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.

Introduction

Following Jesus in many parts of the world is not merely a private matter but a public risk. There are reports of increased persecution for both cross-cultural workers and converts alike.  From abductions in eastern Africa, forced army conscriptions in the Horn, to violent deaths at the hands of fundamentalists across other parts Africa, all carry the tale of changing times and a reality that cannot be ignored.

Open Doors in its annual World Watch List for 2026 reports that 338 million Christians are highly persecuted or discriminated against for their faith. The report further notes that of the top 50 countries where Christians live under pressure for their faith, 20 are from Africa with five of the top 10 countries domiciled in Nigeria, North Africa, and the Horn. The Religion of Peace reports at least 42 terror attacks with 388 deaths and 153 injuries in eight African countries between 20 July and 18 August 2026 (The Religion of Peace). Voice of the Martyrs on the other hand, describes ministry in restricted and hostile countries where Christians may face opposition from governments, extremist groups, families, or communities. These realities remind mission workers that persecution is not an unusual interruption to mission — it is often one of the contexts in which mission takes place.

Persecution in a mission context

Persecution is pressure, hostility, discrimination, exclusion, intimidation, or violence directed towards followers of Christ, gospel communicators, and those who identify with the church or serve Christian communities. Instigators may be government authorities, militant religious groups, family systems, community leaders, employers, neighbours, or even criminals exploiting anti-Christian hostility. Voice of the Martyrs (VOM) describes “restricted nations” as areas where government-initiated circumstances or anti-Christian laws lead to harassment, imprisonment, killing, or deprivation of possessions or liberties, while “hostile areas” are areas where Christians are routinely persecuted by family, neighbours, or political groups because of their witness. Causes may include fear of conversion, nationalism, religious extremism, suspicion of foreign influence, social shame, economic jealousy, or resistance to gospel influence in family and community life.

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

Missionaries should expect that opposition may accompany faithful witness. Jesus warned his disciples that they would be sent like sheep among wolves, and the early Church learned that suffering could scatter witnesses rather than silence them. Yet persecution must never be romanticized. Persecution is painful, sometimes preventable, 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, and mission workers need to understand the culture, local laws, religious sensitivities, community power structures, communication and its security implications, travel, discipleship, church gatherings (in context), 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?”

Forms of persecution mission workers may experience

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 includes pressure in private, family, community, national, and church life and workers need to prepare for more than one type of threat. It may be economic, such as 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 violent and 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.

Preparing before persecution comes

Theology

Missionaries and senders should teach a biblical understanding of suffering, witness, perseverance, loving your enemy, lament, wisdom, and hope. Workers ought to understand that suffering does not imply abandonment by God and that seeking safety is not necessarily cowardice; neither is retreating 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, train workers in digital security, agree on evacuation thresholds, and clarify who makes decisions in an emergency. Mission preparation should be informed by reliable local and regional information rather than assumptions (Open Doors International; The Voice of the Martyrs). 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 judgments. The worker, according to Willie Crew, must prepare for all eventualities.

Responding when persecution comes

Prayerful assessment

Our primary response, when persecution comes, must not be panic but a prayerful assessment. Verify what has happened and who is at risk, seek local believers’s 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. The decision should be made through prayer, counsel, local wisdom, security realities, and concern for the whole body of Christ.

Counselling and care

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. Rhodes’s treatment of ministering to those who suffer for Christ supports the need for pastoral care that addresses the whole person rather than treating persecution only as a strategic ministry problem (Persecution in Missions). 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

The worker should be prepared for cross-cultural ministry through a comprehensive training curriculum for 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 Centre’s Live School Curriculum and Matt Rhodes’s Persecution in Missions: A Practical Theology, focused on suffering, risk, pastoral care, when to flee or face risk, and the danger of romanticizing persecution.

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 where all ambition, hopes, and dreams are entrusted. Jesus is worthy of both our life and our death. 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.

Works Cited

Open Doors International. “Complete World Watch List Methodology.” Open Doors International, Oct. 2024, www.opendoors.org/research-reports/wwl-documentation/complete-WWL-Methodology-October-2024.

Open Doors International. “World Watch List 2026.” Open Doors International, 2026, www.opendoors.org/en-US/persecution/countries/.

The Voice of the Martyrs. “Global Prayer Guide.” The Voice of the Martyrs, www.persecution.com/globalprayerguide/.

Rhodes, Matt. Persecution in Missions: A Practical Theology. Crossway, 2026. Crossway, www.crossway.org/books/persecution-in-missions-tpb/.

The Religion of Peace, “List of Killings in the name of Islam in the last 30 days, https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/attacks/attacks.aspx?Yr=Last30 accessed on 19 August 2026.

Crew, Willie. “Process of Preparation,” Live School Curriculum, World Mission Centre, www.worldmissioncentre.org.