Our President
During the 2016 AWF Quadrennial Convocation in Bangkok, Dr. Jura Yanagihara was elected the new president of the Alliance World Fellowship.
Jura and his wife Mami serve the Christian and Missionary Alliance community in Sao Paolo, Brazil pursuing their passion for missions and discipleship in an increasingly multi-cultural context.
As a Brazilian with Japanese heritage, Jura embodies the Alliance's multicultural, global heart and has embraced this multiculturalism throughout his ministry, uniting international communities in various countries. In 1988, Jura married Mami and together they planted the Salt of Earth Community (C&MA), the first Portuguese speaking church in Japan, In Brazil, Jura has served as senior pastor in various Japanese Alliance churches.
Currently, Jura is engaged in international church planting and vision-casting, uniting and inspiring the global Alliance family to prioritize missions, training men and women to proclaim the gospel and to fulfill the Great Commission.
The mission of the Alliance World Fellowship (AWF) is to facilitate cooperation amongst its members (churches and organizations) as they work for the fulfillment of the Great Commission. The AWF has its roots in the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA). It started as a movement in the 1880’s and developed into a mission-minded denomination with partners in more than 80 countries under a variety of names.
The Alliance World Fellowship (AWF) unites churches and ministries related to the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA). God used Dr. Albert Benjamin Simpson (picture left) to start this movement in the 1880’s, which developed into a mission-minded denomination with partners in many nations under a variety of names.
National leaders from all over the world were brought together for the first time in Nyack, New York, in 1975. That meeting resulted in the official formation of the AWF as a fellowship that would meet once every four years with the following specific purposes:
