Mission Hits #72 (June 2026)
- From Every Nation (Chris Howles)
- 21 hours ago
- 8 min read
Welcome to Mission Hits, a monthly blog highlighting stimulating and significant recent resources related to world mission and world Christianity.
Welcome to Mission Hits # 72 (June 2026)
I'm delighted to present these wonderful resources to you...there's certainly plenty to get your teeth into! How might churches recover a missionary impulse? What can Pentecost teach us about empire? Why are Chinese Christians leaving China? What might gaming have to do with global mission?
Whether you're a church leader, missionary, sender, mobiliser, student of mission, or simply someone who cares about God's global gospel work, you'll find something here to encourage, challenge, and stretch you.
If Mission Hits blesses you, would you do me a favour and share it with others? Why not send one resource below to someone you think might benefit from it - and tell them where you found it!
See you again soon for the next edition,
Chris (Howles)
Director of Cross-Cultural Training, Oak Hill College (UK)
Doctorate in Intercultural Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary (US)
ESSENTIALS (if you only have time for one...)
Essential for Missionaries
Returning 'home' can be harder than leaving in the first place. Jonathan Trotter writes with warmth, wisdom, and realism about re-entry, offering practical advice for returning missionaries on grieving well, staying curious, using your cross-cultural skills, and finding hope beyond the transition.
Essential for Church Leaders
Irish missiologist Jonny Pollock offers a thoughtful challenge to church leaders by asking whether our churches are genuinely forming and sending disciples into God's world, or simply gathering people into our programmes. An excellent piece for pastors wrestling with how to cultivate a genuine missionary culture that extends to the ends of the earth.
Essential for Christians Partnering as Senders
Hannah Hagarty (writing for missionary.com) challenges the assumption that sending is second-best to going. Using Scripture and her family's own story from being supported missionaries to becoming senders, she rightly argues that senders are indispensable partners in God's mission purposes.
GENERAL (well worth your time)
Drawing on Acts 2 and the early church, Israel Olofinjana (Evangelical Alliance UK) argues that intercultural churches are not a modern innovation but a return to God's original design. He offers four thoughtful & practical suggestions for church leaders seeking to cultivate churches that don't just contain different cultures but are shaped by them.
"When I am tempted to beg my missionary children to come home, I’ve learned to be a listening ear, a sounding board, or whatever is needed in the moment. My trust in God’s ability to direct my children’s decisions and paths is paramount." Ann Bowman for 'A Life Overseas'.
Larry McCrary (Upstream Collective, writing here for Radical.net) makes a compelling case that churches should view secular vocations as a strategic sending opportunity. Here he offers 3 practical steps: teach believers to live as sent people, create multiple pathways for global engagement through work, and build partnerships ready to receive them.
AUDIO/VISUAL (podcasts & videos)
British pastor Vaughan Roberts (a main-stage speaker at both Lausanne 2010 and 2024) reflects on why questions of sexuality now sit at the heart of global mission. This is such a timely and crucial listen - highly recommended (50-min episode of the Lausanne Movement podcast)
Author's privilege! Our kids have endured their fair share of cross-cultural change over the years. In this 20-min episode of the Everyday Dadding podcast, I reflect on some of the things I think we got right...and wrong. I hope it'll be useful for parents taking their children through significant change, as well as those caring for and supporting them.
There are few better to reflect on the mega-trends we're seeing in the global mission movement today. Ted Esler (President, Missio Nexus) engages with big issues in this 48-min episode of the Global Missions podcast.
DIGGING DEEPER (challenging but rewarding)
Ted Esler (Missio Nexus) helpfully tries to cut through arguments over proclamational vs movement models of church planting by suggesting that many disagreements stem from two competing frameworks: should mission practice be limited to what Scripture explicitly prescribes, or is there freedom wherever Scripture is silent? "Leaders are often talking past one another without realizing that their disagreements are rooted in fundamentally different frameworks for how the Bible governs Christian practice."
Harvey Kwiyani argues that Acts 2 is God’s answer to Christian imperialism - a paradigm for rethinking mission beyond empire, Western control, and monocultural Christianity: "Pentecost stands as God’s judgment against every attempt to imprison Christianity inside one civilisation".
Justin Long tackles an important question. For a longer, fuller answer, see this essay he wrote back in 2019.
BOOKS (recent releases)
Links are to Amazon for best info/reviews. Other outlets are available...
Ralph Winter, Steven Hawthorne & Pam Arlund (Editors)
"A rich collection of readings that explore the biblical, historical, cultural, and strategic dimensions of world evangelization. Contributions from more than 150 mission scholars and practitioners portray the unfolding story of the global Christian movement: its roots, its challenges, and its remarkable potential for the future."
Sam George (Editor)
"A select group of global scholars who trace their ancestry to the Indian subcontinent draws insights from their migratory displacement to develop an understanding of how God is moving among people on the move and probe its implications for the profound transformation of Christian mission itself."
Jerry Slate, Steve Martin, John Miller, & David Vinson
"Both sending churches and cross-cultural church planters must possess a missiology that is both biblically sound and confessionally robust. This book was written to equip both churches and missionaries with just such a missiology. May God be pleased to raise up many biblically qualified missionaries who are sent well until the world is filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters fill the sea."
