M-Moments: When Diaspora Becomes Normal
It will yet be that peoples will come, even the inhabitants of many cities. The inhabitants of one will go to another, saying, “Let us go at once to entreat the favor of the Lord, and to seek the Lord of hosts; I will also go.” So many peoples and mighty nations will come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of the Lord. — Zechariah 8:20-22
There comes a time in ministry when you realize that the world around you has changed. You can sense it in the people who walk through your doors on Sunday, and in the languages you hear in your hallways. It is a quiet awareness that the people you serve are no longer the ones you inherited. People have been moving into your church field for years. It is not that we have not noticed these changes; we just assumed they were temporary, or at least peripheral.
They were not.
We are living through a shift that is reshaping the very context in which the global church exists. The hard part is that most of us were never trained to even see it coming. I am talking about human mobility. For many of us, our instincts were shaped in a world where movement was limited and community was relatively stable. We built systems and trained leaders for that world. And now that world has changed.
A hundred years ago, the global landscape looked quite different. In 1925, the world’s population was sitting at around 2 billion.1 Although that number nearly doubled by 1950, most people (80%) still lived in rural areas or small towns.2 Cities existed, but were not the primary hubs of society or of Christianity. The strength and support of denominations and their mission agencies was found in the small rural churches.
Urban churches were certainly present, but they primarily served local, indigenous populations who shared the same language, culture, and history.
In those days, ministry assumed continuity and change was very slow. Diaspora communities existed, but were outside the typical focus of most of our churches. Cross-cultural ministry was something missionaries did “over there”. If you consider how missions was being done in those days on foreign fields, it was mostly aimed at replicating the church we knew so well back home.
By the turn of the century, our assumptions were being deeply challenged.3 Nearly half of the world’s population was urban.4 Megacities with over 10 million people had grown from two in 1950 to eighteen by 2000.5 Much of this was due to rural-to-urban movements. And while rural life was being distilled into concentrated homogeneity, cities were becoming more diverse. Globalization was becoming a buzzword, international migration was becoming more evident, and technology was advancing rapidly.6 Yet many of us continued to serve as if these were surface-level changes rather than fundamental shifts.
Overseas, mission agencies began to focus on urban contexts, but mainly through the lens of church growth instead of recognizing diaspora movements. They used homogeneous people-group strategies and non-contextual church-planting methods in increasingly multicultural contexts. It was a response to perception, not to what was actually happening. In those days, diaspora was still considered a linear process and garnered little attention. We could (and did) categorize people into definitive groups. Looking back, the year 2000 marked a turning point. We knew the ground was shifting, but we still believed we had more time.
Today, that sense of time has disappeared.
We now live in a predominantly urban world with over 33 megacities, several of which exceed 30 million people.7 Migration has reached a scale unmatched in human history. Cities are no longer shaped by a single dominant story but by layered histories of mobility. Immigrant churches abound. The few national churches that have adapted to become multi-cultural churches are thriving. Those who have not are struggling.
Looking ahead, the tension only intensifies. By 2050, about two-thirds of the world’s population will live in cities.8 Even with cautious estimates, migration will continue to increase in absolute numbers, and these populations will remain concentrated in urban areas. More importantly, second-generation and transnational realities will grow faster than any single statistic can show. Homogeneity will feel lost, and cultural diversity will seem overwhelming.
A clear example of this change is visible in one of the world’s major global cities... London. Before 1950, it was reasonable to believe that the UK was culturally and religiously British, with a church in the capital mainly serving a British congregation. That belief no longer holds true.
Today, many London neighborhoods are predominantly immigrant, with some areas having foreign-born residents make up or even surpass half of the local population.9 Hundreds, if not thousands, of immigrant churches now worship weekly across the city. There are nearly 2,200 mosques and prayer rooms spread throughout the United Kingdom.10 Since these immigrant communities tend to be younger and have higher birth rates, the gap is not shrinking. In fact, it is widening, and it is expected to grow even more over the next twenty-five years.11
What matters is that London is not unique.
