Preparing for and responding to persecution – shorter version

Summary: Persecution isn’t a rare interruption to mission work — it’s often part of the terrain. Paul Achilles offers a practical guide for preparing before it strikes and responding wisely, safely, and faithfully when it does, from crisis planning to long-term aftercare.

Following Jesus in many parts of the world is not merely a private matter but a public risk. From abductions in eastern Africa, forced army conscriptions in the Horn, to violent deaths at the hands of fundamentalists, persecution affects cross-cultural workers and converts alike. These realities remind mission workers that persecution is not an unusual interruption to mission – it is often one of the contexts in which mission unfolds.

Persecution and mission workers

For mission workers, persecution includes pressure in private, family, community, national, and church life, and workers need to prepare for more than one type of threat. Persecution may be social, such as rejection, gossip, isolation, loss of honour, or pressure from family and community. It may be legal or administrative, such as a visa denial, interrogation, restrictions on gatherings, forced registration, fines, deportation, or closure of ministry activities. It may be economic – loss of employment, denial of services, eviction, theft, or targeted financial pressure. It may be digital, including surveillance, hacking, doxing, misinformation, or monitoring of contacts. It may be physical, in the form of threats, kidnapping, assault, imprisonment, or martyrdom. It may also be spiritual and emotional: discouragement, fear, anger, temptation to compromise, or compassion fatigue after caring for suffering believers. Persecution often leads to trauma, financial loss, disrupted ministry, risk to local believers, and moral confusion about whether to stay, flee, speak, remain silent, forgive, or seek justice.

What missionaries should know

Jesus warned his disciples that they would be sent like sheep among wolves. The early church learned that suffering could scatter witnesses rather than silence them. Yet, persecution must never be romanticized. It is painful and often falls most heavily on local believers who cannot depart as easily as expatriate workers. Wise mission practice must hold together courage and caution, faith and planning, proclamation and pastoral care.

Situational awareness is key. Mission workers need to understand the culture, local laws, religious sensitivities, community power structures, communication and its security implications, travel, church gatherings, social media, and partnership with local believers. The key question is not only, “Am I willing to suffer?” but also, “How can I love local believers wisely so that my actions do not create unnecessary danger for them?”

Preparing before persecution comes

Theology: Missionaries and senders should teach a biblical understanding of suffering, witness, perseverance, loving your enemy, lament, wisdom, and hope. Suffering does not imply abandonment by God, and seeking safety is not necessarily cowardice. Neither is retreating an attrition. Scripture includes both bold witness (Acts 14:19-20) and strategic withdrawal (Acts 9:25). Matt Rhodes frames suffering within a practical theology meant to help missionaries endure hardship without losing gospel hope (Persecution in Missions: A Practical Theology).

Planning: Mission agencies and churches should conduct risk assessments, create crisis response plans, identify legal and medical support, establish secure communication protocols, agree on evacuation thresholds, and clarify who makes decisions in an emergency. Mission preparation should be informed by reliable information rather than assumptions.

Families need child-safety plans, schooling contingencies, counselling access, and honest conversations about fear, calling, and limits. Workers should build local friendships and have cultural informants, learn culture deeply, avoid unnecessary provocation, and develop rhythms of prayer, rest, accountability, and trauma care.

Beyond celebrating grace stories, senders should provide pastoral care, financial support, practical advocacy, informed prayer, and long-term support for workers who suffer. Leaders should prepare congregations to respond without panic, blame, gossip, or simplistic judgements.

Responding when persecution comes

Prayerful assessment: Our primary response must not be panic but prayer. Verify what has happened and who is at risk. Seek local believers’ guidance and the immediate protection needed. Do not communicate sensitive information widely. Use agreed secure channels, document incidents carefully, and contact assigned leaders, legal counsel, and crisis support. Assess both the immediate incident and the wider pattern of pressure around it.

Safety and security: Prioritize people over programmes. Protect vulnerable believers, children, local partners, and staff before trying to preserve ministry activities. Where appropriate, pause public work, change meeting patterns, relocate temporarily, or reduce visibility. Listen carefully to local Christian leaders; they often understand the risks better than outsiders.

Love like Jesus: Respond as a disciple of Christ. Refuse revenge, dehumanizing speech, and reckless defiance.  Pray for persecutors, tell the truth, seek justice where possible, and entrust ultimate vindication to God. Some situations call for public advocacy; others require quiet endurance. Some call for staying; others call for leaving. These decisions should be made through prayer, counsel, local wisdom, security realities, and concern for the body of Christ.

Provide aftercare: Persecution can leave deep wounds even after the immediate danger passes. Workers may need medical care, trauma counselling, debriefing, rest, help with re-entry, financial support, and space to grieve. Ministering to those who suffer for Christ requires pastoral care that addresses the whole person rather than treating persecution only as a strategic ministry problem. The goal is not simply to get the missionary back to work but to help the whole person heal and continue faithfully.

Recommended resources and trainings

Workers should be prepared through a comprehensive training curriculum for their theological and missiological grounding, prayer and spirituality, cultural and ethnographic understanding. Helpful resources include Open Doors’ World Watch List and prayer materials, The Voice of the Martyrs’ Global Prayer Guide, World Mission Centres Live School Curriculum and Matt Rhodes’ Persecution in Missions: A Practical Theology.

Final encouragement

Preparing for persecution is not preparing to be afraid; it is preparing to be faithful. Mission workers do not seek suffering, and they should not expose others to needless danger. But neither should they be surprised when costly witness is required. The worker’s prayer is a surrendered life in the hands of Jesus. The worker must combine prayer, wisdom, pastoral care, and endurance. The Church’s task is to send wisely, support deeply, respond practically, and keep pointing suffering servants to Christ, who suffered, rose, reigns, and will one day wipe away every tear.