The Global Ministry Opportunity We Don’t Talk About

There is a massive gap in international ministry efforts.

It’s a category of people that organizations and denominations often overlook. While they may not fit neatly into existing categories of unreached and unengaged people groups, they nonetheless remain disconnected from the gospel and from faithful churches.

I call them UGPs. No, not UPGs (unreached people groups). Though ministry to the unreached is invaluable and shouldn’t be downplayed, I’m talking about “unengaged global people”—a different and overlooked group in need of intentional missional focus.

International International Students

Take, for example, international students. Let’s say your church in Anytown, U.S., wants to reach them. You invest money and resources at the nearest university. Makes sense. Your church also wants to send missionaries to China. So you train, equip, and mobilize workers to live among and minister to locals in Kunming or Chengdu or Guangzhou. Rightly so! But what ends up happening is that major global cities with massive universities boasting tons of internationals sometimes have no one reaching those students.

Major global cities with massive universities boasting tons of internationals have no one reaching those students.

Whereas a typical American university might have several parachurch groups working to reach college students, major universities in global cities are often entirely unengaged by gospel workers—even though the students are from countries you’d never see represented at an American university. A friend of mine once shared the gospel with five North Korean classmates in Shanghai.

Many sending churches and missions organizations (in the West, at least) have developed a blind spot because their missions focus is typically local internationals (e.g., the Congolese student at the nearby university) and international locals (e.g., the Turkish student in Ankara). But there’s incredible need and opportunity to reach international internationals.

All these groups need attention, and international strategy isn’t a zero-sum game. But we should be aware of harvest fields we’ve neglected.

Non-local Local Churches

The same black hole exists in international church planting. It’s great to invest in church planting among Thai speakers, but there’s also an expat community in Bangkok that’s overlooked and unreached. Such “international international” church-planting opportunities exist from Barcelona to Beijing, Johannesburg to Jakarta, Munich to Manila.

You could argue expats should learn the local language and attend an indigenous church. While that’s an admirable goal more overseas workers should take seriously, it’s not a reality for everyone. Many employees of global companies don’t have the time or resources for language learning past what they need to get around the city.

Missionaries can struggle for quite some time—depending on linguistic aptitude, difficulty of the local dialect, and ministry focus—to learn a language well enough to have a healthy church experience. Spouses and kids often have even less time and opportunity to learn the language. A family moving to a foreign city—whether working for IBM or the IMB (International Mission Board)—may be years away from edifying church attendance for all family members.

International churches in key global cities can stand in the gap.

Missionary and Marketplace Workers

When I pastored an English-language church in a major global city in Asia, I’d often speak about our church being composed of the missionary and marketplace communities. We had a handful of locals (primarily because we encouraged most to attend indigenous churches), but most were either gospel workers or professionals transplanted from other countries. Our ministry confused people back in the States. Why would you go to Asia to preach in English primarily among nonindigenous people?

Most of the world’s largest corporations had employees in our city. In addition, there were thousands of expat educators at international schools, universities, and English language centers to go along with hundreds of consulate and embassy workers from countries around the globe. Without a healthy local, international church, a couple of things would happen.

First, these people would likely have little access to the gospel. Second, Christians in expat populations would be without a church while in-country and leave as soon as they could—a net loss for kingdom work in our city. Our vision was to have a healthy local church so that, Lord willing, marketplace employees would enjoy healthy longevity.

The vision for our missionary members was the same. We wanted to combat spiritual atrophy by providing a local church where they could hear God’s Word preached, participate in the ordinances, and be meaningful members under the authority of godly elders. We were happy to send people to indigenous churches when they were ready to do so. But I can’t tell you how many expats told me they would’ve been spiritually “forced” to repatriate to their home country years ago had it not been for a healthy international church.

My experience working in this international ministry void—with international students, marketplace employees, missionaries, and more—is by no means unique. I know of similar work going on with these groups in the United Arab Emirates, Brazil, Singapore, Japan, and elsewhere. But while not unique, it’s massively underendorsed. I pray that UGPs will be more on our radars in the future. Indigenous and international churches both have a part to play in our obedience to the Great Commission.