Asian Access LIFE Ministries
Changing the few who change the many
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Many pastors across Asia struggle with burnout or persecution. Asian Access is a vibrant community that helps these leaders thrive. We are a leader development group that identifies and develops the right leaders at the right time through the right process, so they can be released to make the greatest Kingdom impact across Asia. We sustain change through a proven process that takes the region's most promising leaders and equips them to have a disproportionately significant impact in their countries, cultures and continent. Our focus is on intentionally training a few key leaders at a time, through a 2-year transformational process, so they can lead the church with vision, character and competence. We are becoming a vibrant community of leaders in twenty countries of Asia, striving to unite the church, extend the Kingdom, and transform the cultures of Asia for the glory of God. A2 is a vibrant community devoted to helping leaders thrive—DEVELOP. MULTIPLY. TRANSFORM.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Leader Development Program
THE WORK OF DEVELOPING LEADERS
(pastors, church leaders, and business/marketplace leaders)
Asian Access' work of leadership training has been recognized as one of the most creative and fruitful leadership training programs in Asia. The key to its effectiveness is the careful selection of 12-20 emerging leaders. These leaders are then invited to be a part of a class that meets four times a year for a week at a time over a two-year period. When the twelve meet together, they are working through an established curriculum that accelerates their growth as spiritual leaders, as well as organizational leaders. At their training sessions, they are resourced by leaders in and outside their country. But the key is that they develop a vibrant community built upon trust and friendship. This vibrant community creates the space for personal and corporate transformation.
In the course of the training, the leaders are able to become more aware of their distinct strengths individually, as well as the unique giftedness of their congregations. They are also given the skills to determine more precisely the needs of the communities and the context in which they live and minister. Upon that knowledge, they then develop skills to equip their congregation for effective service. Following that they articulate their long-term vision and then begin to develop strategies for growth and multiplication.
The training program in Japan, for example, now uses a curriculum that has been developed entirely by Japanese, for Japanese, in Japanese. Each country is working on contextualizing the curriculum and the process for developing its own pastors.
Now Asian Access has launched a training model for CEOs and marketplace leaders, built upon the same proven principles from our pastor training programs, but contextualized for the business world.
Where we work
Awards
"Standard of Excellence" Web Award 2007
Web Marketing Association
"Standard of Excellence" Web Award 2008
Web Marketing Association
"Standard of Excellence" Web Award 2009
Web Marketing Association
"Standard of Excellence" Web Award 2010
Web Marketing Association
"Standard of Excellence" Web Award 2011
Web Marketing Association
eXcelerate Award for Innovation in Partnership 2012
Missio Nexus
"Standard of Excellence" Web Award 2006
Web Marketing Association
eXclerate award for Innovation in Partnership 2012
Missio Nexus
eXcelerate award for Excellence in Communications 2019
Missio Nexus
Affiliations & memberships
Evangelical Council of Financial Accountability - Charter Member 1979
Christian Leadership Alliance (CLA) 1994
Lausanne Movement 1991
Missio Nexus 1993
Religious Liberty Partnership - Associate Member 2021
Alliance for the Unreached 2022
BiblicalTraining.org 2022
External reviews

Videos
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
Asian Access is striving for a vibrant community of servant leaders with vision, character, and competence leading the church across Asia. We hope to develop a community of 2,000 leaders from 20 countries across Asia. For the rest of their lives, we hope these leaders will...
1.) Live in a love relationship with God.
2.) Grow as a Christ-like leader.
3.) Reproduce disciple-making leaders.
4.) Planting multiplying churches (or "Catalyzing movements" if in our A2.business leader program).
Beyond this personal and corporate transformation, Asian Access strives to achieve genuinely sustainable indigenous ministries in each location. Our objective is to reduce outside resources by increasing resources within each of our partner countries, while fostering interdependence across Asia. Our goal is to accomplish this within a 12-year period. Sustainable ministry will be measured by:
1.) A viable Leadership Team in place.
2.) Increasing number of faculty coming from inside each country.
3.) Decreasing level of financial support needed from outside.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
The A2 Leader Development Model brings together 12-20 pastors who meet quarterly over a 2- or 3-year period and is intensive, in-service, in-country, in community, and ongoing. By virtue of the fact that the selected participants move through the two-year transformational process with a group of other like-minded leaders who face very similar challenges, a strong sense of camaraderie develops which motivates the leaders to grow together and to push one another to a higher level of performance. The relationships that develop in the context of this experience often provide a network for ongoing friendship and development long after the program is completed.
A2 Leader Development Model
Asian Access is committed to equipping every leader to nurture a love relationship with God. This is the core from which godly leadership emanates and is the central element of the A2 Leader Development Model. Around this focus, the model is three-dimensional: creating a vibrant learning community through supportive and accountable relationships; incorporating an integrated curriculum through rigorous and extensive training; and fostering a transformational process that promotes life-long spiritual growth.
Focus on Transformation
Asian Access training focuses on a process of transformation rather than on an event for inspiration. As a result these leaders will have time for instruction, experimentation, reflection, evaluation, and relationship building.
