Support Appointment Frequently Asked Questions

GFA World Elevator Speech

SHORT: "GFA World reaches those who don't yet know the love of Christ. We do this by sponsoring national missionaries, transforming communities, and helping children."

MEDIUM: "GFA World is committed to reaching those who don't yet know the love of Christ, often in places where no one else is serving, within Africa and Asia. We do this by sponsoring national missionaries, which is the most practical and affordable way to support the spread of the Gospel."

LONG: "GFA World is committed to reaching those who don't yet know the love of Christ, often in places where no one else is serving, in Africa and Asia. We do this by sponsoring national missionaries, developing and transforming communities, and helping children in desperate need. One-third of the world’s communities are still waiting to experience Christ’s love for the first time, and the majority of them live and die in Africa and Asia. At just $360 per month on average, GFA World's national missionaries offer the most affordable way to support the spread of the Gospel in those places. We are invested in communities throughout Africa and Asia for the long haul, partnering with residents to help provide a stable and healthy way of life. This includes supporting children in need around the world by providing basic health care, food, clean water, and educational and community service opportunities."

The Core Four Pillars of GFA World

Sponsoring National Missionaries

· At just $360 per month on average, GFA World's national missionaries offer the most affordable way to support the spread of the Gospel. This also provides the greatest potential for a multiplication effect, getting more missionaries to challenging places at an affordable cost.

· It's important to highlight that this cost-effective missionary model is good stewardship of the global church's resources. If the Great Commission leads Christians to ask, "How can we reach the most people with God's love in the quickest and most affordable way possible?" GFA World is likely the answer.

· While Western missionaries have often been expelled from a country, there are inherent advantages of raising up national leadership who can’t be simply removed from their own country. National missionaries also help avoid friction and unforced errors, since national missionaries understand their culture, their nation's laws, and their political system better than outsiders.

Helping Children

· GFA World and its supporters show children the love of Jesus Christ by meeting practical needs in their lives.

· GFA World supports children in need around the world by providing basic health care, food, clean water, and educational and community service opportunities.

· This is done using a personal and effective child sponsorship program, which is present in Asia and Africa. Given the great needs in these countries, we focus on unserved communities, going where others have not gone.

· This sponsorship also provides the ability for donors to connect with the children they sponsor by sending pictures, letters, and other personal messages, enabling donors to have a deeper relationship with children in need.

Transforming / Developing Communities

· GFA World does more than simply provide life-saving aid to a developing community in need, or a region in crisis. We are invested in communities throughout Africa and Asia for the long haul, partnering with residents to help provide a stable and healthy way of life.

· Many families in the communities we serve do not have the basic necessities needed for healthy living. So GFA World transforms communities by providing things like clean water, income-producing farm animals, sewing machines, and vocational training.

· This pillar of GFA World's core mission can be complemented by highlighting the work of drilling wells in various countries, and the new hospital in Rwanda that will create safer and healthy communities for generations.

Disaster Relief

· GFA national missionaries are prepared to help meet physical needs in addition to spiritual needs in the communities they serve.

· GFA national missionaries serve victims of natural disasters and those who are often rejected by society, like widows and leprosy patients. Our Compassion Services teams love the Lord and serve the needy from that same heart.

· Our missionaries are already there or are nearby and can respond very rapidly when disaster strikes.

Staff Support Frequently Asked Questions

1. Whatever happened with the lawsuit?

(This one came up a few times on our trip, and this is how we actually answered it.)

The lawsuit was a crazy time, and we are so grateful the Lord brought us through. Unfortunately, during that time we were unable to share much publicly about the case until it was concluded. Since then, GFA has made a statement and shared some more detailed information about what happened: https://www.gfa.org/lawsuit-response/(I would be happy to walk you through this page)

As a ministry, we couldn’t afford to keep fighting the case, so we settled for a fraction of what they were seeking. If we had continued to fight, it would have been years before a conclusion was made, and it would have fully drained the ministry of all our resources, although we are fully confident in our ability to have won had it gone all the way. But one cool thing – the people who brought the lawsuit had to confirm that all the money we said went to the field did, in fact, go to the field just as we always had stated.

Then the same plaintiff lawyers brought the exact same lawsuit to our Canadian office, and the judge there dismissed the entire thing and refuted each accusation point by point, exactly what the judge in the US should have done.

We won, and it was a long time ago.

2. What’s going on with ECFA?

Over the years, GFA has been with a number of groups for accreditation, including ECFA.

It’s important to note that ECFA’s best practices are not laws or legally required. They are a helpful tool to many ministries in maintaining the best internal practices. Some of their requirements do not work well for ministries functioning outside of America, with a focus on international ministry in many of the anti-Christian countries we work in.

ECFA had requested that we make a few changes to our processes in order to adhere to their best practice recommendations. We were in the active process of implementing those changes before our status with ECFA changed. Right after the ECFA decision, a lawsuit against us was filed, and we were advised that ECFA acceptance was unlikely to be granted as long as the lawsuit was active. Now that it is over, our Board is deciding on the best way forward for GFA and its future, with the international scope of our work in mind.

3. How does the compassion service you do contribute to establishing churches?

What’s amazing about how GFA World works is that our end goal is to establish churches where there are none. Everything we do is to bring people to Jesus and establish churches in their community. Our missionaries have a variety of tools at their disposal to help introduce a community to Jesus, witness Jesus to the community, build up the community, and disciple the new believers. The various tools of “compassion services” that they use, like literacy and giving income-generating gifts, are all to point people to Christ and the church, and it is within the context of the church that their lives and the lives of the entire community are transformed.  

