Featuring Frank Schattner, Co-Founder/Co-Director, Jonathan Project Ministry
Frank Schattner is a man with a Bostonian accent, an international mind, and a Christian heart. Frank and his wife, Jan (Jessup), have been engaged in cross-cultural ministry for almost 40 years. Their experiences have led them around the country, the globe, and through many organizations to support global missions and global justice.
Frank and Jan serve as founders and current directors of the Jonathan Project Ministry. The mission of the Jonathan Project is to focus the gospel on the most unreached people groups around the world in order to facilitate Church Planting Movements. The backbone of their ministry is to train local leaders and believers to take responsibility for the lost around them. The Jonathan Project, as a global network, has numerous partnerships with local leaders, churches, denominations and mission agencies.
The Schattners have been based out of Thailand most of their ministry years but have also lived in China and Laos. The Jonathan Project started with a focus in Southeast Asia, but has now expanded throughout the globe. As a result, Frank has extensive international experience and speaks numerous Asian languages.
Frank has also guided the development of other organizations and programs for church planting and addressing issues of justice. He has had a role in beginning Zume Training an online Discipling program. Recently they launched an online obedience-based seminary named Fidelis. In the 1980s, Frank, along with Moses Samol Seth, constituted Agape International Missions (AIM) for church planting and outreach in Cambodia. That organization, under the more recent leadership of Don & Bridget Brewster, has further developed into one of the leading anti-human trafficking organizations.
Frank’s extensive global mission experiences have led him to be a keynote speaker at mission conferences and churches around the world. He’s also the author of the “Wheel Model: Catalyzing Sustainable Church Multiplication Movements.”
The Schattners’ global mission work is rooted in their Christian education and in their deep family roots in the Christian faith. Frank (’85) and Jan (’81) are both graduates of William Jessup University (WJU). WJU’s Founder, William Jessup, is Jan’s grandfather, and the University’s long time president Bryce Jessup, was Jan’s father. Both of these men were church leaders as well as educational leaders.
Frank also has degrees from the University of Massachusetts (Amherst), Hope International, and Biola University. He has served as adjunct faculty at WJU as well as other schools in Asia.
Frank brings his lifetime of global missions experience and international knowledge to the Board of G.L.O.B.A.L. Justice.