God is using migration to fulfil His mission
2 April 2025
This blog was originally published in Evangelicals Now's March print edition.
There can be few topics more likely to canvass votes, generate clicks, or provoke vigorous and sometimes heated discussions than that of international migration in the world today.
And perhaps for good reason, for not many people or places are unaffected by this issue. Indeed some already speculate that the 21st century will in time be known as ‘The Century of Migration’.
The scope of movement around the world today is certainly noteworthy: British missionaries living in Uganda, Filipino domestic labourers working in Saudi Arabia, South and Central Americans joining family members in the US, Bangladeshi restaurant workers in the UK, displaced Sudanese communities in Egypt, and countless other flows of movement of men and women of all ages to and from every continent and country on earth.
The precise reasons for moving will be as varied and individual as the migrants themselves, but most will have a combination of social, economic, and environmental factors shaping their decision both to leave one place and to move permanently or temporarily to another. The modern accessibility and affordability of transport means, information, and communication facilitate these flows of people.
But it’s the sheer numbers of international, cross-cultural migrants that are without precedent in human history. The International Organisation for Migration’s 2024 ‘World Migration Report’ estimates that 281million people – 3.6% of the world’s population – currently live outside the country of their birth. Extraordinarily, this number is projected to rise almost fivefold to over 1.2 billion by 2050, an explosion driven largely by climate-related migration. A century of migration, indeed.
Christians worldwide both migrate (almost half of the world’s migrants are Christians) and receive migrants (over half of the world’s migrants move to Christian-majority countries). Missiologists such as Sam George (Wheaton College, USA) argue that this is not incidental, but rather integral to who God is and who we are as those made in His image: ‘We are created to move because we bear the image of a moving God.’ Furthermore, he argues that God in the Scriptures, through history, and in this very moment is using migration to fulfil His mission purposes in the world: ‘The migrants, displaced peoples, and diaspora communities are at the forefront of God’s mission in the world today.’ This takes place both as non-Christian migrants move to places where they can hear about and meet Jesus through His followers – often for the first time – but also takes place as Christians migrate and translate/transplant the good news of Jesus to the people, places, cultures, and contexts where they go. Given that more than four in five non-Christians globally do not know a Christian personally, migration would seem to be instrumental in God’s purposes to see that the ‘gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world’ (Matt.24:14). In short, people are moving because God is moving, and God moves when people move.
Many of us who are part of UK churches, especially in towns and cities, will be profoundly aware of how migration has in recent years dramatically shaped not only the make up of our congregations but also the forms of worship, evangelism, discipleship and preaching they undertake. Around 18% of people living in England and Wales today were born outside the UK, and many of us sit each week alongside sisters and brothers from Iran, Hong Kong, Brazil, Nigeria, India, Singapore, Kenya, and indeed every nation! There are, very clearly, abundant blessings that flow from this.
But there are challenges too. Many church leaders and members are struggling to work out how to effectively respond to all that God is calling His people to be and to do in a world that migration is changing right before our very eyes.
Many church leaders and members are struggling to work out how to effectively respond to all that God is calling His people to be and to do in a world that migration is changing right before our very eyes.
What does mission, ministry and multiplication look and feel like in our inter-cultural churches today? What could and should it look like? What sort of theological ideas and practical outworking of them will we need to cultivate to become churches that offer a beautiful and bountiful glimpse of those glorious heavenly realities of ‘a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb’ (Rev. 7:9)?
It’s crucial for Christians today to reflect Biblically, wisely, practically, and prayerfully on these questions.
Oak Hill are hosting a day conference on Tuesday 10 June on this topic of migration called: God on the Move: Migration and Ministry in the UK Today.
Book your place now at oakhill.ac.uk/move
Chris Howles is Director of Cross-Cultural Training at Oak Hill College.
