The UK as both mission field and mission force

“Mission on our doorstep” is a phrase we’ve heard again and again over the last decade. The idea is simple and observable: record numbers of migrants (whatever their motivation – economic, educational, political, etc.) have been streaming into the United Kingdom, and we only need to step out our front gate to see that people from all over the world are choosing to make a life for themselves alongside ours.

Because of migration, cross-cultural mission has never been easier. The mission field is literally next door.

If we look a little more closely, however, we’ll see something even more exciting: missionaries on our doorstep.

I recently spent some time in Kenya interviewing Kenyan mission leaders. Over and over, they said to me, “We are so grateful to British missionaries for bringing the gospel to us. They faced many hardships, but they persevered, and now we want to give back.”

The simple truth is that in Kenya and other African nations, Europe is considered the primary international mission field.

The secularisation of Europe – including the UK – is no secret, and the growing and deepening Church in the Global South is heeding the call to make disciples in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth just as enthusiastically as the Brits did in the great mission movements of the 19th century.

Now, we in the UK have the privilege of being both a missionary sending-nation and a missionary-receiving nation.

At Pioneers, we are continuing to send British and Irish missionaries to hard-to-reach peoples and places around the world. At the same time, we are partnering with, empowering, and sending diaspora Christians (those living outside their country of origin). Several diaspora Christians are currently in our sending pipeline – some preparing to serve amongst the unreached outside of the UK and some preparing to minister to the many unreached peoples living within our borders.

But our sense of calling to equip diaspora Christians for mission goes beyond funnelling people through the Pioneers pipeline. What about the missionaries on our doorstep, ready to make Jesus’ name known in our streets and marketplaces, simply because that’s what all of His followers are called to do?

Pastor K's story

Over a decade ago, Pastor K was commissioned to be a missionary to London by the Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN), a large and growing Nigerian church network which was planted by our Mission in 1904. The aim was to evangelise indigenous white British people, bringing them back to Christianity.

Despite his best efforts, Pastor K quickly discovered that none of the evangelistic techniques he had used successfully in Nigeria achieved the desired result amongst the Brits. He didn’t know how to proceed.

Many mission-minded migrants from Christian nations find themselves in the same position. They’ve come to the UK believing that if we are followers of Jesus, we are also missionaries, and yet British culture seems so impenetrable, they simply don’t know how to connect.

The Culture Bridge course is one way we’ve sought to address that conundrum.

Born out of Pastor K’s experience in London, The Culture Bridge is aimed at equipping diaspora Christians with a greater understanding of the British culture, for the sake of the gospel. The mission fields of the 19th and 20th centuries have yielded an abundant mission force that has already arrived next door whether or not we’ve realised it. At Pioneers we’re excited about walking beside them as they carry the name of Jesus to those who need to hear – in London, Aberdeen, Cardiff and the ends of the Earth.

To find out more about The Culture Bridge, visit www.pioneers.org.uk/culture-bridge