M-Moments: Two Sides of the Same Coin
Therefore, those who had been scattered went about preaching the word.
—Acts 8:4
There is a great deal of discussion today about diaspora ministry. Nearly every mission conference now includes conversations about migration, globalization, urbanization, refugees, international students, and the demographic changes taking place around our churches.
Mission organizations are restructuring to understand these realities. Pastors are recognizing that the neighborhoods surrounding their churches are no longer what they once were. The world feels more connected, more mobile, and far more multicultural than at any previous point in modern history.
That is a good thing. The church needs this conversation.
Yet as I listen to many of these discussions, I sometimes feel like we are only looking at one side of the coin.
I travel extensively, and have amassed quite a collection of international currency. When I am in a distant market buying a loaf of bread, I am usually not studying the coin in my hand. I am simply trying to figure out whether I have enough to pay the price. In that moment, I seldom pause to notice the beauty, history, and culture carried on both of its sides.
Diaspora missiology is like that coin. One side is the Mission Field. The other side is the Mission Force. Most evangelicals are only beginning to understand the first side and generally are only concerned about the numbers. Far fewer are recognizing the value of the second side.
This matters because if we only see the diaspora as a mission field, we may still imagine ourselves as the primary actors and everyone else as the recipients of our efforts.
But if we begin to see the diaspora as a mission force, the entire conversation changes. We begin to recognize that God is already moving believers across borders, cultures, languages, and oceans in ways that often operate outside our traditional mission structures.
The nations have not only come near. God has also scattered His people among the nations.
A Mission Field
The Mission Field side of the coin is the easier one to recognize. The World Bank estimates there are now more than 304 million international migrants globally.1 That number is woefully inaccurate, reflecting only those who can reasonably be counted through formal systems. It does not fully capture irregular migration, weak reporting systems, or the enormous scale of movement taking place within national borders. For this reason, some observers estimate there may easily be more than one billion moving people in the world today.2
Nearly every major city has been reshaped by these realities. Peoples once considered distant now live within reach of ordinary churches. Select almost any unreached people group, and there is a good possibility someone from that background is already living in your city… or at least in the nearest major urban center with an international airport.
For generations, if you wanted to reach a particular people group, someone had to go there. In many places, that remains true. Please hear me! We must continue to follow the pattern set in Acts 13, sending missionaries to the distant harvest fields. We must continue supporting those who go to difficult places where there is little to no gospel witness. Nothing about the diaspora conversation should weaken the biblical responsibility of sending.
But another reality now exists alongside that older paradigm. The mission field has also moved toward us.
Many pastors no longer need a passport in order to encounter the nations. The peoples of the world are now living in nearby apartments, attending local universities, working in hospitals and businesses, driving Ubers, and raising children in the schools surrounding our churches.
Migration is not merely a political issue or an economic reality. It is also a missional opportunity of profound dimensions.
This means churches must learn to think differently about their communities. Cross-cultural ministry can no longer be viewed only as something that happens overseas. The nations are increasingly present within our daily lives. Churches must prepare their people to recognize this reality and engage it faithfully.
But here is where many of our conversations and strategic engagements falter. We see the diaspora as a Mission Field. What we often fail to see is the diaspora as a Mission Force.
A Mission Force
Nearly half of the world’s international migrants identify as Christian. Of course, not all are mature believers. Some are nominal. Some carry only a cultural Christian identity. Yet even conservative estimates should force us to pause and reconsider the scale of what may already be happening through the global church. Dr. Sam George has recently edited a book on this topic.
The Lausanne State of the Great Commission report estimates there are approximately 450,000 formal missionaries in the world today.4 That number includes faithful men and women serving sacrificially in difficult places across the globe. That is an incredible reality worthy of our celebration… and support.
But now place those numbers beside the broader realities of global migration.
Christian migrants number in the hundreds of millions. Even if only a small percentage are spiritually serious and missionally engaged, diaspora believers may still outnumber traditional missionaries by nearly a hundred to one.
