The Francis Institute

Who We Are

Living among and serving the poor. Proclaiming the Gospel. Strengthening the local Church.

We Don't Just Send Missionaries. We Raise Them Up.

The Church is missionary by her very nature. Every baptized Catholic shares in that mission—not as a select few sent to distant places, but as an entire Body called to go out.

At the center of everything we do is a simple conviction: mission takes root when the people who live in a place become missionaries themselves. A local Catholic already carries what an outsider never fully can—the language, history, culture, and relationships of a community. When we enter a new place, our goal is never to build something dependent on us. It is to form missionaries who can raise up more missionaries, so the local Church can send her own.

We form and send Catholic missionaries—singles and families—to live among the people, proclaim Christ, serve the poor, and help the local Church become missionary herself.

Our Missionary Model

How We Live Our Mission

Out of an interior life of prayer and community, every Francis Institute missionary lives out four commitments in the world.

PROCLAIMING THE GOSPEL

We don't just want to help people live better lives—we want them to know Jesus. Every visit, conversation, and act of service is an opportunity to make Christ known by name and invite people into the Sacramental life of the Church.
SERVING THE POOR

We serve the sick, hungry, lonely, and forgotten—not as a project target, but as family. When we serve the poor, Christ tells us plainly that we serve Him.
BUILDING COMMUNITY

Our missionaries live in solidarity with the people they serve—in the same neighborhoods, sharing meals on the same streets. Distance is the enemy of real love.
MAKING DISCIPLES

A missionary's task isn't finished when a mission is planted. It is finished when a local Catholic is formed, sent, and raising up missionaries of their own.

Meet Our Missionaries

Rebuild My Church

These are the words that Jesus spoke to St. Francis of Assisi in 1205 as he prayed in the rundown chapel of San Damiano. At first, St. Francis thought that Jesus was speaking about the chapel he was praying in, and so he obediently tried to repair it. But over time, St. Francis realized that the Lord wasn’t asking him to rebuild a physical church building. God was entrusting him with the great task of rebuilding the faith of the Catholic Church: the entire People of God! St. Francis faithfully lived out this call the Lord placed upon his life and brought Christ’s light to a dark world.

Today, just as it was in the time of St. Francis, the Catholic Church is in need of reformation and renewal. The Church is in need of a People of God living in the world but set apart from the world. In the footsteps of our patron, St. Francis, the words commanded to him, “Rebuild My Church,” resound through the centuries with a renewed sense of urgency in our day. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit has been so profound that it beckons us to lay aside concern for our own welfare and lives, abandoning ourselves completely to the Providence of the Father and taking up with our Lord Jesus the work of renewing His Church.