EMQ » April – July 2025 » Volume 61 Issue 2
Summary: The growth of the church in the Majority World and its decline in traditional sending countries is causing significant changes in mission. This has created challenges and opportunities. It raises questions that we don’t yet have answers for. But some foundations of evangelical mission remain unchanged: Christ still compels us to go to those who have no opportunity to hear about him. This issue explores the priorities and means of doing this in today’s world.
By Evelyn Hibbert
Mission is changing.
It is changing for one major positive reason. The Church has grown phenomenally where it did not exist 250 years ago. The churches of the Majority World are now sending missionaries and, wonderfully, they are usually doing it in ways that suit them best. Not surprisingly, their approaches to mission reflect the spread of believers during Acts.
Sadly, there is also a major negative reason for change. This is the decline of traditional sending churches in the Minority World. This means there are fewer missionaries from these countries. Insights from mission have not helped reverse this decline in church membership.
Much has not changed. Christ still compels us to share his love with those who have no opportunity to hear. Yet most missionary work focuses on Christians. Money, unequal access to resources, and imbalance of power plague intercultural relationships. Language and culture learning are still a challenge.
We can lament these changes, or we can rejoice in the opportunities they present. We can rise to the challenge of learning new ways of doing mission. We can learn from others’ experience and experiments. And we can mature in our ability to work with people from different backgrounds.
In this issue, we especially focus on the urgency of finding answers to the challenges to how we have been doing mission. We explore the difficulty new mission movement members have fitting into older sending organizations, taking a special look at the Mainland Chinese mission movement. We query whether there is still a place for Western churches in missions today. We look into online evangelism and the role of addressing people’s needs face-to-face. After analyzing missionaries’ distribution and considering ways all Christians can do mission, we reflect, with Frontiers, on the changes they have made since they began four decades ago.
This conversation does not finish with this EMQ issue. I encourage us all to keep thinking about these things and sharing our experiences. My hope is that we can make EMQ a mission learning community. Using comments, letters, or articles, we can interact, continuing to reflect on our experiences.
Share short, informal responses as comments posted below the articles on the EMQ website. Communicate further thoughts, agreeing, disagreeing, extending, or taking the conversation in new directions through carefully prepared “Letters to the Editor” (maximum 400 words). Letters can also raise new issues. Email these letters direct to the Editor. Articles, even on previous issues’ topics, are always welcome. Submit these using the form on the EMQ website.
Each issue will focus on a specific topic that is practically relevant to evangelical missions today. But it will also include articles exploring other topics. For example, in this issue, we look at discipling women from Muslim backgrounds, caring for missionaries, working out whether to stay or leave, and a personal reflection on the cost of being physically present.
I look forward to learning with you as, together, we explore what it means to do mission in today’s world.
Evelyn Hibbert
Editorial Director
EMQ, Volume 61, Issue 2. Copyright © 2025 by Missio Nexus. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from Missio Nexus. Email: EMQ@MissioNexus.org.
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