articles-section-emq, EMQ, Volume 61 - Issue 3

Called Again: Veteran Missionaries and the Unfinished Task

July 10, 2025

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EMQ » Jul – Sept 2025 » Volume 61 Issue 3

Summary: Claude Hickman of The Traveling Team is quoted as saying, “Reaching the world with the gospel is not a resource problem, it is a mobilization problem.” In this article, I challenge my colleagues to consider leaving their established work in countries with gospel presence and moving to the least-reached countries and people groups of the world. This missionary mobilization is only possible through education, evaluation, and a growing conviction that we may be the ones best suited to the task.

By David Smith

I had just participated in a missions conference, challenging several hundred East African pastors to engage in the harvest outside of their own culture and context. Many readily committed to participating in sending their own to people groups in lesser reached areas through the newly formed sending cooperative. They also agreed to establishing missions giving in their churches. It was a great meeting. Before leaving the region and returning to our ministry in North Africa, I heard repeated testimonies about the maturing East African church with gifted leaders and hundreds, if not thousands, of multiplying congregations. Faithful local men and women were writing helpful articles and books, producing podcasts, and receiving invitations to challenge the church in American and other Western nations. But a nagging question stuck in my mind. As I visited with my missionary colleagues in the East Africa region, I wondered, “Why are you still here?”. Some of these faithful servants have called this place their home for three or four decades. They have raised their children there. They have well-established lives. They have worked hard to proclaim the gospel and establish multiplying churches. Now there are multiple Bible schools and seminaries, not to mention clinics, feeding programs and orphanages. When, I questioned, is the missionary’s task complete and the time come for the missionary to move on?

In a recent EMQ article, my friend and colleague, Dr. Richard Lewis, asks a question: “What’s Gone Wrong with the Harvest?” Why, 2,000 years after Christ’s Commission, are nearly half of the world’s population yet to hear the gospel message?[1] One reason, he points out, is that “Most Christian missionary efforts (around 97%) focus on regions or populations already exposed to Christianity in some form.”[2]

What would happen if missionaries around the world, serving in places where gospel knowledge is widespread, would consider their work accomplished and re-deploy to take the gospel to the unreached? Is this not the pattern that we see established by Jesus and the New Testament apostles? When did we abandon the practice of missionary itinerancy? When did we lose this pioneering emphasis as missionaries? It is time to challenge one another to return to a ministry of taking the gospel to the least reached, being willing to leave our places of service where the church is maturing and strong. This is one way to fix what has gone wrong with the harvest.

I, myself, served in East Africa for 27 years. I enjoyed a wonderful and fulfilling ministry of evangelism and discipleship, training up local men and women for ministry. Our ministry included church planting in city and village contexts, establishing a Bible institute, building a youth camp, and founding an orphanage and school. But something happened when my wife and I began making trips to North Africa and the Middle East to visit friends. God used those trips to open our eyes to the world of the least reached in the 10/40 Window.[3] We would return to East Africa under great conviction, full of troubling questions. Our established churches and ministries were being led by local men and women who were competent and maturing. The gospel was present and proliferating. Was there still work to be done? Of course. Were there still isolated regions and people groups in need of the gospel? Absolutely. But the church was growing and on the move. Local believers were faithfully leading ministries with a vision for multiplication. “What about those regions void of a gospel witness?” we asked ourselves. “What about those 7,400 people groups where there is no community of believing Christians to evangelize their people?”[4] As we wrestled with these questions, we felt compelled to respond. This led us to eight years of ministry in the Middle East, followed by our present ministry in a North African country.

Pioneer mission work is challenging. For us, it meant starting all over again. It was hard leaving our life and ministry of 27 years. We loved the people. We had acquired the language. East Africa had become our home. The very thought of starting over again, learning a new language, and adopting a new culture was intimidating, especially in our 50s. But how could we ignore the plight of the unreached? How could we remain in the population of 97% of missionaries going to people who already have access to the gospel when the need is so desperate in the unreached world?[5] David Platt, in his article, Great Commission Statistics That Should Concern Us, calls this the Great Imbalance. He states, “surely more than 3% of missionaries in the church should go to the over 3 billion people who never hear the Gospel.”[6]

The Biblical Pattern

Jesus and the apostles were itinerant proclaimers of the gospel, who operated with a sense of responsibility to take the message to places where it had not yet reached. Jesus, our master example, told those who desired for him to linger, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out” (Mark 1:38). He went throughout all Galilee in his brief three years of ministry, to an estimated 204 cities and villages.[7] The Apostle Paul felt compelled to take the message to new regions. It was his ambition, he said, “to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named” (Romans 15:20). Once there was a nucleus of believers and an embryonic local church, the apostle moved on to territory not yet reached. He continued the ministry of discipleship in previous places through follow-up trips and letters, entrusting the work to local men and women as they were led by the Holy Spirit. Some critics would accuse these early church planters in Acts and the Epistles of leaving too soon; leaving behind messy, infant churches that struggled with issues of immorality, carnality, and doctrinal heresy. Few, however, would accuse them of staying too long.

Granted, we are not living in the days of the early church and the apostles. Our work of taking the gospel to the least reached looks different today. It is often fraught with challenges that the early sent ones never faced. In some places, leading men and women to a saving knowledge of Christ, discipling them toward maturity, and establishing local churches that are sustainable and reproducing often takes years, even decades, of hard work. It necessitates acquiring the language, learning the culture, and investing much time. But, once this is accomplished, is it not time to consider moving on to other people groups and places bereft of the gospel?

The Opportunity Before Us

Experienced, veteran workers know the challenge of entering a new context with the gospel. They have, most of them, done the hard work of acquiring a new language and adjusting to a new culture. They are experienced in evangelism, discipling new converts, and establishing local churches. They have faithfully endured the ups and downs of missionary life and work. They are, in many respects, accustomed to sacrifice, surrender and spiritual battle. Who are better equipped to accept the challenge of frontier missions?

