The Asia Evangelical Alliance (AEA) convened the Asia Conference on Church and Mission under the provocative theme "Disciple or Die 3.0" in Manila, Philippines, from 9 to 12 June 2026. The four-day strategic gathering, hosted at GCF South Metro in Alabang, drew church leaders from across the continent and issued a strong collective call for Asia's churches to re-centre their mission on making disciples rather than merely attracting event attendees.
In his address to the conference, World Evangelical Alliance Secretary General Rev. Adv. Botrus Mansour underscored that discipleship is not an optional ministry strategy but the very purpose for which the church exists. "God did not have a Plan B. His plan for the church was discipleship," Mansour told the gathered leaders. He described discipleship as a transformative journey in which believers are progressively shaped to resemble Christ himself — not simply informed about him. Mansour commended the Asia Evangelical Alliance leadership for maintaining focus on what he called "what is really important" amid the many competing priorities facing churches in the region.
The conference set an ambitious vision: to see 20 percent of Asian churches become active, reproducing disciple-making communities by the year 2033. This target reflects a growing recognition across Asian evangelicalism that rapid numerical church growth in some regions has not always been matched by depth of faith formation. Leaders emphasised the need to shift from measuring success by attendance figures to evaluating churches by their capacity to produce devoted followers of Christ who in turn make disciples. For the global free evangelical family, which includes a growing number of church-planting movements across South and Southeast Asia, the Manila gathering reinforced a shared conviction: sustainable mission depends on intentional, relational discipleship at every level of church life.
Source: World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) — worldea.org
