Throughout his career, Brother Van founded churches, universities, and hospitals; he converted and ministered to homesteaders, miners, and Native Americans; he worked with the elites and the poor, the famous (C.M.

Initially, he sought to work among the new cowboys that were exploiting with cattle the open grass ranges left after the decimation of the vast buffalo herds.

Artist Charles Marion Russell remembered those early years when he first met Brother Van at a ranch in the Judith Basin in central Montana, "These men who knew little law, and one of them I knew wore notches in his gun, men who had not prayed since they knelt at their mother's knees, bowed their heads while you, Brother Van, gave thanks.

Van Orsdel founded over one hundred churches in northern and central Montana, but his greatest contribution was the establishment of public institutions including hospitals and universities.

In 1890, with Van Orsdel's leadership, the Methodist church established Montana Wesleyan University in the Prickly Pear Valley near Helena.