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The Majority World Christian Leaders Conversation (hereafter, MWCLC) conference was a significant gathering of about 115 theologians, missions practitioners, missiologists, and pastors from the Majority World. The Majority World, at least for this event and in this context, refers to Africans, Asians, Latin Americans, and Middle East/North Africans (MENA).

Introduction

While people from these regions represent a large portion of the Majority World, someone observed that Francophone Africans were missing in the room and conversation. Neither was the Oceania region represented. The conference also had fewer from the Caribbean. Nevertheless, the global diversity was evident in the styles of prayers, language of prayers, intercultural worship, and how Bible study was conducted, and plenary sessions were delivered.

The MWCLC first convened in 2016 with a group of leaders who were friends, from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the MENA region. From then on, MWCLC developed as a missiological movement with distinct chapters in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the MENA region facilitated by a facilitation team in each region.

The theme of the conference in Dubai was “Rethinking Christian Faith and Mission: A Majority World Conversation”. The aim of the conference was to give space for Majority World Christians to reflect without Western influence and develop their own agency around global mission. They recognised that, despite the statistical data demonstrating that the majority of the Christian population is now in the Majority World, Western expressions of Christianity continue to maintain dominance through theology, methodology, finances, and infrastructure. The result being, that many Majority World Christians continue to follow the modus operandi of Western missions and church models, whether they realise it or not.

Against this backdrop, the identity (or more precisely colonially-affected identity) of many Majority World Christians becomes necessary, if not crucial, to interrogate. The role of the Holy Spirit in empowering and developing local missiology as opposed to heavy reliance on organised mission external to a context, with their emphasis on bureaucratic administrative and management requirements, also becomes important.

If the Majority World mission is going to be Spirit-driven and not admin-driven, then the formation of active disciples and their reliance on the Holy Spirit for their development, sustenance, and empowering becomes essential for the advance of global missions. The MWCLC conference therefore addressed four themes of: Identity, Holy Spirit, Mission, and Discipleship.

Identity and Colonisation

A major concern repeated during the conference was how colonisation has shaped the identity, discipleship, and mission of Majority World people. From a Latin American perspective, Maria Alejandra Andrade Vinueza, an Ecuadorian theologian who works for Tearfund, drawing on the work of decolonial thinkers in Latin America, highlighted four ways of how coloniality impacts us.

1. Coloniality of power, which refers to how, since the conquest (both Southern and Western European colonisations), a world order based on race and economy has been imposed.
2. Coloniality of knowledge, which has to do with the way in which European scientific knowledge is privileged as the only form of knowledge that is valid. Another way of framing this is called “epistemology as power”.
3. Coloniality of being, pointing to how the humanity of colonised peoples was denied. Where the colonised peoples’ language, culture, and dignity as human beings has been suppressed.
4. Coloniality of belief, which points out how European Christianity was imposed as the only true religion. Not just over/against other religions but as the only valid (i.e. “true” or orthodox) interpretation of the gospel and scripture.

While the conversation on colonisation and the need to decolonise missions was discussed, what was not properly addressed is how colonisation functions differently in different regions and what a contextual decolonised missiology might look like in each region. For example, Palestinians are wrestling with (re)settler colonisation by the descendants of people who have been away from the land for multiple generations.

Africans continue to wrestle with the legacies of enslavement and European occupation (and enduring influence), Latin Americans with the conquering of their continent by the Conquistadors through Spain and Portugal and the blended populations that now inhabit those lands, and wider Asia through partitioning and imperialism of European empires, both similarly and differently to Africa, with lingering economic implications. If they were present, people indigenous to North America, Oceania, and Northern Europe might have contributed similarly to the conversation.

Fragmented Identities

Throughout the recent history of European colonisation, which most of the time is also the history of Western missions in the Majority World, Majority World identities became fragmented. This is an inherited impact of colonisation. Fragmented identities occur through European languages, tribal divisions, religious divisions, and socio-economic divisions. An ongoing consequence of this is that sometimes Majority World missions is fragmented and divided to the extent of duplication and competition due to different allegiances (e.g. linguistic, cultural, doctrinal). Collaboration becomes problematic because everyone wants to build their own empire and silos.  