A city like Atlanta, which was never a major entry point for immigrants and long assumed cultural and religious continuity, is now experiencing many of the same trends, just on a different scale.12 Large cities across the US, and the capital cities of most nations, are facing similar challenges.
If you are a pastor in an urban setting, you do not need a demographic report to see this. You notice it in your congregation. You feel it when you preach, and when you find that nearly every point of application requires a contextual review. You have Google Translate on your phone, and you use it often. Today, there are more ethnic restaurants in your neighborhood than any other. You know the pressures, and they are not getting any easier.
And this is where the weight of the moment sinks in. Most of our churches and mission structures were not built for this reality. They still speak as if “local ministry” and “cross-cultural missions” are separate callings, when in fact they now share the same streets. What I find most amazing is that many still view diaspora engagement as a specialized concern, even though it is increasingly the defining feature of urban life.
For much of the last century, diaspora ministry was considered someone else’s responsibility. It was seen as the job of missionaries overseas, academic specialists at our seminaries, or perhaps a few churches in unique contexts. Today, diaspora realities are challenging our assumptions with significant impact upon our mobilization efforts, training systems, and traditional structures. In the next generation, they will shape what is normal for most of the church’s ministry.
The question we face is not if this future is approaching, but whether we will confront it now.
Waking up doesn’t mean abandoning faithfulness. It means rediscovering it in a world shaped by change. It means listening closely to diaspora believers who have been navigating this reality for years. It means rethinking how we train pastors, start churches, and envision mission.
The time to make thoughtful adjustments is now.
If we wait, we will not be preserving the church; we will be explaining why we failed to see what was already in front of us.
1 United States Census Bureau, "Historical Estimates of World Population," United States Census Bureau, accessed January 17, 2026. https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/international-programs/historical-est-worldpop.html.
2 Copernicus, "Observer: Seven Things We Learned from the UN World Urbanization Prospects," Copernicus, accessed January 17, 2026. https://www.copernicus.eu/en/news/news/observer-seven-things-we-learned-un-world-urbanization-prospects.
3 UN DESA, World Urbanization Prospects 2025: Summary of Results (New York: United Nations, Department of Economic Social Affairs, Population Division, 2025), IX, accessed 2026-01-17, https://desapublications.un.org/publications/world-urbanization-prospects-2025-summary-results.
4 United Nations, "World Population Growth Will Occur in Urban Areas of World," United Nations Press Release, last modified 2000/03/24, accessed January 17, 2026. https://press.un.org/en/2000/20000324.pop757.doc.html.
5 Phillipi Clemens, Megacities: Pushing the Boundaries of Our Industry (Munich: Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty SE, 2016), 3, accessed 2026-01-17, https://www.internationalinsurance.org/sites/default/files/2018-04/Megacities%20Pushing%20the%20Boundaries%20of%20Our%20Industry.pdf
6 Remember, in 2000, the internet was dial-up and shared our phone lines. There were no smartphones, no social media, no real global interconnectivity. All of that has changed in just 25 years. Imagine what the next 25 will bring.
7 DESA, IX. See also The Economist, "Why Many Asian Megacities Are Miserable Places," The Economist, last modified 2025/12/11, accessed January 17, 2026. https://www.economist.com/asia/2025/12/11/why-many-asian-megacities-are-miserable-places.
8 DESA, 5.
9 Office for National Statistics, "International Migration: England and Wales - Census 2021," Office for National Statistics, accessed January 17, 2026. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/internationalmigrationenglandandwales/census2021.
10 Muslims in Britain, "UK Mosques' Directory and Development Resource," accessed January 17, 2026. https://www.muslimsinbritain.org/index.php.
11 Migration Watch, "Latest Immigration Blog," accessed January 17, 2026. https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/news/.
12 Welcoming Atlanta, "By the Numbers: Atlanta's Immigrant Community," accessed January 17, 2026. https://www.welcomingatlanta.com/by-the-numbers. See also Jennifer Hafer, “Gwinnett County | Modern-Day Melting Pot,” Georgia Trend, August 31, 2025, accessed January 17, 2026, 2026, https://www.georgiatrend.com/2025/08/31/gwinnett-county-modern-day-melting-pot/