Leaders with Potential Trained by Seasoned Leaders
The training is provided for exceptional emerging leaders by experienced senior leaders who are seasoned practitioners. The participants and trainers alike are carefully selected. It is the conviction of Asian Access that leaders are best developed by leaders, not by theorists alone.
Life-on-Life Mentoring
The training is designed to bring about a process of change that is accompanied by a commitment to implementation. This focus is intended to prevent the training experience from being a mere academic exercise. Central to this process is the life-on-life impact of the mentor on the pastor/leader. This mentoring is guided by the Asian Access national director in partnership with the country resource coordinator, along with the guests faculty who come to lecture and present case studies.
Key Church Leaders Included
Asian Access also involves the key leaders in a church so pastors are not learning in isolation of those they are leading. This endorsement by key church leaders at the beginning of the process increases their sense of ownership of the vision and strategy that is articulated as their pastor/leader moves through the program.
Training Marketplace Leaders
Asian Access launched for marketplace leaders the same leadership development we use for pastors. The vast majority of our church leader model transfers to the business sector. Developing leaders for the marketplace is a significant step toward bringing transformation to society at large.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Asian Access has nearly five decades of experience working in partnership in Asia. At Asian Access, our most precious resource is our people...
https://www.asianaccess.org/community/people-of-a2
Staff and Alumni
The strength of the ministry has always been the quality of the partnerships God has blessed us with -- strong and enduring partnerships with the highest echelon of Christian leaders across the islands of Japan. Additionally, God has brought a community of highly-motivated staff and well-trained missionaries who bring additional strength and creativity to the ministry. This includes nearly 3,000 alumni from North America. Amazingly, the majority of our senior leaders has 25+ years of ministry with the organization, which has increased its stability.
Board of Directors and Council of Reference
The foundation laid by Asian Access' outstanding Board of Directors has made the work of these missionary-national partnerships effective. We are privileged to have excellent boards in the U.S., Canada and Japan. Our Council of Reference endorses what Asian Access is accomplishing in the trenches.
Partnering Organizations and Teaching Faculty
The partnerships that Asian Access has enjoyed with leading churches, mission-minded schools, and generous supporters all across North America has made possible over forty-five years of fruitful ministry, and have brought us to a place of expanded ministry horizons across Asia. Many of our faculty, teaching across Asia, are serving churches, ministries and schools in North America and Asia.
Participants in the A2 Leader Development Program
Finally, the leaders who are participating in our leader development program are a big part of the A2 Community. Our graduates give back to the program in their given locale. Some serve on the working team to coordinate the work. Some serve on the reference council or board on the national level. Some serve as faculty to teach in country, and some are teaching in several countries across Asia. All of these graduates are volunteers for the movement, largely because they have benefitted themselves from participating in the program; they want to give back.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Asian Access is currently in 18 countries across Asia, but we desire to develop church leaders in 20+ countries. And we are getting invitations from many places, within Asia and more recently well beyond this continent. That said, in our current countries, we are seeing significant progress toward our goals and objectives. We have developed over 1,000 leaders in these countries and they are a part of our vibrant community of servant leaders. We have seen growth and development in our graduates' personal lives, families, churches, and communities. Not every participant is a success story, but by and large, the majority do see meaningful transformation in their own lives—in their families, churches, communities, and even countries. We know we're doing well when our biggest compliments come from the spouses of our graduates, as they report the positive changes they have personally observed.
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
-
Who are the people you serve with your mission?
Asian Access serves national leaders in each location where we operate—currently in 18 different countries across Asia. Each country has a national director (or co-directors) and a working team of 3-10 leaders helping to provide oversight to the ministry in that localized setting.
-
How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals
-
What significant change resulted from feedback?
We received feedback that we were not providing leader development opportunities for younger people (aged 25-35) and limited our opportunities to only church leaders or business leaders. So we worked with two national leaders to help us design a new venture to equip young professionals from a variety of sectors (e.g., church, business, marketing, medical, etc). The first pilot project was very well-received, and we are planning to have more cohorts of young professionals from a cross-section of sectors.
-
Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive
-
What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
It is difficult to get the people we serve to respond to requests for feedback, We don’t have the right technology to collect and aggregate feedback efficiently, The people we serve tell us they find data collection burdensome, It is difficult to get honest feedback from the people we serve, Our people share in relationships, but formal surveys are received as corporate, not as relational.
Financials
Unlock nonprofit financial insights that will help you make more informed decisions. Try our monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights?
Learn more
about GuideStar Pro.
Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Asian Access LIFE Ministries
Board of directorsas of 07/26/2022
Mr. Philip Foxwell
Foxmark Strategic Partners
Term: 2018 - 2021
David Bennett
Lausanne Movement
Kazuaki Uemura
Law Offices of Kazuaki Uemura
Philip Foxwell
Foxmark Strategic Partners
Kärin Butler Primuth
visionSynergy
S. Douglas Birdsall
Asian Access
Joseph W. Handley
Asian Access
Stephen Woodworth
Masterworks
David D. Kim
Telos Ventures
William Duncan
ISU-The Olson Duncan Agency
Janice Munemitsu
Biola University
Michael C. Eicher
The Ohio State University
Francis Tsui
DMC Investments Ltd. (Hong Kong)
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
-
Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Sexual orientation
Disability
No data