Homogenised Identities

One of the goals of European and, now, North American colonisation is to cast the rest of humanity in its image. Part of that process means Majority World humanity, with distinctive characteristics revealed in languages, traditional religions, tribes, castes, socio-economic backgrounds, needed to be reconfigured in a new homogenised European or North American identity. It is therefore no surprise that today in many Western contexts, a single migrant from a particular diaspora could be called upon to represent the entire Majority World on a board, council, executive team, or as part of a church’s leadership, and so on. Little thought is usually given as to whether or not that person is put forth by their community. More often than not, the selection is made by Western leaders as regards who they feel they can best “work with” (who might be the most compliant, and/or Western in their thinking). As part of our decolonial process, we must continue to speak up and challenge this attempt to stereotype and homogenise Majority World Christians and peoples as if we are all the same.

Divide and Conquer Syndrome

On the other hand, in order for Europe to conquer different parts of the Majority World, one of the key strategies employed was the principle of divide and rule. While homogenisation is convenient at one level, amplifying division has its own uses. Promoting ethnic division in different regions was done by capitalising on tribal conflict, religious conflict, other violence, and socio-economic strata. My observation is that this divide and rule syndrome has impacted Majority World missions to the extent that we are now recolonising each other in our own image in our missions enterprise—with each Majority World ethnicity demanding we all do missions their way. With this, we have basically replaced European imposition with different Majority World preferences.

Holy Spirit

It will be remiss to have a Majority World conversation on missions and ignore the role of the Holy Spirit in God’s mission. A Majority World missions conference without pneumatic theology is never going to feel complete. This does not, however, mean that there is a common agreement on the work of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit, because there is diversity in our pneumatic theology and experiences. 

Pentecostal and Reformed Theologies

What theological tradition shapes and informs Majority World theology the most? If 70% of global evangelicals are in the Majority World does that mean they draw heavily on Western evangelical theologies—Reformed theologies for example? It will come as no surprise that the expression of Christianity that has blossomed in the Majority World through extraordinary signs and wonders is Pentecostalism, rather than the doctrinally-heavy liturgies of Luther, Calvin, Knox, or the like. The question therefore is: is the evangelical Majority World theological framework being shaped more by Western reformed theologies or the more pneumatic theologies of world Pentecostalism? Where they are influential in the Majority World, Western theologies were introduced into these contexts through Western evangelical movements. They are transplanted (often non-negotiably wholesale) from the West to the rest.

Pentecostal theology, on the other hand, whilst having North American and European roots and routes into the Majority World, arises more indigenously within a Majority World context, because of the indigenisation of Christianity in those contexts. In this regard, we can think of the African Indigenous Churches and indigenous Pentecostals in Africa (AICs), in the Caribbean we can reference the Jamaican Revival of 1860-1861, in Asia, the Mukti Mission in India from 1905-1907, and the Korean renewal movement from 1903 (Pyongyang 1907). Whilst some of these renewals have a foreign element, they also have an indigenous development.

If Pentecostal theology, therefore, has an indigenous element in its emergence in the Majority World, should it not be the defining theological framework in the Majority World? My observation is that this is not the case. More often, what is central to a Pentecostal theology is deemed to be “secondary” to the acceptable theology of missions and other global evangelical contexts. Yet, both established (read: US/European) Protestant theologies and emergent Pentecostal theologies need to be embraced as each expression of Christianity in the Majority World develops their theological framework with biblical fidelity. 

A related issue and perhaps a concern is that Western evangelical theology, with its point of historical departure from Roman Catholic Christianity being the European Reformation, cannot and should not be the overarching theological framework of Majority World theologies—developed in a very different context from Western Europe. Whilst Majority World theology is understandably influenced by evangelical Western theology, Majority World Christians must go beyond the European Reformation for theological expressions that are authentic to their contexts. Some aspects of Majority World Christianity originate in ancient Christianity such as the Coptic Church in North Africa or the Indian Orthodox church in Asia. Majority World Christianity must also draw its theological resources and formulation from Christianity that is more ancient than European Protestantism.

