How Can Christian Missionary Work Be Most Effective?

Over time, the definition and strategies for Christian missionary work have been changing. Where once a person or couple would dedicate a lifetime to their chosen mission field, more recent decades have seen an increase in short-term missions and church-organized mission trip opportunities for youth and adults. These trips can help people see God’s global mission more clearly. They are most effective when they come alongside long-term Christian missionary work that is reaching people, encouraging local churches and pointing hearts back to Jesus as His followers live out the Great Commission in daily life.[1] With this shift from long- to short-term missionary work, a key question remains about the effectiveness of contemporary missions.

How many people still don’t have access to the Christian gospel or to believers who can walk alongside them?

“Evangelized persons are those who have had an adequate opportunity to hear the Christian message and to respond to it, whether positively or negatively,” the International Bulletin of Mission Research reports. “Evangelization among a language or people group is measured by a series of variables including presence of Christians, availability of Christian media (film, radio, Scriptures in print and online), missionary presence, and level of religious freedom.”[2]

The report analyzes data from all over the world regarding missions and evangelism. It points out that friendship across differences—whether religious, ethnic or cultural—is an increasingly essential part of sharing the Good News cross culturally. In many places, words alone (printed, broadcast or preached) have often failed to have the desired impact. In many regions, people who have yet to hear much about Jesus may never meet a visiting team. But they can see His love through believers who stay, listen and gently share their hope in Christ.[3]

GFA World missionaries serve in the country they are from—their own home country—and so are well positioned to make a long-term difference where God has placed them. Because they already know the language and culture, they can work alongside local churches and other believers as they share the love and Gospel of Jesus Christ with their neighbors.

In particular, GFA women missionaries can enter into homes and villages in ways that men often cannot. They are able to cross barriers that might otherwise prevent crucial relationships from forming with vulnerable women, widows and children, those who are often at the greatest risk for violence, poverty and human trafficking. In these settings, they simply live among the people, serving in quiet ways day after day so that people living in hard places can see Christ’s compassion through their lives.


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