The Risks Mission Leaders Are Watching, and What Africa Is Telling Us

Last time I compared our results to the World Economic Forum’s global risk list. This time I want to slow down and look at the risks themselves, because the details matter.

What leaders were asked

Respondents saw a list of 20 risks, each with a short description. For example: “Information Disorder: disinformation, AI-generated content, deepfakes, ideological polarization, narrative manipulation.” They picked up to three they believed were most likely to disrupt Christian mission over the next three to five years, then chose the one that worried them most.

People saw one flat list. To make the results easier to read, we grouped the 20 risks into seven clusters. Here’s how they break down, along with each cluster’s share of all the top-three selections.

Cluster	Risks in it	Share of selections
Geopolitical	Geopolitical Fragmentation, Authoritarian Expansion, Religious Restrictions, Mobility Restrictions, Global Power Realignment	35.3%
Theological & Spiritual	Shallow Discipleship, Theological Fragmentation, Scripture Access Gaps	19.7%
Economic	Economic Volatility, Donor Fatigue	13.5%
Agency & Church	Leadership Succession Gaps, Corruption & Abuse, Dependency & Paternalism, Agency Capacity Weakness	12.1%
Technological	Information Disorder, Digital Surveillance	11.2%
Societal	Cultural Hostility, Identity & Sexuality Shifts, Urbanization & Displacement	6.9%
Environmental	Climate Disruption	1.2%

The Geopolitical cluster is largest partly because it holds five risks. Shallow Discipleship is the biggest single item by a wide margin.

What rose to the top

Across all 190 responses, six risks stood out. Shallow Discipleship was in 40.0% of top-three lists and named number one by 25.3%. Geopolitical Fragmentation followed at 36.3% and 14.5%. Then came Authoritarian Expansion (28.4%), Religious Restrictions (27.9%), Economic Volatility (22.6%), and Donor Fatigue (18.4%). Everything else was below 18%.

The African perspective

104 of our 190 respondents serve in Sub-Saharan Africa, with the largest group living in Ghana (over 40 people), followed by Nigeria, Zambia, Burkina Faso, and others. That gave us a rare chance to ask what changes when you look at that group on its own and compare it to everyone else. Four things stood out.

Discipleship is an even bigger concern. 46.2% of Sub-Saharan African leaders put Shallow Discipleship in their top three, and 30.1% (31 of 103) named it their number one risk. Among all other respondents, 19.3% did. These leaders are not pessimistic about the church. Several pointed to its growth. They’re worried about what growth hasn’t produced. One field leader wrote, “there are so many Churches and Christians, but the impact of Christianity is not seen in the society.” Another put it bluntly: “if we fail in the first task, then we have failed altogether,” meaning the task of making disciples. A field worker described new believers as infants who need milk before they can handle solid food, and said too many of us leave them to fend for themselves.

Pressure on the church’s freedom and reputation is felt more sharply. Religious Restrictions was chosen by 33.7% in Sub-Saharan Africa versus 20.9% elsewhere. Cultural Hostility was 15.4% versus 4.7%, and Corruption & Abuse was 13.5% versus 5.8%. A mobilization leader wrote that restrictions on religious freedom “hinder genuine faith by replacing conviction with obligation.” On corruption, another wrote, “If our conduct does not reflect Christlike character, I doubt we’ll have any witness at all.”

Funding and succession are worries about the future. One field leader explained, “Much of mission-driven funds for Sub-Sahara Africa come from the West. With declining Western funding the risk is that indigenous mission-work shall be greatly limited.” On Leadership Succession Gaps, 16.3% of leaders in the region included it, and a field missionary asked the question many of us should be asking: “who will carry the baton?”

One risk was ranked lower. Information Disorder showed up in top-three lists at similar rates (16.3% in Sub-Saharan Africa, 19.8% elsewhere). But elsewhere, 12.0% ranked it their number one worry (10 of 83). In Sub-Saharan Africa, only one person out of 103 did. The concern is shared, but it isn’t the first thing keeping these leaders up at night.

Why this matters

The risk at the top of this list isn’t a policy problem or a travel problem. It’s a calling problem. Jesus’ instruction was to make disciples, not only converts, and leaders on the front lines are telling us that gap is the thing they’re most afraid of. That’s hard to hear. But leaders also told us where they see hope, and that’s what the next post is about.

If you want to dig into the risk results yourself, explore the interactive dashboard and filter them by role and region.

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