According to recent estimates, the number of evangelical missionaries in countries of the world where more than 2% of the population are Evangelical Christian and the church is established is a staggering 343,000.[8] If only half of these workers would look toward the unreached and unengaged people groups of the world, the impact would be remarkable and immediate. Not only would they help meet the immediate need for workers among the least reached, but they would also pave the way for others to follow, serving as examples and mentors to new families and teams. In both the Middle East and our current location in North Africa, it has been our privilege to serve as mentors and trainers for some quality young families and singles. They have expressed great appreciation for this mentoring relationship.

Steps Towards Relocating

For my wife and I, moving to the 10/40 Window began with education. That led to an honest evaluation, which resulted in a growing conviction. The end result was relocation.

Education

It is easy to read about the unreached or hear the statistics about the unengaged. What shook us to the core was to walk the streets of major city centers totally void of a gospel witness. We visited missionaries in places where there was no church. We experienced sharing Christ with people who had never heard of Jesus. We spent time in places surrounded by millions of people who knew nothing of the gospel They would likely live and die without ever meeting a Christian. This first-hand exposure to the unreached caused us to return to our field of service with a different perspective.

Evaluation

Stepping back into our life and work, we began to take an honest look at the spiritual climate through a different lens. We were struck by the growing number of churches. We noticed billboards and banners advertising revival meetings. We became keenly aware of competing Bible training centers and schools run by various evangelical groups. We turned on the radio to hear gospel songs and visited bookstores with shelves full of Christian materials. Certainly, our ministry had room for expansion and there was still much work to do. But, spiritually speaking, returning to our country felt like stepping out of a dark cave into blinding light. For the first time in a long time, we took an honest look at the gospel work being done in our country and the potential for it to continue, with or without our presence.

Conviction

We began to pray through the challenging questions that came. Should we continue ministry here, where gospel light exists, while entire people groups and nations are living in darkness? Has our comfort in the culture and language convinced us that this is where we should remain? How could we possibly move to another field when our sending church and supporters have sent us here? Surely, we reasoned, others would respond and go to the least reached. But try as we might to rationalize our continued presence and ministry, the image of millions in darkness burned in our minds.

Relocation

God made it clear that He was calling us to change. It was both exciting and desperately intimidating, much like the first time we moved overseas. A move at this stage of life would mean a surrender of the identity and professional proficiency that we had developed through the years. It would mean starting over, as learners, in a challenging language and radically different culture. It would call for a different ministry paradigm and methodology. In every way, God was leading us into a move of faith, trusting Him with the new and the unknown. Oddly, as we shared our plans with our local brothers and churches, they understood. No, they were not eager for us to leave, but they too were touched by the call of the unreached. In fact, it was our joy to see many of our established churches in East Africa get behind our move and commit to praying for us as their missionaries and sending financial support.

A Closing Challenge

Claude Hickman of The Traveling Team is quoted as saying, “Reaching the world with the gospel is not a resource problem, it is a mobilization problem.”[9] As we obey the command of Christ and pray for the Lord of the harvest to send more laborers into the harvest, let us consider that he may have already answered our prayer. Perhaps the issue here is not only the number of available laborers, but the locations to which laborers are being sent. I encourage sending churches and sending organizations to initiate dialogue with their veteran missionaries, calling them to consider relocating to the least-reached people groups and nations. And I challenge my colleagues to consider the great door of opportunity that lies before us. Let us consider our unique position, qualifications, training, and experience. Let us educate ourselves on the current state of the harvest. Let us take an honest look at our current fields of service and the presence of the gospel. And may we be sensitive to the voice of the Spirit and go as he leads.

Author biography

Dr. David J. Smith has been an overseas missionary for 38 years, serving in Kenya, Tanzania, Lebanon, and North Africa. He and his wife currently serve as coaches and mentors to new teams in the North Africa region. Dr. Smith also teaches online in the Global Studies Department of Liberty University School of Divinity.

[1] The Traveling Team, “Needs of the World: The Harvest is Plentiful, the Laborers are Few,” accessed April 17, 2025, https://www.thetravelingteam.org/articles/the-harvest-is-plentiful-the-laborers-are-few.

[2] Richard Lewis, “What’s Gone Wrong with the Harvest,” Evangelical Missions Quarterly 61, no. 2 (2025): 53, https://missionexus.org/the-harvest-problem/.

[3] Jeremy Koering, “What is the 10/40 Window?,” Nations Outreach Blog, March 4, 2024, accessed February 11, 2025, https://nationsoutreach.org/blog/what-is-the-10-40-window/.

[4] The Joshua Project, “Has Everyone Heard?,” accessed February 9, 2025, https://joshuaproject.net/resources/articles/has_everyone_heard.

[5] Caleb Maglaya Galaraga, “Lausanne Report: Most Missionaries Are Reaching the Reached,” September 25, 2024, accessed January 30, 2025, https://www.christianitytoday.com/2024/09/lausanne-missions-state-great-commission-christianity-polycentrism/.

[6] David Platt, “Great Commission Statistics that Should Concern Us,” accessed February 12, 2025, https://radical.net/article/great-commission-statistics-concern/.

[7] Randy Ingermanson, “Around Galilee With Jesus,” Randy Ingermanson’s Blog, November 15, 2019, accessed February 12, 2025, https://www.ingermanson.com/around-galilee-with-jesus/.

[8] The Traveling Team, “Mission Stats: The Current State of the World,” accessed February 12, 2025, https://www.thetravelingteam.org/stats.

[9] The Traveling Team, “Mission Stats: The Current State of the World.”