On September 11, 2001, the world changed.
Four coordinated terrorist attacks took nearly 3,000 lives, shook the United States, and altered international politics, security, travel, and warfare for a generation. Twenty-five years later, the consequences of that day continue to be felt around the world.
But 9/11 also changed something that receives far less attention: the way the Christian church thinks about missions.
For Christian mission agencies, churches, and missionaries, September 11 was more than a geopolitical turning point. It forced us to reconsider where missionaries go, how they get there, how they live, how we understand risk, and even what it means to “send” missionaries in an increasingly interconnected world.
Some of those changes were difficult. Others opened unexpected doors for the gospel. The muslim world came into greater focus. Long before 9/11, mission leaders were emphasizing the importance of reaching Muslims and other unreached peoples. The 10/40 Window, the AD2000 movement, Operation World, Joshua Project, and numerous mission agencies had already drawn attention to places where access to the gospel remained extremely limited.
But 9/11 brought Islam into the consciousness of the average American Christian in an entirely new way.
Suddenly churches were asking questions they had rarely considered before.
Who are Muslims? What do they believe? How should Christians relate to them? Where do they live? How many have ever had a meaningful opportunity to hear the gospel?
Unfortunately, fear sometimes became the first response.
But for many Christians, fear eventually gave way to prayer, study, compassion, and calling.
Mission agencies reported increased interest in ministry among Muslim peoples. Seminaries expanded courses on Islam. Churches began supporting workers in places that had previously received little attention.
One of the remarkable ironies of September 11 is that an attack associated with radical Islam ultimately caused thousands of Christians to take the Muslim world more seriously as a mission field.
What Satan might use to create fear, God can use to awaken the Church to people who desperately need the hope of Christ.
Security Became Part of Mission Strategy
September 11 also permanently changed the security environment for missionaries.
Missionary security was not a new concern in 2001. Christians had served in dangerous environments for centuries.
But after 9/11, security became far more systematic.
Mission agencies developed stronger procedures related to travel, evacuation, kidnapping, communications, crisis management, and political instability. Missionaries learned to be more careful about newsletters, websites, social media, locations, and the identities of fellow workers.
Terms such as restricted access, creative access, and security-sensitive field became commonplace.
That created an important tension for missions organizations.
How do we practice reasonable stewardship without allowing safety to become the ultimate value?
The Great Commission has never been a promise of safety.
Jesus told His disciples to go to the nations knowing full well that obedience would sometimes involve hardship, persecution, and even death.
The question therefore cannot simply be:
“Is it safe?”
The better question is:
“Is the risk appropriate in light of the calling God has given us?”
That remains one of the most important discussions facing mission organizations today.
Missionaries Could No Longer Ignore Geopolitics
Another consequence of 9/11 was that Western missionaries increasingly found themselves identified with Western governments.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq intensified that perception.
In many parts of the world, an American missionary was no longer seen simply as a Christian bringing the message of Jesus. He could also be viewed as a representative of American political, military, or cultural influence.
That made traditional missionary access increasingly difficult.
It also pushed mission agencies toward new models.
Teachers, physicians, businessmen, development workers, engineers, university professors, and other professionals began entering places where traditional missionaries could not easily go.
The old concept of the missionary visa gave way in many locations to legitimate professional presence and what missionaries have historically called tentmaking.
Today, business-as-mission and marketplace ministry are no longer peripheral ideas. In many parts of the world, they are essential elements of missionary strategy.
The Nations Began Coming to Us
Perhaps one of the most important post-9/11 developments has been the acceleration of global migration.
Wars, political instability, economic pressures, education, employment, and refugee movements have relocated millions of people across national borders.
As a result, people from historically difficult-to-reach nations now live in London, Paris, Toronto, Chicago, Detroit, New York, Dallas, and hundreds of other cities throughout Europe and North America.
This changes the missionary map.
For generations, churches tended to divide ministry into two categories:
home missions and foreign missions.
Globalization has made that distinction increasingly inadequate.
A church may discover that an unreached people group living thousands of miles away also has a community living twenty minutes from the church building.
The nations have come to our cities.
That means missionary preparation can begin before someone ever boards an airplane.
A future missionary to the Muslim world may begin ministry by befriending Muslim neighbors at home.
A worker preparing for South Asia may develop relationships with international students from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, or Nepal.
A missionary preparing for Africa may discover a growing African diaspora community nearby.
Global migration has created unprecedented opportunities for cross-cultural ministry.
We Began Thinking More About Peoples Than Countries
Another major shift accelerated during this era.
For much of modern missions history, missionaries tended to think geographically.
We sent missionaries to China, India, Brazil, Nigeria, or Mexico.
