From the Missions Library

Why Diaspora

10 voices from missions research on the most strategic opportunity of our generation. The nations didn’t wait for us to go. They came.

The traditional model of missions sends workers across oceans to reach unreached peoples. It costs tens of thousands of dollars per worker per year. It requires visas, language school, years of cultural adaptation. And in many countries, it is now illegal.

Meanwhile, those same unreached peoples have moved — to New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas. They opened restaurants. They enrolled in universities. They joined your gym. The mission field relocated itself into your zip code.

This is not our opinion. This is what the research says. Here are 10 voices from across the missions world making the same case.

01
“Opportunities for the gospel are in many ways enhanced when people move across borders.”
Terry McGrath & Victoria Sibley-Bentley
“Mission to, through, and from Diaspora: Foundations and Demonstrations Drawn from International Student Contexts”
Mission Round Table 12.2, OMF International (2017)
People uprooted from their home culture are more open to new ideas, new relationships, and new faith. The disorientation of immigration creates a window of spiritual receptivity that does not exist at home.
02
“The mission field is no longer only over there. It is there, and here, and constantly moving.”
Andy Smith
Review of “The Human Tidal Wave: Global Migration, Megacities, Multiculturalism, Pluralism, Diaspora Missiology” (ed. Sadiri Joy Tira)
Mission Round Table 12.1, OMF International (2017)
Global migration has dissolved the geography of missions. The traditional distinction between “sending countries” and “receiving fields” no longer holds. Every city is both.
03
“The reality of demographic trends of diasporas in the 21st century requires a different missiological paradigm from which new mission strategies and action plans can be developed.”
Enoch Wan
Institute of Diaspora Studies
Interview on Diaspora Missiology, DJ Chuang (2017)
The old paradigm — go there, learn the language, plant a church — is not wrong. But it is incomplete. The new paradigm adds: they are already here. Reach them where they are, and you reach the world through them.
04
“Of those who consider or respond to the claims of Christ while overseas, only 20% or fewer continue to follow the Lord after returning home. When we think of the opportunity presented to us through diaspora ministry, this statistic is frankly appalling.”
Carolyn Kemp
“Multi-dimensional Discipling for Diaspora Communities: Partnership between Host Church, Ethnic Church, and Parachurch Organizations”
Mission Round Table 12.2, OMF International (2017)
The opportunity is enormous — but so is the waste. Without deep discipleship and partnership with ethnic churches, 80% of diaspora conversions evaporate. Reaching is not enough. Keeping requires partnership.
05
“Imagine what would happen globally if 10 percent of the 130,000 plus international students in New Zealand came to know Christ… That would be equivalent to the sending of 400 missionary units each year for lifetimes of service.”
Terry McGrath & Victoria Sibley-Bentley
“Mission to, through, and from Diaspora”
Mission Round Table 12.2, OMF International (2017)
New Zealand has 130,000 international students. The US has 1.1 million. If the same math applies, reaching 10% and discipling 10% of those would produce 3,400 missionary units annually — more than most denominations send in a decade.
• • •
06
“Japanese people are definitely more open spiritually in Australia than when in Japan. We could almost never casually invite a Japanese friend to church in Japan. But we have found it relatively easy to do so here.”
Greg & Shireen Seymour
“Discovering New Opportunities with Diaspora Returnee Ministries”
OMF International (2018)
Japan is one of the hardest mission fields in the world — less than 0.5% Christian after 150 years of missionary effort. But Japanese people in diaspora are dramatically more receptive. The same person, different context, different openness.
07
“Diasporas are, doubtless, a global irreversible phenomenon with significance for every local church in the world… it is especially crucial in Christian missions today.”
Seth Bouchelle
Review of “Scattered and Gathered: A Global Compendium of Diaspora Missiology” (ed. Sadiri Joy Tira & Tetsunao Yamamori)
Missio Dei Journal 12.2 (2021)
This is not a trend. It is not a phase. Global migration is accelerating, not slowing. Every local church will eventually need a diaspora strategy — the only question is whether they develop one now or scramble for one later.
08
“Any Evangelical local church, denomination, or Christian institution that is indifferent toward this theo-graphical historic moment in regards to diaspora missions is already failing regarding the Great Commission.”
Elias Medeiros
“Local Churches in Missional Diaspora,” in “Scattered and Gathered: A Global Compendium of Diaspora Missiology”
(ed. Sadiri Joy Tira & Tetsunao Yamamori, 2020)
Not an accusation — a diagnosis. If the Great Commission means reaching all peoples, and those peoples now live within driving distance, then indifference is not neutrality. It is failure.
09
“29% of the world’s population are considered unreached — that’s over 2 billion people with little access to a church, a believer, or a Bible. Among East Asia’s peoples, over 667 million are still unlikely to meet a follower of Jesus.”
OMF International
“Diaspora 5x5x5 Prayer Guide” (2021)
667 million unreached in East Asia alone. But millions of East Asians now live in Western cities. The 52,000+ POIs on this map represent the physical footprint of those communities — restaurants, stores, and cultural centers where real relationships can begin.
10
“If an English-speaking congregation is planning to be involved in China — the largest mission field with one of the most receptive peoples of the 21st century — it is strategic to enter into partnership with a neighboring diaspora Chinese congregation to empower their church members to reach their own kinsmen.”
Enoch Wan
“Diaspora Missiology: Theory, Methodology, and Practice”
Institute of Diaspora Studies
The most strategic missions partnership is often the one across town, not across the ocean. An American church partnering with a local Chinese church to reach China is cheaper, faster, and more culturally fluent than any sending agency model.

The Math Is Simple

Sending a missionary overseas costs $50,000–$100,000 per year. It takes 2–4 years of language study. It requires a visa that may be revoked. And in countries like China, Saudi Arabia, and North Korea, it is impossible.

Reaching a diaspora community costs a tank of gas. The language barrier is lower — many speak English. The visa is irrelevant — they’re already here. And in many cases, the person you reach will go home and plant a church in a country you could never enter.

Diaspora missions is not a replacement for traditional missions. It is its most strategic complement.

The 52,149 locations on this map are not data points. They are doors. Walk through one this week.

Sources

  1. McGrath, T. & Sibley-Bentley, V. “Mission to, through, and from Diaspora.” Mission Round Table 12.2, OMF International (2017)
  2. Smith, A. Review of “The Human Tidal Wave.” Mission Round Table 12.1, OMF International (2017)
  3. Wan, E. Interview on Diaspora Missiology. Institute of Diaspora Studies (2017)
  4. Kemp, C. “Multi-dimensional Discipling for Diaspora Communities.” Mission Round Table 12.2, OMF International (2017)
  5. Seymour, G. & S. “Discovering New Opportunities with Diaspora Returnee Ministries.” OMF International (2018)
  6. Bouchelle, S. Review of “Scattered and Gathered.” Missio Dei Journal 12.2 (2021)
  7. Medeiros, E. “Local Churches in Missional Diaspora.” In Scattered and Gathered, ed. Tira & Yamamori (2020)
  8. OMF International. “Diaspora 5x5x5 Prayer Guide” (2021)
  9. Wan, E. “Diaspora Missiology: Theory, Methodology, and Practice.” Institute of Diaspora Studies
  10. Missions Library Corpus. 245 sources, 238M words. Frontier Commons (2024–2026)
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