What Do Christian Missionaries Do?
Before people support a missionary financially, they often want to know, “What do Christian missionaries do? What are their responsibilities, and what compels them into service?” At GFA World, we are honored to train and equip national missionaries across Asia and more recently Africa. Their responsibilities vary depending on their location, but overall, they have a similar calling.
The Bible describes what a missionary is called to do in Matthew 28:19: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations” (NKJV). All missionaries are commissioned by God to make disciples—share the Good News and teach God’s Word. GFA-supported missionaries have God’s heart for the nations—a desire for all people to be saved.
At GFA World, our missionaries are sent to serve in places where the people have never heard the Good News that Jesus loves them. Isaiah 61:1 says, “He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives” (NKJV). Across Africa and Asia, there are still people groups who have not heard of God’s love. It is our calling to reach them with the Good News of Jesus.
What do Christian missionaries do? GFA World missionaries serve as the hands and feet of Jesus—providing tangible help and care to the people they are serving. Through their acts of kindness and compassion, people are able to see the love of God. All this is done in the name of Christ, to see churches planted in places where there are none.
Pastor Nantai[1] is a GFA-supported pastor in Asia and has a beautiful Christian missionary testimony. As a teenager, he was rebellious, and his mother often prayed for God to turn his heart around. At one point, he fell into a coma, and his mom continued to pray, pleading with God for his recovery. Within a week, Nantai was conscious and out of danger. God had answered his mother’s prayers.
Over time, Nantai allowed God to change his heart and his attitude. He repented of his rebellion and began attending church. Eventually, God led him to attend Bible college, where he studied for three years. After receiving training, Nantai returned to his area to begin sharing the love of Jesus. He was familiar with the region, the culture and the people, and he knew effective ways to help them. Before long, his church had a prayer fellowship with 25 people.
Seeing the benefit that education brings a community, Pastor Nantai opened a free center for children to receive tutoring support in their education. When children were unable to attend the center due to illness, he would visit their homes and pray for them. Many people had at first been opposed to Nantai’s ministry and the things he was sharing, but the parents witnessed the love the pastor had for their children. They also saw God’s response to Nantai’s prayers, and, in response, many began to follow Jesus.
Nantai was also instrumental in meeting the essential needs of his community. He arranged for a Jesus Well to be drilled, gave income-generating gifts to help people break the cycle of poverty, established a child sponsorship program, provided literacy classes for adults, and found other helpful ways to benefit those living in his area. He also regularly cycled over 20 miles to reach another village and began to meet needs there as well. Later, these actions were repeated in another village where Nantai began to serve the people with Christ-like love, and a new community of believers was established.
Pastor Nantai has a heart burdened for his people to know Christ’s love, and he works to share it however he can in both word and deed. The prayers his mother offered for him for so many years continue to bear fruit in the many lives and communities he has touched.
Pastor Nantai is just one example of the thousands of GFA-supported missionaries who serve communities in need. They serve in the same countries of their birth, so they face no cultural or language barriers. They live simply and have a hunger to reach their own people with the Good News.
Communities are being transformed by GFA-supported pastors and missionaries. Will you join with us in supporting the activities of Christian missionaries we’ve trained and sent to people still waiting to hear the Good News for the first time? You can sponsor a missionary or give a gift from our catalog of needed items. You might select a bicycle so that a pastor can more easily reach other villages, like Nantai did. Or you might want to fund a Jesus Well so a pastor like Nantai can provide clean and pure water for a village in need.
What do Christian missionaries do at GFA World? They serve the “least of these,” reaching into places where the Good News has yet to be preached.
Support a GFA missionary today!
Learn more about how to share the Good News through GFA World
[1] “Man Raised from Deathbed to Change Lives.” GFA World. Accessed April 7, 2025. https://www.gfa.org/news/articles/man-raised-from-the-deathbed-to-change-lives-wfr22-09.