The Evangelical Alliance Mission (TEAM) is an inter-

denominational A religious denomination is a subgroup within a religion that operates under a common name and tradition among other activities. The term refers to the various Christian denominations (for example, Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, and the many variet ...

evangelical Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual expe ...

Christian

missionary A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...

organization founded by Fredrik Franson. As a global missions agency, TEAM partners with the global church in sending disciples who make disciples and establish missional churches to the glory of God, going where the most people have the most need and proclaiming the

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...

in both word and action. Founded more than 130 years ago, TEAM partners with churches to send missionaries to work in evangelism,

church planting Church planting is a term referring to the process (mostly in Protestant frameworks) that results in a new local Christian congregation being established. It should be distinguished from church development, where a new service, worship center or ...

community development The United Nations defines community development as "a process where community members come together to take collective action and generate solutions to common problems." It is a broad concept, applied to the practices of civic leaders, activists ...

, healthcare,

education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty ...

social justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, Equal opportunity, opportunities, and Social privilege, privileges within a society. In Western Civilization, Western and Culture of Asia, Asian cultures, the concept of social ...

, business as mission and many other areas of global missions.

History

TEAM was founded on October 14, 1890, by Rev. Fredrik Franson (as the Scandinavian Alliance Mission, or S.A.M.). Early missionaries pioneered in China, Japan,

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

. Following Franson’s death in 1908, the mission continued to expand into

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

and thrive in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

and

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

. Following

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, the ministry grew rapidly as wartime experiences fueled passions to serve overseas and provided new missionaries with the skills to do it. In 1949, the Scandinavian Alliance Mission changed its name to become The Evangelical Alliance Mission, or TEAM, a better reflection of its broad scope of ministries and missionaries. In the decades following, TEAM opened major initiatives in the

Arab world The Arab world ( ar, اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّ '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, refers to a vast group of countries, mainly located in Western A ...

, and developed specialized ministries such as hospitals,

Bible institute A Bible college, sometimes referred to as a Bible institute or theological institute, is an evangelical Christian or Restoration Movement Christian institution of higher education which prepares students for Christian ministry with theological ed ...

orphanage An orphanage is a residential institution, total institution or group home, devoted to the care of orphans and children who, for various reasons, cannot be cared for by their biological families. The parents may be deceased, absent, or ab ...

s, publications,

linguistic Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

work, and children’s education to support its overall mission of

. TEAM grew both organically and through mergers with other missions, and by the beginning of the 21st Century had also renewed its focus on “

post-Christian Postchristianity is the situation in which Christianity is no longer the dominant civil religion of a society but has gradually assumed values, culture, and world view, worldviews that are not necessarily Christians, Christian. Post-Christian ten ...

” regions of

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

and

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

. TEAM workers celebrated as the mission’s vision came full-circle when they began working for the first time in Sweden, homeland of founder Fredrik Franson. Today, in a rapidly changing missions context both in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

and abroad, TEAM and its network of over 2,000 churches continues to explore new fields for

work and innovative new ways to serve. Today, more than 575 TEAM missionaries and staff serve in more than 40 countries.

External links

Official site for The TEAM Blog
{{Protestant missions to Latin America TEAM (The Evangelical Alliance Mission) TEAM (The Evangelical Alliance Mission) Christian organizations Organizations based in Illinois Companies based in DuPage County, Illinois Carol Stream, Illinois International organizations based in the United States