EMQ » April – May 2026 » Volume 62 Issue 2
Summary: Jesus’s coming was whole-of-life. Yet often, when thinking of the gospel, we focus just on words. Thinking of the wholeness of salvation alerts us we always have more to learn. Openness to things we have not previously encountered or thought of is critical for effective missionary work. No doubt, more challenges will come that we are not yet aware of. But Jesus is the answer. He will show us how to live holistically for him wherever we are.
By Evelyn Hibbert
Jesus’s coming was whole-of-life. In the same way, his followers are to pass on his salvation every hour of every day, throughout their lives. Yet often, when thinking of the gospel, we focus just on words. But words are spoken by people, with bodies, in specific geographical contexts. What we don’t say can speak much more loudly than our words.
Thinking of the wholeness of salvation alerts us we always have more to learn. We each have blind spots in our understanding of what God has done and is doing for us. We are human and limited. History gives us many examples of what previous generations did not realize but which have become blindingly obvious today.
Openness is critical for effective missionary work — openness to learning, openness to change, openness to different understandings of the world. This openness helps us to be alert for challenges to our understanding. These can include the way God sees us, how other people interact with him, and the state of the world he has entrusted to our care.
Holism is not just a discussion about words and deeds. It reminds us there are biblical answers for what we have not yet thought of. It highlights our incomplete understanding. We need to be ready to learn from people who see the world differently.
Some articles in this issue might make us uncomfortable. We explore healing the wounds of trauma (Hill), dimensions of healing beyond science (Ritchie), and the impact of culture on mental health (Locke). Regarding relief work, we discuss prioritizing relationships (Bagley) and finding a balance between saving souls and physical lives. Terry Jackson stresses the priority of relationships and not getting distracted by the resources we offer. For evangelism, Soo Min Park reminds us of the riches of salvation Jesus offers, beyond the one or two dimensions we usually focus on. Work as ministry is raised (Sharp), as is the issue of climate change and immigration (Kimiti, Kimiti, and Ratcliff).
We also explore stress in urban ministry (White) and the difficult question of funding missionaries versus national workers (Klingsmith). To round out this issue we look back into the past to the monastic values of study and simplicity and consider how to apply them today (Smither).
All authors are writing about issues and challenges they are facing in day-to-day cross-cultural ministry. Because of blurring between overseas and home ministry, Christians at home also face these same issues.
No doubt, more challenges will come that we are not yet aware of. But Jesus is the answer. He will show us how to live holistically for him wherever we are.
Plagiarism Apology and Statement
In December 2025, we were alerted to instances of plagiarism in “Mission Leadership of Transformation in a World of Complexity” (Issue 57:4). We investigated this and learned that although the author of the article named the sources that he cited, he did not properly acknowledge his use of their words by placing them in quotation marks. We apologize to the authors who were quoted without acknowledgement – L.T. Baker, T.E. Beck, David Byrne, Gill Callaghan, Gary Grobman, M. Kulkarni, Russ Marion, Bill McKelvey, D.A. Plowman, S.T. Solansky, D.V. Travis, and Mary Uhl-Bien.
This article has been corrected in the EMQ archive. We have also alerted ATLA, an external academic database that distributes EMQ articles.
EMQ does not tolerate plagiarism. New AI tools make it possible to check all articles submitted to EMQ for plagiarism and AI use. However, the plagiarism check is not as sensitive as a human reader familiar with the sources. These checks are now part of the process of preparing all articles for publication. Hopefully, this means, from this issue onwards, these types of errors will be identified and dealt with before publication. EMQ does not publish articles that have been published elsewhere previously, contain plagiarism, or have been written by generative AI.
Evelyn Hibbert
Editorial Director
EMQ, Volume 62, Issue 2. Copyright © 2026 by Missio Nexus. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from Missio Nexus. Email: [email protected].
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