Why Empower One
We empower local leaders in the hard places of Africa to establish churches among the unreached and under-engaged peoples for generations to come.
The gospel travels farthest when the people carrying it are already home. Since 2007 that conviction has shaped everything we do in South Sudan, Sudan, DR Congo, and Ethiopia.
The Model
Local leaders, trained well, multiplying churches.
Africans lead.
Every Empower One church planter, evangelist, and teacher on the field is African. They preach in their own languages, they know which roads flood in the rainy season, and when conditions turn hard they stay, because home is not somewhere else. American staff and partners serve alongside them.
Meet the people behind the work →
NEATS trains.
At our headquarters in Kajo Keji, South Sudan, the Northeast Africa Theological Seminary prepares leaders to plant churches. Students study Bible, doctrine, and practical ministry under African instructors, then carry it home. More than 8,800 leaders have been trained since Empower One began.
See how the school works →
Flagships multiply.
Training multiplies. Graduates have planted more than 580 churches, and over 1.1 million people have heard the gospel through this work. Flagship Churches carry it further: strong mother congregations that fund their own pastors, train their own planters, and send their own missionaries, so the movement no longer depends on anyone overseas.
Read about Flagship Churches →Vision 2032
Fifteen centers, and a movement that funds itself.
By 2032 we plan to see 15 Flagship Church Multiplication Centers across South Sudan, Sudan, and DR Congo. Each one holds far more than a Sunday service.
A mother church of about 500 members, paying its own pastors
A NEATS extension center training 30 church planters a year
A primary school serving grades one through eight
A clean water kiosk, free to widows and the most vulnerable
A clinic and pharmacy meeting everyday health needs
A radio station carrying gospel teaching across the region
15 centers·750 village churches·500 church planters a year·self-sustaining by 2032
The fifteen churches will band together as the Empower One Flagship Alliance, pooling resources to build the next Flagship and deciding together where their missionaries go. The need is still vast. Sudan alone holds 189 unreached people groups, and fewer than three people in a hundred there follow Christ. The churches of South Sudan will be the primary missionaries sent to reach them.
Go Deeper
The whole story, one page at a time.
The work is African-led and partner-supported. If that model rings true to you, there is a place in it for you.
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