About Kaleo Missions
Strengthening urban churches. Serving the city.
A partnership-based ministry mobilizing the church to serve the poor and marginalized.
Our Ministry
What We Do
Mobilization
When we talk with church planters, pastors, and urban ministry leaders and ask them what they need more than anything else, the answer is almost always the same — people. The harvest is plentiful and the workers are few. That is why mobilization is at the heart of what we do. Kaleo connects established churches with urban churches — especially church plants — that need outside partners to come alongside them in ministry. We mobilize church groups to serve in our cities on short-term mission trips, and we send summer interns to support the work year-round. Our goal is to help the broader church see the need, show up, and build real relationships with the people and ministries serving the most vulnerable in our cities. For more information on how your church can get involved, click here.
Community Ministry
Kaleo staff serve in each of our cities on a year-round basis, leading or in partnership with local urban churches. In addition to hosting our short-term mission trips, they support the church's existing work in the community — coming alongside what God is already doing through local congregations, not running independent ministry. Since each of our cities is different and the passions and giftings of our staff are varied, the particular ministry of each Kaleo team is unique. However, in each ministry our staff is involved with, our values drive what we do and how we serve.
Education
Racism, systemic poverty, homelessness, immigration, refugee crisis, working poor, slavery, trafficking. These are all issues facing our world today. How does the church respond? How do Christians respond? Kaleo desires to help Christians answer these questions. We desire to help the church not only be aware of these issues, but also to think about how we should engage in the world around us. As a result, on our Urban Immersion short term mission trips, we spend intentional time in learning activities where we learn to look at issues facing our world and our cities today through the lens of the Gospel.
How we work
Our Values
Gospel
We believe the Gospel is the good news that through Christ, people can be reconciled to God, forgiven, restored, and made new.
We also believe that the Gospel doesn’t stop with the individual. When lives are transformed by Christ, communities are transformed too. Issues like poverty, homelessness, oppression, and racism are ultimately rooted in the brokenness and sin of our world. Real, lasting change in a person’s life and in a neighborhood flows from the redemptive work of Christ and the community of the local church.
“None of the foundational relationships can experience fundamental and lasting change without a person becoming a new creature in Christ Jesus… we cannot hope for the transformation of people without the involvement of the local church and the verbal proclamation of the gospel that has been entrusted to it.”
City
Our world is becoming more urban. By 2050, it is estimated that 70 percent of the world's population will live in cities. Additionally, with the combined aspects of diversity and density, cities are often home to many of the world's most poor, vulnerable and marginalized. As a result, while we strive to serve and mobilize the church to care for the vulnerable and marginalized, our primary context is the city. However, while the context of our specific ministry is in the city, we desire to equip the church to care for the most vulnerable wherever they live and serve.
Partnerships
The power of partnership is amazing to accomplish great things. Each individual person, organization, and church has unique passions, skills and giftings, and when you combine these giftings and passions, amazing things can be done. Our goal is to partner with churches, individuals, ministries and other organizations for the sake of most effectively carrying out our mission to care for the vulnerable and marginalized in the urban areas of the United States.
Development
“Development is not done to people or for people but with people. The key dynamic… is promoting an empowering process….”
We desire to assist where appropriate, but always take the lead from churches, organizations and individuals who are deep in the process of long-term relational ministry in a community. This is particularly true on our short term mission trips. Our goal is to allow the hosting churches and ministries to be the primary deciders on what should or should not be done.
Wholistic
We believe the local church is God's primary instrument for redemption and restoration of individuals and communities. Everything we do flows from that conviction. Because God is concerned with the whole person — both the spiritual and physical — we pursue opportunities to meet physical needs while serving through local churches who provide ongoing spiritual care.
Relational
When you look at the story of Scripture, it becomes very clear that God normally works through relationships to bring about transformation and growth through power of the Holy Spirit. You don't have to look any further than Jesus and his disciples. Jesus spent three years of intense relational time with his followers. They ate together, traveled together, had shared experiences and throughout that time, the disciples' lives were being transformed by Christ. Not only that, but it is in the context of relationships where the Gospel is most clearly displayed. In every opportunity we have to serve, our goal is always to establish a relationship where we can truly know the other person and allow ourselves to be known in return.