Reasons for Hope: What Mission Leaders See Opening Up

If you read the risk results and expected a gloomy mood, I have good news. The opportunity side of the survey was full of energy. Leaders chose their answers with conviction, and the pattern is encouraging.

What leaders were asked

The question mirrored the risk question. Respondents saw a list of 20 opportunities, picked up to three they believed would most strengthen or accelerate Christian mission in the next three to five years, then chose the single greatest. We defined an opportunity as a condition that could strengthen mission if we engage it proactively. For reading purposes, we grouped the 20 into eight clusters. The two largest were Collaboration & Structure (31.5% of all selections) and Leadership & Governance (24.2%). Together they account for more than half.

Partnership comes first

Regional Mission Networks, described as localized collaboration across emerging mission hubs, was the clear favorite. 42.1% put it in their top three, far ahead of anything else, and 17.7% named it the single greatest opportunity (33 of 186). One CEO in Sub-Saharan Africa put it simply: “No single individual or organization is able to achieve great things alone, networking is key to strengthen and further mission endeavors.”

I find that encouraging for a reason that goes beyond strategy. It means leaders aren’t looking for a heroic organization to save the day. They’re looking for each other.

The answer to the biggest risk

Last time we saw that Shallow Discipleship was the top risk. Now look at the three opportunities that most often took the number one spot after networks. Deep Leadership Formation, which means character-rooted discipleship and spiritual depth, was chosen by 24.2% (12.9% as number one). Next-Generation Development came in at 22.6% (10.8% as number one). Indigenous Leadership Movements, meaning Global South-led church planting and mission growth, followed at 21.6% (9.1% as number one).

In other words, the thing leaders fear most is the thing they most want to invest in. One executive in Sub-Saharan Africa wrote, “When we have transformed leaders, we will have transformed society.” Another leader, writing about the next generation, said, “A fire caught, will catch another.” That’s Paul’s instruction to Timothy in plain language: entrust what you’ve learned to reliable people who will teach others too (2 Timothy 2:2).

What Sub-Saharan African leaders added

The African leaders in our data were even more excited about the same top three. Regional Mission Networks was chosen by 48.1% (50 of 104), Deep Leadership Formation by 26.9%, and Next-Generation Development by 25.0%. About one in six (16.5%) named networks as their number one opportunity, and 15.5% and 13.6% did the same for leadership formation and the next generation.

Two other differences caught my eye. First, Truth-Driven Local Media, which covers contextual apologetics and narrative leadership, was chosen by 17.3% of African leaders compared to 4.7% elsewhere. One educator wrote that mission must “normalize apologetics as well as polemics” so evangelism has lasting impact, and that “we need to be more equipped.” Second, Decentralized Resilient Mission was named number one by 9.7% of African leaders versus 3.6% elsewhere. One leader, writing about restricted nations, explained the logic: “If one [falls], other working branches will continue to do the work.”

And one result runs the other way. Indigenous Leadership Movements was selected by only 13.5% of African leaders, but by 31.4% of everyone else. I can only guess why. Maybe when you’re living inside an indigenous movement, it feels less like an opportunity to bet on and more like the water you swim in. Treat that as a guess, not a finding. But one leader serving globally put it well: “While technology provides reach and decentralization provides security, it is indigenous leadership that provides life.”

Why I’m hopeful

Scripture gives us a picture of a church that was never meant to be centered in one place. In Revelation 7:9, people from every nation, tribe, people, and language stand before the throne. In Acts 13, the church at Antioch, led by a diverse group of prophets and teachers, sends out Barnabas and Saul together. One CEO in our survey described Polycentric Mission Leadership, meaning sending from everywhere to everywhere, this way: “Polycentric missions are the way the church was always intended to be.”

None of this happens automatically. By our own definition, an opportunity only becomes fruit when we engage it. But the picture leaders drew is of a global church that is increasingly led, funded, and sent from many places at once, and of a generation of leaders who want to go deeper before they go farther. That’s something worth being glad about.

In the final post, I’ll ask what we should do about all of it.

You can see every opportunity result for yourself on the interactive dashboard, where you can filter by role and region.

Written by Michael VanHuis, Executive Director of Missio Nexus. For more information, go to missionexus.org.