A Resource to Point You to God’s Global Purposes: Missionary: Obeying the Great Commission
March 23, 2026
March 23, 2026
Abstract: Raymond Johnson highlights Missionary: Obeying the Great Commission, a new docuseries that tells the stories of faithful missionaries through the centuries whom God has used to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. Johnson commends this series as a way to introduce churches and families to the ongoing need for the spread of the gospel and Scripture translation in many places around the world today. Missionary is hosted by Brooks Buser and Chad Vegas.
“Dad, Mr. Brooks looks so old!”
[Insert snickering and agreement from siblings]
“But, dad, Mrs. Nina looks so beautiful!”
[Insert hysterical laughter and overwhelming agreement from siblings]
When Brooks Buser gave me the box set of Missionary: Obeying the Great Commission, I was honored and excited. Honored, because I know something of the hard work he and others put into the project. Excited, because I’m always looking for good ways to tell good stories to my congregation and my children, something each episode of Missionary’s original docuseries does incredibly well.
This docuseries tells the story of Christians who followed Christ’s call to “go” as it takes viewers through history and around the world to learn about some of the church’s most noteworthy missionaries. The real benefit, though, isn’t merely its historical accuracy or global scope but its ability to expand mission-related categories in the minds of God’s people.
As the series takes you through the lives of William Tyndale, Hudson Taylor, Amy Carmichael, William Carey, David Livingstone, and John Paton, it’s striking to see their “common” faith. We’re reminded that God uses the faith of ordinary Christians to do the extraordinary work of bringing people into the kingdom of Christ and planting (or strengthening) local churches. This kingdom work often takes a painstakingly long time—time well invested since “we not only want to quickly light [evangelistic] fires, but we want to build [local church] furnaces that will last.”11 .Mark Dever, Missionary, John Paton episode.
As a pastor, this series helps me teach my congregation that they don’t have to have a PhD or be widely read or well-spoken to be faithful to Christ’s call to “go.” They need the same thing those six great missionaries possessed—a common faith in the knowledge of the truth that issues forth in obedience to Jesus’s missionary mandate. This common faith is well-suited for missionary work that crosses geographical and linguistic boundaries.
This series also helps me prioritize the church’s role in our missionary endeavors, which affects the missionaries we support, the missions organizations we funnel missionaries toward, and the missions efforts we invest in. We want our missions efforts to be aimed at planting or strengthening local churches.
I tested the storytelling capabilities of this series on my children first. They know Brooks, so I assumed they’d be at least marginally interested, particularly since we started with the “Bonus Feature: YembiYembi: Unto the Nations”—and I was right.
After observing how beautiful Mrs. Nina looked on camera (in contrast to her dear husband, Mr. Brooks), my kids watched with unflinching focus until one of them remarked, “That looks like a happy place, Daddy. I’d like to go there someday.” This observation opened the door for us to talk about why the YembiYembi people were so happy—they were getting a Bible in their own language! Like Namake, John Paton’s friend, they “knew that if there is a God and he had spoken to [them], but not in [their own] language, it would do [them] no good.”22 .Mark Dever, Missionary, John Paton episode.
My kids got a sense of what it’s like to live away from home in a second language, and they saw the need for translation work because so many people still have no access to God’s Word in their own language. Introducing these missions-related categories helps me as a parent to teach my children how to leverage their life for the sake of what God is doing globally.
So, practically, how do we expose our church and our children to a series like this? I assume there are a variety of good ways, but here are two things we did (one as a church, one as parents).
First, our church regularly meets on Wednesdays at 6 p.m. for a midweek inductive Bible study. Since we open the church building at 5 p.m. to let our members eat and fellowship in the lead-up to the study, we announced that we’d be watching the series from 5 p.m. to 5:40 p.m. each Wednesday night. It’s a simple way for our church to grow in its understanding of church-centered missions over dinner.
Second, as a parent, I took time to watch Missionary with my kids and to make each viewing special. Hot chocolate and popcorn did the trick in our home! Each viewing was followed by a brief conversation about what was striking and what they learned. My goal was simply to expand mission-related categories in their young minds.
I chuckle now as I remember what my kids said about my friend “Mr. Brooks,” but I was surprised when my nine-year-old son realized he missed rewatching “YembiYembi: Unto the Nations” on a Wednesday evening and all but begged me to have it played again so he could rewatch it—a desire his pastor-father was happy to oblige. And I was surprised again when last night he sat beside me in our church’s sanctuary as “YembiYembi: Unto the Nations” came on and said, “This is my favorite one. They get the Bible for their church.” That’s right, my son, and that’s what makes Missionary different from National Geographic.