In August 1999, 41 passionate and mission-minded leaders from across Canada and around the world gathered in Toronto to discuss the potential and the challenges of short-term missions. A concept so exciting was introduced that it created its own momentum:
Empower the local church to take responsibility to serve the whole fellowship in the area of short-term missions.
From this initial meeting, The STMnetwork – a ministry of the PAOC – was born.
In 2002 it was identified that the project needed a Coordinator. A Lead Team was also formed to act as a committee and a sounding board for the Coordinator.
The Lead Team was made up of local church leaders who served their churches in the area of missions.
Finally, there was official recognition of five local churches of influence to act as first movers in the process of seeing local churches in our fellowship relationally networked to share resources, opportunities, and mobilize short-term mission teams.
We envisioned that by the end of two years there would exist a strong enough network throughout Canada to carry on the initial mandate to have the local church service the fellowship in the area of short-term missions.