiously, to five historic days

in November 2007 as we prayerfully came together as a Team to

undertake the foundational task of choosing a new name.

 

There was great unity as we determined our values, discovering

the essence of who we were, and the kind of people we wanted to

be. After culling over 200 potential names, we came to the

unanimous consensus that the name ReachAcross expressed the

heart of our calling, passion, and position statement. ReachAcross is

our new name.