4. Does the money go directly to you?

(We got this question a handful (5-ish) times on our trip.)

It’s really cool how GFA does this, in order to relieve stress from the staff of being worried every month about what support has come in.  We get the same paycheck regardless of where our support level is at. The money from our supporters is donated to GFA, and the ministry pays staff-related expenses like salary and medical insurance from that pool. This is why your support to us makes such a difference—it frees up resources from the ministry that are being used to support us and can now instead be redirected to go to the field.

5. How many churches do we plant?

On average, more than one church every other day is planted on the field.

6. How many missionaries does GFA support?

More than 15,000 are currently supported, and our prayer and dream is to see over 100,000 fully supported missionaries on the field and being sent into some of the most difficult parts of the world. Many have become self-supporting over the years and no longer need sponsors.  (See question 9.)

7. How and where are your missionaries trained?

(We got this question 2-3 times.)

We have Bible colleges in almost all the nations where we work. Missionaries are trained in their own language and by leaders in their own cultures, most of whom have already been doing missions for years and have established churches themselves. The training is a hardcore 2-3 year program of theological, missions and practical on the job training. Their day starts at 5:30 in the morning and ends late at night. They are encouraged to memorize Matthew 10, which talks about embracing death for the sake of Christ.

8. Why don’t you do ministry in the US?

(I thought this was such a weird question, but then someone actually asked it in one of our appointments! This is how we actually answered.)

There are so many good and amazing ministries serving in the US and doing an incredible work here, and in other Western nations. What God has given us specifically to focus on is Africa and Asia, where there are many unreached areas without a single Christian among them. To stay true to this vision, we stay focused on two things: 1, Communicating the great need to the West to live radically and sacrificially in order to fulfill the Great Commissions. 2, To equip national workers to go into these very difficult places to establish churches and bring the love of Christ practically to people who are desperately waiting. We are the bridge to link those in the West with the missionaries on the front lines through prayer and financial support.

(This answer is helpful to introduce the B1 and give that out to those who haven’t read it yet, as well as point them to the video ‘Christ’s Call’)

9. Do churches ever become self-supported?

Yes! Regularly. That is the goal of every church that is planted, that they would work towards becoming self-supported, while at the same time reaching out to other villages around them to establish churches in those areas. Oftentimes, that is with the help of the seminary-students during their on the job training. This is why missions is the core thread and focus for our churches on the field. About 1/3 of the work on the field is currently supported by the local churches that have been established!

10. Does GFA work with other organizations on the field?

(We got this direct question twice and it came up two other times.)

Yes! For over 40 years we have always worked with the larger body of Christ both in the West and on the mission field to fulfill the Great Commission. Sometimes that might be through sharing literature or training missionaries from other groups at our own cost or working together with other ministries in certain areas. There are many other opportunities that God opens the door for us to partner with other groups.

11. Have you ever gone to see the work on the field first-hand?

(This was asked a couple time on our trip.)

I’ve made 46 trips to the mission field for photojournalism trips.  Each assignment usually has three or more assignments in multiple locations.

It’s an amazing experience to sit down and have a meal with a missionary who has planted 5 churches and 8 mission stations, or walk with a group of Sisters of Compassion through the slum they serve in, or dish the plates of 50 children in the Child Sponsorship program. The field leaders we met are some of the most humble and godly people I will ever have the privilege of meeting this side of heaven. This reinforced the idea for us that national missionaries are key to reaching the most people in Asia and Africa, and it made me more excited for what I get to do behind the scenes to help make them be as effective as possible.

12. When are you guys going overseas?

My next assignment will be to Liberia in Africa early next year.

The amazing thing is that we don’t have to move overseas to be part of planting churches in Africa and Asia! The revolutionary approach to missions that GFA largely pioneered was to train and send believers who are already in Asia to be missionaries to unreached peoples in their own countries. This approach has huge advantages in effectiveness and efficiency and circumvents many of the obstacles that make it so difficult for Western missionaries to reach the world’s unreached peoples. Our role is to connect believers here in the United States with these national missionaries in a partnership that has resulted in thousands of churches being planted in Asia. We can most effectively serve as this connecting link from here in the United States, so we serve at GFA’s international headquarters in Texas. In this way, we serve as behind-the-scenes missionaries, sent out from our homes to go to Texas so we can help plant churches among the unreached!

13. How long do you plan to serve at GFA?

What I know is that God has led me here, and each day I commit to serving the Lord fully in what He has given me to do. My future is in His hands, and all I can do is stay focused on the task before me. The reality is there are still hundreds of thousands of villages waiting for Christian witness, and there are still millions who are waiting to hear the hope of Christ. That is what I’m giving my life for, and what you and I get to partner together in seeing it accomplished.

14. How many missionaries on the field does each home office staff person represent?

Each staff members represents over 200 well trained missionaries on the field whose aim it is to bring the love of Christ to unreached areas and see a church established. This is also why we need more staff in the US office, because it means more work can be accomplished on the mission field.

(Staff should watch Jonathan’s support raising video to get those key talking points in their minds.)

15. How much do you need to raise?

(This came up several times.)

Salary is based on family size and is enough to live modestly in the area of rural East Texas. Our monthly support goal is $4,700.