But countries are political boundaries.
The Great Commission is ultimately concerned with peoples.
Jesus commanded His followers to make disciples of all nations—the ethne.
A single country may contain hundreds or even thousands of distinct ethnic, linguistic, and cultural peoples.
So the strategic question changed.
Instead of asking:
“Do we have missionaries in this country?”
mission leaders increasingly began asking:
“Which peoples within this country still have little or no meaningful access to the gospel?”
That is a dramatically different question.
And it has produced a dramatically different mission strategy.
Missionaries today increasingly rely on people-group research, language data, population movements, urban migration patterns, and regional networks to determine where gospel access remains weakest.
The goal is no longer merely missionary presence.
The goal is gospel access among every people.
Indigenous Leadership Became Even More Important
September 11 also reminded Western mission agencies of something the Church should never forget:
The missionary movement does not belong to the West.
It belongs to the global Church.
Political instability can remove foreign missionaries.
Governments can deny visas.
Wars can close borders.
Mission agencies can lose access overnight.
But an indigenous church is already there.
Consequently, mission strategy has increasingly emphasized training national believers, developing local leaders, strengthening indigenous churches, and equipping near-culture missionaries.
A believer from one Asian country may be able to reach another Asian culture far more effectively than an American missionary.
An African missionary may cross cultural and political boundaries that would be extremely difficult for a Westerner.
A Latin American church may send missionaries into regions where North American missionaries face significant barriers.
This is one of the most encouraging developments in modern missions.
World missions is becoming increasingly from everywhere to everywhere.
Regional Cities Became Strategic Mission Platforms
Globalization has also elevated the importance of cities.
Major cities are gathering places for entire regions.
Universities attract students from dozens of nations. Businesses draw workers across ethnic boundaries. Transportation systems connect surrounding provinces. Refugees and migrants establish communities. Media and technology flow outward from urban centers.
As a result, a strategically located city can become a missionary platform for an entire region.
Rather than placing isolated missionaries throughout dozens of distant locations, a mission organization can establish a strong regional presence from which missionaries are trained, deployed, supported, and connected with indigenous believers.
This is one reason To Every Tribe is increasingly thinking in terms of regional platforms and missionary hubs.
The missionary question is not merely:
“Where should we place one missionary?”
We also need to ask:
“Where can we establish a healthy missionary presence that can influence an entire region?”
From that location, missionaries can reach surrounding unreached peoples, partner with local churches, develop national leaders, train new missionaries, and create sustainable gospel networks.
In many ways, this approach reflects lessons the global missions movement has been learning throughout the twenty-five years since September 11.
Mission Is Becoming More Decentralized
The missionary compound was once a familiar feature of missions.
A mission organization might own property, establish schools, build hospitals, house missionaries, operate a training center, and create a significant institutional footprint.
That model accomplished enormous good.
But the world has changed.
Modern missions increasingly requires mobility.
A missionary organization must be capable of moving people, resources, training, and leadership rapidly across regions.
Digital technology allows theological education and missionary training to cross borders instantly.
Regional hubs can provide community and accountability without requiring one massive centralized campus.
Church partnerships can provide infrastructure that once had to be owned by the mission agency.
Indigenous leaders can carry ministry forward when expatriate missionaries leave.
This is increasingly the environment in which twenty-first-century missions will operate.
The Mission Has Not Changed
Much has changed since September 11, 2001.
Travel has changed.
Security has changed.
Technology has changed.
Migration has changed.
Missionary access has changed.
The centers of global Christianity have changed.
Our strategies must therefore continue to change.
But our mission has not.
Jesus still commands His Church:
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.”
And He still promises:
“I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
The challenge before the Church is not to preserve yesterday’s missionary methods.
Our responsibility is to faithfully fulfill the unchanging mission of Christ in the world in which God has placed us.
Twenty-five years after 9/11, perhaps one of the clearest lessons is this:
Walls may rise. Borders may close. Governments may change. Wars may begin. Missionaries may be forced to leave. But the gospel continues to move.
Sometimes it moves through traditional missionaries.
Sometimes through businessmen.
Sometimes through refugees.
Sometimes through indigenous pastors.
Sometimes through university students.
Sometimes through digital technology.
Sometimes through regional missionary platforms.
And increasingly, it moves through believers from every part of the world going to every other part of the world.
At To Every Tribe, that reality strengthens our conviction that the future of missions will require biblical faithfulness combined with strategic flexibility.
Our methods may change.
Our structures may change.
Our locations may change.
But the command of Jesus remains:
Make disciples of all nations.
And until every tribe has heard, the work remains unfinished.
