JULY ALUMNI FEATURE
The Power of Partnership in Missions
Anna Bynum
Life.Church, Edmond, OK
Posted on July 1, 2026
Anna speaks to a group of domestic violence and human trafficking survivors in Peru who were rescued through a Life.Church Global Mission Partner, International Justice Mission.
Long before anyone steps onto a mission field, local churches, volunteers, and organizations are faithfully investing in relationships that bring lasting transformation to communities around the world. For Anna Bynum, Highlands College Leadership Institute (HCLI) alumna, Class of 2020, some of the most significant Kingdom impact happens in partnership.
Anna serves on the Missions Team at Life.Church’s central offices in Edmond, Oklahoma, where she supports 150 local partners across all 46 campuses, seven national partners, and 18 global partners serving in more than 140 countries. In 2025 alone, those partners recorded more than seven million interactions with people in need.
Supporting partnerships at this scale requires more than a heart for missions. It requires intentional leadership. Behind every thriving ministry partnership are leaders committed to building healthy systems, developing people, and creating opportunities for others to serve effectively.
“Your reach and impact will only become stronger the more efficient and effective your strategies are,” Anna said. “Strong leadership and an eye for operational excellence are what drive the most successful ministries and organizations in our world today. If we want to reach people for Christ and make a significant Kingdom impact, we must start by creating systems and processes that are both innovative and effective.”
Anna visits churches in Mexico with Life.Church’s Global Mission Partner, The Hope Effect, recruits foster families for the estimated 400,000 orphans in Mexico, believing that every child deserves a family.
At Life.Church, one phrase sums up this idea: Every detail matters because every person matters. “True transformation and restoration begin with investing in relationships. Lives are truly changed through the power of long-term, ongoing relationships,” Anna added.
That perspective challenged the way Anna once viewed missions. While meeting immediate needs remains essential, she has learned that lasting change is built through trust, consistency, and relationships that continue long after a project is complete. Rather than doing ministry for people, she believes the Church is called to come alongside local leaders, churches, and communities, equipping them to create sustainable, long-term transformation.
“God has already called and equipped passionate leaders in organizations across our cities and around the globe who share our vision and have the expertise to make a deep impact,” Anna said. “Together, we can accomplish infinitely more than we ever could on our own.”
By empowering local churches, nonprofits, and ministry leaders who understand the unique challenges facing their own communities, Life.Church can strengthen the work God is already doing while extending the reach of the Gospel.
“When we put people first, local people and leaders, in local churches and communities, and equip them to lift themselves out of poverty, they are then being set up for more sustainable long-term change,” Anna said. “It’s about coming alongside those people, supporting them, and working together towards life change and ultimately, towards Jesus.”
For Anna, stories like these are the clearest reminder that the impact of partnership is measured one life at a time.
She remembers Ron, who first encountered Christ through God Behind Bars, one of Life.Church’s National Mission Partners, while he was incarcerated. Before Ron ever walked through the doors of a Life.Church campus, faithful ministry partners had already been investing in his future. After his release, he connected with another partner organization that helps individuals transitioning out of incarceration by providing mentoring relationships, job assistance, and the support needed to begin rebuilding their lives.
Anna has witnessed that same pattern through Victory Mission, one of Life.Church’s Local Mission Partners. When Juan first arrived, he was experiencing homelessness, separated from his family, and searching for hope. Through the consistent investment of Victory Mission, the support of Life.Church volunteers, and relationships built over time, Juan found employment, reunited with his children, and today serves other men walking the same road he once traveled.
For Anna, Ron’s and Juan’s stories demonstrate that true transformation rarely happens through a single act of generosity. It grows through faithful relationships that meet physical needs, point people toward Jesus, and continue long after the immediate crisis has passed.
Anna visits a village in Togo to see the work of Life.Church’s Global Mission Partner, The Chalmers Center, which empowers and equips local churches to help lift their communities out of extreme poverty.
If relationships are what create lasting transformation, then the next question becomes: How do you invite an entire church to become part of those relationships?
That challenge has become one of the most meaningful parts of Anna’s ministry.
Drawing from the volunteer engagement strategies she learned as an Outreach Coordinator Intern at Church of the Highlands while attending Highlands College Leadership Institute, Anna has helped create opportunities for people to move beyond simply hearing about missions to actively participating in them. She believes that rather than asking someone to take a giant leap, the Church can invite them to take a faithful first step.
“My internship and education gave me firsthand experience from both a campus and church-wide perspective on how to recruit and care for volunteers from the church,” Anna said. “Having consistent, organized serving opportunities creates a low barrier way for people to step into Local Missions or Outreach who may otherwise have never taken a step on their own.”
One Day, Life.Church’s annual generosity initiative dedicated to Local and Global Missions, invited every church attendee to support trusted ministry partners by giving one day’s wages above their tithe.
The response reflected what can happen when an entire congregation embraces a shared mission. Together, the church gave more than $1.7 million, funding projects that shared the love and truth of Jesus while expanding access to clean water in India, developing a tiny home community for individuals experiencing homelessness in Tulsa, and delivering life-saving medical care to women and children in Burundi.
That same spirit of partnership recently marked another milestone as Life.Church celebrated distributing more than $100 million in lifetime grants to Local and Global Mission Partners. While the number is remarkable, Anna is quick to point beyond the milestone itself.
“What excites me most about this milestone is that on the other side of every dollar is a life,” Anna said. “A man leaving prison with job skills, hope, and a mentor. A survivor of human trafficking experiencing safety and restoration. A woman free from addiction, reunited with her children, and back on her feet. A village is finally escaping extreme poverty. These people aren’t data points. They are each uniquely made in the image of God, for a specific purpose given to them by God,” she exclaimed. “Getting to play just one small part in helping them fulfill that calling by meeting a physical, spiritual, or relational need in their life is the greatest reward I could ever imagine.”
It’s those stories that remind Anna that the Great Commission is not reserved for pastors, missionaries, or ministry leaders but belongs to every follower of Christ. Whether serving a neighbor across the street or partnering with ministries across the globe, every act of generosity became an opportunity to participate in the work God is already doing through trusted ministry partners.
Anna’s team prays over the city of Cape Town, South Africa, with their Global Mission Partner, A21, for the continued work of rescuing and bringing restoration to victims of human trafficking in their country.
“As Christians, we don’t just read what Jesus says, but we do what He does,” Anna shared. “Every single follower of Jesus is called to follow the Great Commission and the two greatest Commandments: love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. These things don’t just apply to missionaries or those in ministry, and it doesn’t mean you have to travel to a different country or city to reach people for Christ. Loving our neighbors is a vital part of being a fully devoted follower of Christ, and that starts right in our own backyard.”
When we make loving others a priority, God doesn’t just change the lives of people around us, but He changes our lives, too. When people serve God by serving their city, they learn to live like Jesus, the Church becomes known as a place that loves people well, and God transforms our communities. In Anna’s words, this is what missions are all about.