Think about the implications of that.
Many of these believers never intended to become “missionaries.” They left home for work, school, opportunity, marriage, or perhaps even survival. Some crossed borders because of war, economic collapse, or political instability. Yet in the sovereignty of God, they now live cross-culturally among peoples their parents may never have imagined reaching.
And many do not even realize what God may be doing through them.
Over the last year, I have spent time speaking with church leaders across Europe, Africa, and Asia about this reality. I have often encouraged legacy churches to look for their spiritual sons and daughters who are already scattered among the nations. In many cases, once these young people left home, they were largely forgotten. Churches celebrated them when they departed, prayed for them when they boarded the airplane, and then slowly lost track of them altogether.
Yet many are now living in London, Paris, Casablanca, Cape Town, or Guangzhou. Some are already functioning as quiet diaspora missionaries without ever using that language to describe themselves. They are building friendships across cultures, sharing the gospel naturally in workplaces and universities, helping establish immigrant churches, enriching national churches, and navigating multicultural realities every day of their lives.5
This is where the conversation becomes deeply humbling for many of us in the West.
God is doing things through the Majority World Church that Western mission structures often struggle even to recognize. And in many cases, He is doing these things without our systems, our institutions, or our direct involvement.
I was speaking recently with a group of leaders in the United Kingdom and shared something I used to say to my son when he was younger. I would tell him, “Son, I would like your help with something. I can do it by myself… but it would be easier and more enjoyable if you gave me a hand.”
I sometimes wonder if the Lord is saying something similar to us.
God does not need Western churches or mission agencies in order to accomplish His purposes. Yet in His kindness, He invites us to join Him in what He is already doing throughout the nations.
That realization changes the role of both the church and the mission agency. Perhaps we are no longer the only point of the spear. Increasingly, our role may have matured, serving to sharpen the point the point of other spears.
Isn’t that what 2 Timothy 2:2 is all about?
“The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”
Turning the coin over means recognizing diaspora believers already in motion. It means equipping immigrant and international churches. It means training diaspora pastors and preparing believers who will spend much of their lives living between cultures. I have addressed this in a previous article.
The question is no longer simply…
“How many missionaries can we send to the harvest fields?”
Increasingly, the question may become…
“How do we recognize and strengthen the believers God has already sent?”
Conclusion
One or two generations from now, diaspora may no longer feel exceptional. It may become normal. Rather than estimating how many are in the diaspora, we may someday be trying to identify those who are not.
Our spiritual children and grandchildren will likely live in a world where mobility, multicultural identity, and transnational relationships are ordinary parts of life. They may study abroad, work internationally, marry cross-culturally, worship in intercultural churches, and raise children who naturally navigate multiple worlds at once.
Will they know how to serve Christ faithfully in that environment? Will they understand what it means to have a missional heart? Will they know how to live as scattered believers? Will they recognize the opportunities God places around them?
The coin we steward today was never intended to become a collector piece in a plastic case. It was meant for circulation. Why? Because it has value! It has a history. It tells a story. We are supposed to feel it when we put our hands in our pockets. We are supposed to invest it in things of value for the Kingdom.
Our responsibility is larger than simply ministering in today’s mission field. We must also prepare tomorrow’s misson force. That labor begins now… in our homes, churches, schools, seminaries, and discipleship structures.
And perhaps… one of the great responsibilities of this generation may be to invest in the next generation of believers who will carry the gospel through the scattered world that is still coming.
1 Dilip Ratha, Vandana Chandra, Eung Ju Kim, Sonia Plaza, and Akhtar Mahmood, Migration and Development Brief 40: Remittances Slowed in 2023, Expected to Grow Faster in 2024 (Washington, DC: World Bank and KNOMAD, June 2024), accessed May 22, 2026, https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099714008132436612/pdf/IDU1a9cf73b51fcad1425a1a0dd1cc8f2f3331ce.pdf.
