Dr. Alfonse Javed, the Senior Pastor of 1st Baptist Church of Metuchen, has planted a church abroad, has been a missions pastor and has served as a missionary in Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan.

Born in Lahore, Pakistan — the son of a pastor — Pastor Javed began serving in church at a young age. He has served as a missionary in Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan. He has also planted a church in Greece.  In the 1990s, a providential relationship formed when Calvary Baptist Church started supporting his ministry efforts.  Eventually, in 2009, he moved to New York with a new vision — mobilizing churches to engage Muslims in the NYC metro area.

Dr. Javed’s advanced theological training is from the Greek Bible College, Davis College and Liberty University. He has earned three undergraduate, three graduate, and three doctoral degrees. His dissertations have explored various subjects from religious influence on the American school system to evangelism and church planting, to Islamic madrases and the treatment that Muslims students have received in the post 9/11 New York City school system. He maintains a blog, www.alfonsejaved.com, and is the author of The Muslim Next Door: A Practical Guide for Evangelism and Discipleship.  Dr. Javed and his wife, Sarah, have four children.

Global Gates is a missionary organization focused on reaching the ends of the earth through gateway cities — cities that attract international communities through which the gospel of Jesus Christ can extend globally, even to regions that may be closed to foreign missionaries.

Chris has been involved in pioneer church planting among unreached Muslim people in New York City, as well as, rural and urban West Africa.  He is also the author of Superplan: a journey into God’s story and ethNYcity: The Nations, Tongues, and Faiths of Metropolitan New York.  Chris lives with his wife Nichole and their three children in New York City.

Dr. Fadia Farag was born into a Coptic Christian family in Egypt. She earned a degree from the Medical College in Cairo and worked as a successful pediatrician, married and has two children. She moved to the US in 1990 and later continued her medical career doing genetic research at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.

Throughout that time, she saw miraculous healing in her family and her own body and was moved to trust deeply in God’s leading. She began to lead a group from Times Square Church in Muslim outreach on the street but did not see fruit from street debates and instead steered the group into deeper prayer. In 2003, she felt called to co-found a teaching center for immigrants. The Brooklyn Arab-American Friendship Center opened in 2004 in Bay Ridge within five kilometers there are 16 mosques and Islamic centers.

The Friendship Center offered free ESL classes and a variety of other physical, emotional and spiritual supports, especially to Muslim women. In the last 15 years as executive director, Dr. Fadia has seen healing, revelations and redeemed lives.

Her theme is “Love never fails” (1 Cor. 13:8). Dr. Fadia has also led the Times Square Church translation ministry for over a decade, overseeing 40 translators and 8 languages. She is a guest speaker at NYC churches and the Heart for Muslims Conference.

In his pastoral role, Jerry oversees more than a dozen ministries worldwide ranging from church plants to a ministry that serves children who live on the street.  Since 2000, he has led International Ministries with Brooklyn Taberbacle’s multicultural congregation and began the church’s Global Mission Ministry.  The ministry provides prayer support, organizes teams and has equipped hundreds of believers for mission trips throughout the world.  The teams support local ministries’ community outreach: medical clinics, English classes, computer classes, and children and youth programs.

In 2006, Jerry founded World Compassion Fellowship, a non-profit organization which holistically serves the poor and the persecuted around the world.  It partners internationally to provide relief, medical care, development and training.  Current projects include serving Syrian refugees, Iraqi refugees and families in need of medical care in Lebanon.

As an associate pastor of Bethel Gospel Assembly in New York City, Pastor Robinson has been involved in disciple-making efforts in India, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, South Africa, Venezuela, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and several islands in the West Indies. Through involvement with Evangelism Explosion International as a teacher/trainer, he has been able to help many believers become effective witnesses at home and abroad. His involvement with Perspectives on the World Christian Movement includes serving as a class coordinator and an instructor of classes throughout the USA. In December 2019, he completed his Doctor of Missiology (Applied Intercultural Studies) with the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary.

In 2009, Dr. Robinson helped plant Living Water Christian Center, a bilingual French and English congregation, affiliated with Bethel Gospel Assembly which serves the spiritual needs of the growing number of French-speaking West African immigrants in New York City.

Dr. Robinson and his wife, Beverly Lynn, reside in the Harlem community. Together, they give leadership to the Married Couples Ministry of Bethel. They have two married adult children, Michelle and David, who are both followers of Christ, one grandson along with many spiritual sons and daughters.

Valerie A serves as the Northern Mid-Atlantic Area Director for International Students Inc (ISI).  Additionally, she serves as adjunct faculty for Alliance Theological Seminary (ATS) in the areas of Missions and Evangelism and does Emotional Intelligence coaching for the Center for Emotional Development.  She served as a chaplain at New York University for 14 years where she founded the English Connections program for international students.  She has earned both a BS and MS in Biblical Studies, and a Doctorate of Ministry in Leadership in the Global Context.   Her current role involves oversight and development of staff, as well as providing training for ministry partners/volunteers.  She desires to connect missional believers with opportunities to serve and reach international students.  Valerie’s free time is spent with family (4 nephews, 2 nieces), and involvement in her hobbies which are vocal performance, travelling, reading, and British mystery shows.