Managerial and Pneumatic Missiologies

Seelan Govender, of Operation Mobilisation (OM), Director of OM ships, a participant at the conference, posed a reflective question… When does the spiritual gift of administration become the decision maker in a missions enterprise? It is very easy to conclude that managerial missiology is Western and pneumatic missiology is Majority World, except things obviously never that clear-cut. There are many Majority World missions organisations that are very good at managerial missiology and, equally, there are many Western missions movements that are very good at pneumatic missiology.

It would be wrong to stereotype that managerial missiology is a strong point of only Western missions and missionaries, and that pneumatic missiology is a strong point of Majority World missions and missionaries. But perhaps, the challenge is, which one defines our methodology to the extent that it cripples the other? In this light, there are some Western missions entities that solely rely on the bureaucratic organisation of missions with little room for the Spirit to disrupt things. In similar vein, there are African, Asian, and Latin American churches and organisations that rely solely on the spontaneity of the Spirit to the extent that they are not planning properly and managing procedures effectively, resulting in much avoidable cost (and not just financial).

One of the table discussions highlighted that perhaps of more concern is how managerial missiology can be manipulated by some Western mission movements in its attraction and use of resources, personnel, administration and processes to the extent of exerting colonial control and creating unhealthy dependence. The conversions concluded that we definitely need both good administration and a willingness to follow Spirit-led spontaneity if Majority World missions is going to fully mature.

Discipleship

Suffering is normative in the missionary task. So, a question arises: how significantly are our discipleship models and paradigms driven by numbers and evaluations that hide failure and suffering in order to be more attractive to funders? Are we becoming success-driven? Too often our discipleship models and paradigms have been reduced to a step by step process on how to grow churches or plant churches rather than focused on day to day living and doing life with people that leads to the flourishing of their humanity.

Our discipleship models can too easily become exploitative, seeing people as statistics, as part of metrics and data to measure our success and growth; or using them to fulfil the goals of the church more than their individual flourishing as a disciple. What is success after all, and how ought we to define success in ministry? Our models of discipleship must therefore be re-imagined in light of the flourishing of people and their communities as opposed to training them just to replicate institutional church growth and church planting.

Again, the managerial and pneumatic missiology comes into sharp focus here as regards how we grow and measure discipleship. The role of the Spirit in leading followers of Jesus into suffering contexts as part of their maturity-in-Christ process, cannot be underestimated or ignored in our discipleship models, neither can we ignore the role of the Spirit to prepare well followers of Jesus for their contribution to God’s mission that may require sacrifice and involve suffering. In essence, both pneumatic and managerial missiology are needed to make effective disciples who embrace a theology of suffering but are also well prepared for experiencing a context of suffering.

Missions

The discussions on missions (our participation in God’s mission) centred on looking at missions from the different vantage point of the Majority World. This raised a lot of questions about contextual missions and how the various contextual theologies have engaged the realities of the various regions.

A key discussion in this respect was: who should be doing the contextualisation, the person bringing the gospel into the context or the person receiving the gospel in context? In addition, what sort of contextual approaches are needed to engage the interfaith religious diversity of Asia? What contextual missions theology is required in Africa to engage the renaissance of African religions and the emergence of dangerous religious cults on the continent? What liberative hermeneutics is needed to continue to engage the indigenous, Catholic, and socio-economic and political realities of Latin America?

And lastly, what contextual indigenous missiology is needed in the MENA region to help Christians engage from the margins as minorities in a Muslim, Jewish, and secular context?