MISCELLANEOUS (varied but valuable)
New from the Lausanne Movement: "This five-part video series is designed to help believers take small but meaningful steps into God's global mission. Through biblical teaching, global insight, and intentional spiritual practices, this resource invites followers of Jesus to catch God's heart for the nations, learn from the global church, grow in prayer and friendship, and live out God's mission where God has placed them." Worth watching the 2-min intro video to find out more.
New kids book - 'From Argentina to Zimbabwe'. "This engaging A-to-Z journey introduces 26 countries across the globe. Each entry features a fun cultural fact, a carefully chosen Scripture passage, and a guided prayer for gospel work among the nations. Families can read the book in one sitting for a quick trip around the world or use it over 26 days as a meaningful devotional practice" New book for 2-6 year olds helping to teach about unreached people and world mission.
Something a little different! A Lausanne Movement panel discussion on 'Dopamine, Discipleship, and Digital Faith'. "This panel wrestles with how churches, parents, and leaders can engage gaming with wisdom rather than fear. The conversation highlights the need for Christian creativity, healthier digital spaces, and a more intentional presence where young people are already forming identity, friendship, and meaning." If the whole idea sounds baffling/far-fetched, watch this short IMB video about virtual reality evangelism
QUOTES (wise one-liners)
(1) "The miracle [of Pentecost] was not that everybody suddenly spoke one language. The miracle was that nobody had to abandon their language to encounter God."
Harvey Kwiyani
(2) "Persecution is good for people who love Jesus deeply. But it is not good for the people who love Jesus just a little bit."
(A persecuted pastor in China - as quoted by Justin Long)
(3) "If you're talking about mission, it's not possible to have a briefer text than the whole Bible."
John Stott
GLOBAL INSIGHT (critical news & trends)
Population trends explain many of today’s global realities. Youth-heavy societies are driving migration and, at times, instability, while aging nations are increasingly dependent on incoming workers. In between, some countries are experiencing a 'demographic dividend' that fuels rapid growth. These dynamics are central to how we understand global mission contexts.
Christianity Today magazine interviews the daughter of imprisoned pastor Jin “Ezra” Mingri about: the Chinese Communist Party ("They’re coming for us all"), Chinese theologies of suffering ("house churches have felt a deep sense of spiritual nourishment through quietly suffering with Christ"), and what the global church can do ("know about, stand with, suffer with, and ultimately pray with, Christians in China").
An interesting account of a trip to visit Palestine's Christians, from a US Presbyterian elder in 'ByFaith' magazine: "Despite these and other pressures, the Palestinian church is not merely surviving; it is actively proclaiming the good news of Jesus and reminding the rest of the global church what faithfulness to Christ looks like."
STATS (noteworthy numbers)
(1) Vatican City has fewer Christians than any other country in the world. SOURCE
(2) By 2100, 46% of all people under 25 are projected to live in Africa, and a further 39% in Asia. SOURCE
(3) Buddhists are the world's only major religious group whose population shrank 2010-2020 - a loss of 18.6 million (down 5%) SOURCE
ONLINE EVENTS (Zoom webinars)
The Upstream Collective's Cohorts are an excellent way to engage deeply with the biblical, missiological, and practical realities of global mission today. Bringing together online cohort sessions, personal mentoring, outstanding resources, and (for some cohorts) in-person gatherings, they offer outstanding training for missions pastors, lay mission leaders, and churches wanting to strengthen everything from missionary sending to local outreach. New cohorts begin at various points over the coming months. Well worth checking out.
Author's privilege! I'm thrilled to announce that one of my Oak Hill College courses is being opened up to join online (or, if in London, in-person). Thursdays 10:15-12:00 UK time, Feb-May 2027. £350, or free for Oak Hill College alumni: includes "how Scripture forms missionary imagination, how mission is grounded in the life and purposes of the Triune God, and how the NT and Christian history inform faithful participation in God’s work today...how globalisation, migration, and the growth of Majority World Christianity have reshaped contemporary mission…the role of the local church in sending, supporting, and partnering well."
An interesting idea! A pre-recorded 'conference' that can be done anytime over 3 days with lifetime access ("watch at your own pace and return whenever you need refreshment").. Consists of 3 keynotes, 3 workshops each day (on a wide range of topics such as spiritual direction, neurodivergence, and toxic leadership), and 1 bonus Live panel (with a Global Trellis team answering your own questions). $119
HIGHLIGHTS (Most popular from last month's Mission Hits…)
JUST FOR FUN (unrelated but interesting!)
Explore where some of humanity's biggest ideas first emerged.…Move around the world map and see which places were the first to invent/try which new ideas!
From DNA to Hyperion, the world's tallest tree, compare the size of life on earth from the smallest to the largest: "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen." (Romans 1:20)
There are roughly 8,000,000,000 grains of sand per cubic meter of beach, and roughly 700,000,000,000 cubic meters of beach on Earth. That’s 5 sextillion grains of sand. This website uses Google Earth to take you around the world showing how, and why, sand is different everywhere.
Full searchable archives of all Mission Hits resources from edition #1
Questions, comments, or suggestions for the next edition?
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