To help clarify, challenge, and encourage church leaders (and their churches) towards missional effectiveness, it may be helpful to consider three modes of mission as embodied by the Petrine Mission (1 Peter 2:9–12), the Johannine Mission (John 20:21), and the Pauline Mission (the life of Paul). 

Christians are charged with taking the gospel to all nations, and therefore inevitably work in cross-cultural situations. But the current prominence of English as an international language creates potential problems in our approaches to missions and to communicating the gospel. 

I write as a follow up to Gene Daniel’s important contribution on shahada confession, which appeared in the July 2014 issue of EMQ. The author notes that among Christian missionaries “there is disagreement about whether a believer in Christ can, with a clear conscience, say the second half, that Muhammad is his [God’s] messenger.”

McGavran was a prolific writer of letters, articles, and books, as well as a world traveler. No one, to my knowledge, has visited as many mission fields, conducted as many interviews, or researched the growth and decline of Christian churches as widely as McGavran. He influenced mission theory and practice internationally and the movement he started continues to move forward, empowered by appreciative followers.