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I recently completed a slow re-read of Philip Jenkins’ landmark book The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity. His research and observations stirred my thinking about the future of the Christian mission—especially for the Western (or Northern in Jenkins’ terms) church in which I live and serve. The future Western church will be increasingly the recipient of new missionaries from the South, and, in keeping with the global nature of God’s mission, it will continue to send missionaries.

As I read Jenkins, my missiological thinking started blending with my first “cross-cultural” ministry assignment—that of being a youth worker. Every youth worker knows how to examine the youth culture for symbols, media or music that will provide a truth or a bridge to the gospel. If Madonna or Miradona can be used like Paul used statues in Acts 17, we’ll do it.

Converging my two worlds of miss-iology and youth work, I have summarized the challenges I’ve gleaned from Jenkins with titles from a book, a movie and a song.

A book: Left Behind. As Jenkins (Philip, not Jerry) points out, the great question facing the Western church will be either survival (in Europe) or keeping up with the church from the South (in the US). Will we in the West simply be “left behind”—not in the end times, but in our church and missions? Jenkins quotes Philip Yancey and reminds us, “God goes where he’s wanted.” What will that mean in our Western world of self-sufficiency, materialism and pluralism?

The growth and energy of the church of the South presents the Western church with the question, “How can our relationships and partnerships with Christians from the South be a tool of God to help re-invigorate the Church in our post-modern society?” Could the future of short-term missions from the West be more to expose our people to the Book-of-Acts-like expansion of the Church in Southern locales, rather than to “do” cross-cultural ministry?

On the other hand, we should re-think our geographical focus for missions. What will be our response to Oswald J. Smith’s famous quote—“No one should hear the gospel twice before everyone has heard it once”? The “twice” people may be from Nigeria, Brazil or the Philippines, and the “have-not-heard-it-once” people may be down the street.

A movie: While You Were Sleeping. Jenkins reminds us that the world is changing right under our noses. Whether we agree with his conclusions or even all his data, Jenkins’ book is a wake-up call to the Western church to see the world as it really is—not merely how we’d like it to be.

For example, Jenkins observes how immigration affects Western nations. A few of us are paying attention to the cross-cultural world at our doorstep, but for most missions and missions agencies, our recruits are still primarily of European descent. These new missionaries are being recruited and trained to go “over there.”

Does the changing ethnic face of the historical sending nations call us to a radical redefinition of what missions is? The so-called “emerging generation” grows up in this diverse world, and they look incredulously at the mission recruiter who implies that all of the real needs are “over there.” Should every mission focused on reaching out to Africans, Asians or Latin Americans on their continents also train and recruit for a similar outreach to Africans, Asians and Latin Americans here?

This wake-up call is especially relevant regarding future missionaries. If Jenkins is correct that the vast majority of new immigrants to the US are already Christians, how will we missions mobilizers reach out and equip these already cross-cultural, often multi-lingual Christians to the global mission of the church?

A song: Who Let the Dogs Out? I’m referring to dogs in the New Testament sense of heretics or those who distort the gospel. In his analysis of Southern Christianity, Jenkins quickly notes that much of the growth in these regions comes with new forms of indigenous church movements that may not adhere to our Western statements of faith. Their localized theologies may be fraught with syncretism and what we Westerners consider heresies. But Jenkins also points out that our more conservative, biblical literalist brethren in the South may be the ones calling us the heretical dogs because our faith has succumbed to secularism and modernity.

What will these issues mean in our theological and missiological training? Shall we adapt an approach that lets the indigenous church work things out and gravitate back to adherence to the biblical, historical faith? Or shall we work together more so that each of our localized perspectives serves to refine the other?

Undoubtedly immense global changes lie ahead. A careful read of Jenkins, however, exhorts us to action so that the West is not left behind. It awakens us to new data that will affect our future priorities. And it calls us all to globally relevant biblical examination.

Paul Borthwick trains leaders with Development Associates International and mobilizes others toward global ministry through Urbana 2003 and Gordon College.