2 United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2009: Overcoming Barriers: Human Mobility and Development (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), accessed May 22, 2026, https://hdr.undp.org/content/human-development-report-2009.
See also, International Organization for Migration, “Spreading Anti-Migrant Sentiment Is Endangering Lives, IOM’s Swing Warns World Leaders,” September 28, 2015, accessed May 22, 2026, https://www.iom.int/news/spreading-anti-migrant-sentiment-endangering-lives-ioms-swing-warns-world-leaders.
And, World Health Organization, World Report on the Health of Refugees and Migrants (Geneva: World Health Organization, 2022), accessed May 22, 2026, https://www.who.int/teams/health-and-migration-programme/world-reports-on-refugee-and-migrants-health.
3 From Graphic
a Martin Bell and Salut Muhidin, “Cross-National Comparisons of Internal Migration,” Human Development Research Paper 2009/30 (New York: United Nations Development Programme, 2009), 55, https://hdr.undp.org/content/cross-national-comparisons-internal-migration.
b Dilip Ratha, Vandana Chandra, Eung Ju Kim, Sonia Plaza, and Akhtar Mahmood, Remittances Slowed in 2023, Expected to Grow Faster in 2024, Migration and Development Brief 40 (Washington, DC: World Bank and KNOMAD, June 2024), accessed May 22, 2026, https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099714008132436612/pdf/IDU1a9cf73b51fcad1425a1a0dd1cc8f2f3331ce.pdf.
c International Labour Organization, ILO Global Estimates on International Migrant Workers: International Migrants in the Labour Force, 4th ed. (Geneva: International Labour Organization, 2024), accessed May 22, 2026, https://www.ilo.org/sites/default/files/2024-12/MIGRANT%20%E2%80%93%20ILO%20Global%20Estimates%20on%20International%20Migrant%20Workers_ES_E_WEB_0.pdf.
d United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, International Migrant Stock 2024: Key Facts and Figures (New York: United Nations, 2025), accessed May 22, 2026, https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.development.desa.pd/files/undesa_pd_2025_intlmigstock_2024_key_facts_and_figures_advance-unedited.pdf.
e ibid
f UNESCO, “Higher Education,” accessed May 22, 2026, https://www.unesco.org/en/higher-education.
g World Bank Group, “Urban Development,” accessed May 22, 2026, https://www.worldbank.org/ext/en/topic/urban-development.
h World Bank, “Urban Population (% of Total Population),” World Bank Open Data, accessed May 22, 2026, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS.
i World Bank Group, “Urban Development,” accessed May 22, 2026, https://www.worldbank.org/ext/en/topic/urban-development.
See also, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, “68% of the World Population Projected to Live in Urban Areas by 2050, Says UN,” May 16, 2018, https://www.un.org/en/desa/68-world-population-projected-live-urban-areas-2050-says-un.
j World in Data, “Urbanization,” accessed May 22, 2026, https://ourworldindata.org/urbanization.
k United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, World Urbanization Prospects 2025: Summary of Results (New York: United Nations, 2025), accessed May 22, 2026, https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.development.desa.pd/files/undesa_pd_2025_wup2025_summary_of_results.pdf.
4. Pew Research Center, “The Religious Composition of the World’s Migrants,” August 19, 2024, accessed May 22, 2026, https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2024/08/19/the-religious-composition-of-the-worlds-migrants/.
5. Kwiverr, “Not All Who Go Are Sent: A Research Report on the Missionary Preparedness of African Christian International Students, Past and Present, from 116 African Nations” (Accra, Ghana: Kwiverr, 2022), cited in Yaw Perbi, “Mobilizing African Christian International Students for Global Missions,” in Africans in Diaspora and Diasporas in Africa, ed. Bulus Galadima and Sam George (Carlisle, UK: Langham Global Library, 2024), 63.