A Church in Every Village,
Everywhere
By JJ Alderman, Director, Coalition of the Willing
There is a pinpoint on my life’ s timeline when my perspective intersected with the idea of reaching every village with the Gospel. I can still see the savanna road rushing by as I gazed out the window while my dad navigated around the occasional unexpected elephant— such is the life of a missionary in Togo, West Africa. We had just left a village where we had shared the Gospel and planted a baby church. I was grateful to have played a small part, but I was also curious.
“ Dad,” I asked,“ why did we drive past 100 villages just to reach that one? What happens to the others?” That question etched itself into my heart that day and has replayed in my memory many times since.
Similarly, a group of global churchplanting leaders gathered at a conference, grappling with an adjacent question: Is unity really the key, as Jesus prayed in John 17? That question— asked honestly and humbly— unlocked what is known today as the Coalition of the Willing( COTW). These churchplanting leaders committed to taking the Gospel to every person and every place, and they were willing to wrestle with their own preferences and plans. They knew that with an estimated five million villages without a Gospel church, the need was greater than any one ministry could accomplish alone. Together, they embraced the battle cry: a church in every village, everywhere.
Over time, COTW has grown into a global initiative anchored in the commitment to identify and reach Gospel gaps through church planting. COTW part-
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