Metropolitan Athanasius Yohan (K.P. Yohannan)
Athanasius Yohan (K.P. Yohannan) is the founder and president of GFA World earlier known as Gospel for Asia, a large non-profit missions organization with a focus on India and Asia. He is also the founding Metropolitan Bishop of Believers Eastern Church with the religious title and name of Moran Mor Athanasius Yohan (Eastern Believers Church). Yohannan has authored over 200 books on Christian living and missions.
K.P. Yohannan was born in 1950 and raised in a St. Thomas Syrian Christian (Mar Thoma Syrian Church) family in Kerala, India. At age 8 he became a follower of Jesus. He was 16 when he joined Operation Mobilization, an evangelical missions movement, and served with them for eight years on the Indian subcontinent.
Six months into his undergraduate degree, K. P. Yohannan became an ordained clergyman and served as a clergy of a Native American Southern Baptist church for four years near Dallas, Texas. In 1979, K. P. Yohannan and his wife Gisela started an organization known today as Gospel for Asia, which resided in Carrollton, Texas until 2014, in which year it was moved to Wills Point, Texas. In the first year, they helped provide financial support and training to 24 missionaries. In 1979, he resigned from his church to devote his attention full-time to mission work. In 1981, he started a chapter of Gospel for Asia in Kerala and in 1983 created an Indian headquarter in Tiruvalla GFA supports more than 50 Bible colleges in various countries.
Brother KP’s emphasis on knowing Christ and His heart of compassion is what we love most about his teaching. We cannot truly know Jesus without feeling His compassion for the lost and needy in this world, and brother KP emphasizes those truths and implores the body of Christ to sit at Christ’s feet and hear His call to mobilize a world revolution with the gospel.
Although Gospel for Asia and Yohannan’s church have been accused of financial mismanagement which have led to controversies and government persecution, the founder of Messiah.fm trusts that brother K.P. is telling the truth about the attacks they have experienced from government entities trying to affect the work they are doing on the missionary front. The teachings from brother K.P. can prove to any true believer in Christ that he speaks from a place of deep humility and Christlike character.
