About Us

Apex serves the local church by mobilizing the next generation of gospel influencers who will take the gospel from here to everywhere

Welcome to Apex! Apex is the student missions pipeline of the Evangelical Free Church of America. We exist to help local churches mobilize the next generation of gospel influencers who will take the gospel from here to everywhere. We believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the most important news in the world; for it answers the deepest need for every human from every culture, tribe, tongue, and nation; namely, how to have a relationship with their creator.

We know and are saddened that there are still somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 Billion people that have little to no access of ever hearing the gospel of Christ. Along with that we also are concerned that the rate at which nations that do have sufficient gospel witness, are sending missionaries into the rest of the world is declining. This is not a reality we are comfortable with. The unreached of the world need the gospel just as badly as it did 50 years ago, and the rate at which workers are signing up for this critical task is not meeting the need.

That's why Apex exists. To see the Lord send more workers into his harvest field.

We do this by offering students, who are the most sendable and teachable section of society, bite sized missions opportunities where they can be challenged by needs outside their daily bubble, equipped by long-term laborers, and impacted by the power of the gospel as seen from a different cultural lens.

Our hope is that as students encounter a different city/culture/worldview, that they would begin to be impacted by not only the need that exists in the world, but of God's invitation to them to join Him in building His kingdom around the globe.

Because of this goal we use trips as a tool and not as an end in itself. We believe that missions trips can be powerful tools for all involved, even though trips run the risk of being counterproductive and often times are negatively perceived. Just because a tool can be used poorly, does that mean we should throw away the tool? We believe that short-term trips have too large of a positive benefit for all involved for us not to use them.

Each and every short term trip should accomplish at least these three objectives: 1. Assist in a long-term work that will continue when the trip comes to a close
2. Increase the chances of local non-christians encountering the gospel
3. Challenge, teach, and equip the participants to love Christ more, and join Him in His work

If the long-term ministry is more equipped and energized to do it's job, if the locals had a chance to hear about Jesus or meet a long-term worker who can share Christ with them, and if the student loves Jesus more and is more excited about joining in the mission, then how could we pass up the opportunity of sending students on trips?!

Apex trips are for both high school youth groups, and college aged young adults. The level of leadership involvement, length of time on the field, and type of team may differ between age levels, but the idea is the same. If a student joins in on the mission of making disciples of all nations for either one, two, three, or six weeks; we hope that once they taste how great a privilege it is to join God in building His kingdom, that they will only want more!

What makes Apex unique is that we partner students with already existing long term work. Whether it's a domestic youth trip or an international college aged trip, all of our trips serve in places and with teams where long term church planting is the goal. The day that the trip comes to a close, does not bring ministry to a close at that location. The pastors, missionaries, and partners continue to be gospel influence after the students are gone and will be ready to host the students again when they decide to return for more!

Where does Apex fit in the EFCA?

Apex is the student missions program of the Evangelical Free Church of America. The EFCA has a global church planting missions arm called ReachGlobal and a domestic church planting arm called ReachNational. Apex straddles both of those church planting arms by sending teams to both ReachGlobal city teams internationally, and ReachNational ministry sites Domestically.