By Kelly Seely

Across Europe, many churches pray faithfully for workers.

We quote Jesus’ words in Luke 10:2.

We schedule prayer reminders.

Some even pray at 10:02 a.m. as a daily rhythm.

“Lord, send workers into your harvest.”

And yet, something uncomfortable happens when God actually does.

Over the last years, as partnerships with South America and emerging hubs in East and Southeast Asia have developed, a quiet resistance has surfaced in many European contexts. Not theological resistance. Practical resistance.

Concerns about language.

Questions about culture.

Unspoken anxieties about economics, education, pace, and fit.

Sometimes the resistance is polite.

Sometimes it is spiritualized.

Sometimes it is fear dressed up as discernment.

But the result is the same.

We pray for workers.

And then hesitate when God sends them.

The Workers God Sends Are Rarely the Ones We Expect

This is not new.

The New Testament church was constantly disrupted by the kinds of workers God chose to send.

The Jerusalem church struggled to imagine Gentiles as full partners.

Jewish believers wrestled with cultural practices they found unfamiliar.

Economic differences caused tension.

Language barriers were assumed, not solved.

And yet, the gospel moved forward not in spite of these tensions, but through them.

The early church did not grow because everyone was culturally aligned.

It grew because the Spirit created a new kind of family that crossed boundaries people had previously guarded.

The Kingdom was modeled as it was preached.

Europe’s Barriers to Receive Today

Europe’s hesitation to receive missionaries from the Global South and Asia Pacific is understandable. But it is not neutral.

Europe is shaped by:

• Post-Christendom reflexes

• Institutional fragility

• Scarcity of resources

• Deep cultural self-awareness

• A long memory of colonial history

All of that produces caution. Sometimes healthy caution.

But caution can quietly become control.

The question is not whether differences exist.

They do.

The question is whether difference is treated as a threat or as a gift.

What Workers from the Global South Actually Bring

When missionaries come from South America, East Asia, or Southeast Asia into Europe, they do not arrive as problems to be solved. They arrive as formed witnesses.

Many have:

• Learned faithfulness without visibility

• Operated without cultural dominance

• Assumed sacrifice as normal

• Lived the gospel in minority contexts

• Navigated authority without power

• Speak multiple languages

These are not deficiencies.

They are deeply apostolic qualities.

They stretch European churches not because they are unqualified, but because they expose how narrowly we sometimes define readiness.

Why This Makes the Work Richer, Not Harder

Multicultural teams do not make mission easier.

They make it truer.

They force:

• Clearer communication

• Slower decisions

• Shared dependence

• Mutual submission

• Deeper discipleship

They dismantle the myth that mission belongs to the most resourced or articulate.

They embody the gospel rather than merely explaining it.

When Brazilians serve alongside Germans, or East Asian believers alongside Europeans, the church becomes visibly transnational. The message and the medium align.

That alignment is not cosmetic.

It is theological.

The Gospel We Preach Requires the Kingdom-Mindset We Live

The New Testament does not present mission as culturally comfortable.

It presents it as a Spirit-created unity across real difference.

The church is not a collection of optimized specialists.

It is a reconciled people.

If we pray for workers but refuse to receive them when they do not match our expectations, we are not protecting the church. We are reshaping it in our own image.

And that is always dangerous.

From Ownership to Stewardship

Mission does not belong to Europe.

It does not belong to Asia.

It does not belong to South America.

It belongs to God.

We are stewards, not gatekeepers.

Receiving missionaries from other regions is not charity.

It is submission to the Lord of the Harvest who sends out workers into his harvest..

It is a recognition that God is building something larger than any one culture, network, or strategy.

What This Means for the Future of Mission in Europe

If Europe is to become a true sending and receiving region again, it will not happen through better plans alone.

It will happen when churches and mission organizations:

• Receive workers they did not choose as true co-workers

• Share authority rather than preserve it

• Allow the gospel to reorder comfort

• Trust that God knows what His harvest needs

The future of mission will not belong to those who prayed the most accurately.

It will belong to those who welcomed the workers God actually sent.