About Us

Our story is a beautiful, 50-year pilgrimage of the Holy Spirit shaping the face of Christ in Asia. It began with the historic visit of Pope Paul VI to Manila in 1970, which catalyzed the birth of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC). From its very inception, FABC sought to discover how the Church in Asia could become a local, inculturated, and participatory Church.

The true turning point arrived in July 1990 during the Fifth Plenary Assembly of FABC in Bandung, Indonesia. Reflecting on the challenges of the vast and diverse Asian continent, the Asian Bishops issued a historic clarion call: ‘The Church of the 1990s has to be a Participatory Church, a Communion of Communities, where laity, religious, and clergy recognize and accept each other as sisters and brothers. They are called together by the Word of God, which… leads them to form Small Christian Communities’ (FABC V, #8). This landmark declaration is widely revered as the Magna Carta for SCCs in Asia.

To translate this vision into practical action, Fr. Oswald Hirmer of the Lumko Institute (South Africa) was invited to help FABC. In 1993, jointly sponsored by the FABC Office of Human Development and the Office of Laity, a consultation was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where the name AsIPA was born: Asian Integral Pastoral Approach. An AsIPA Desk was established within FABC OLF to coordinate training, with an Asian Resource Team (ART) formed in 2004 to design, test, and edit formation modules.