There are no easy answers and a variety of approaches are likely required. But a gap observed in some of the discussions related to how can we, in a Majority World discussion on missions, not examine the colonial baggage in Western missions history and the implications of the use of the words mission/s, missionary, and missional? Should Majority World Christians continue to use the concept of mission/s to describe their holistic witness? Do we need a different language to describe missions, and what indigenous concepts, metaphors, and symbols could help with this process?

Re-imagining Missiology from the Majority World

The conversation in Dubai was a significant crossroads in Majority World thinking. The organisers have to be applauded for taking the initiative to conceive of this vision to gather missions leaders, theologians, missions practitioners, and pastors from the Majority World together to continue this conversation about developing our own agency on our terms.  

Developing the Agency and Capacity of Majority World Missions

The initiative to gather Majority World Christian leaders together to discuss their own problems in order to come up with their own solutions is a starting point. A key question remains: where do we go from here? That is, what are the next steps? How does such a diverse group as this relate with global Western movements such as Lausanne and other related organisations in which many participants are involved?

There was a general consensus that just as Western Christianity needs Majority World Christianity, Majority World Christianity needs Western Christians. We need each other because, after all, we are all part of the one body of Christ, which is a global intercultural multicultural Church.

To use the four marks of the Church from the Nicene Creed, we are all part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. But the key question is, is Majority World Christianity so colonised that its dependence on Western Christianity has limited its authenticity and originality?

Majority World mission is still heavily dependent on Western missions, especially financial resources. Therefore, to create its own agency it must first be independent (and, potentially, independently supported) in order to enter a truly interdependent relationship with Western Christianity. The process of developing an interdependent relationship with our Western brothers and sisters on equal terms, also requires us to continue to develop our own agency in the areas already identified such as identity, witness, theology, and leadership. There are more areas we need capacity building but these four could be a foundational focus to take the work forward.

Identity

The work on identity must continue because we do not want to be recolonised again. As a matter of necessity, we need to move from missions to witness that incorporates holistic thinking around discipleship, pilgrimage, and societal transformation. We need ongoing work on theology that is intercultural, indigenous, contextual, and prophetic. Prophetic in the sense of community and societal transformation. Lastly, we need to invest in and develop the next generation of Majority World leaders to sustain this project or else it will not survive. We acknowledged that more younger leaders were needed in the room for conversations such as these.

Colonial Resistance and Re-existence

As already mentioned, the conference discussed many issues around colonisation in relation to identity, missions, and discipleship. Majority World Christians must therefore continue to develop thinking and practices around resistance to recolonisation and imagine a new existence. Majority World Christians need colonial resistance to continue to mitigate against dependence on Western methodologies, approaches, theologies, finances, and leadership. This means having a framework in place in which to measure partnerships or collaborations that have colonial implications or are potentially exploitative. 

The following questions could help to serve as a colonial framework to measure attempts at recolonisation or dominance.

• Is this project, finances or methodology making us dependent or interdependent? This is a question around creating interdependence.
• Overall, who does this project, collaboration, initiative benefit? In essence, who or which community gains overall and at what or whose expense? This question helps to gauge intentions and exploitative nature of relationships
• In this relationship, endeavour or partnership, where is power concentrated? This question seeks to interrogate the power dynamics of engagement.

Development of Contextual Indigenous Theologies
and Global Advocacy Concerns

One of the challenges we still face in the Majority World is that many of us still conceptualise and theologise in European language and thought, which is epistemic colonisation. This problem continues to persist because many of us have done our higher education (master’s degree and doctoral studies) in Western contexts, leaving us to conceptualise our theology and missiology from a Western perspective.

One of the important questions discussed at the conference was, do we have a distinctive Majority World missiology? If so, what are the features of a Majority World missiology? In another missions consultation in Europe that I had the privilege of attending, Europeans are also wrestling with the question of what is the role of Europe in global missiology? For more on that conference consult the reference below.[1]

From my own research and observation, a distinctive ingredient of Majority World missiology is suffering. I was struck by the recent World Watch List of 50 countries where Christians are persecuted produced by Open Doors.[2] All 50 countries are from the Majority World. Twenty-six are from the continent of Asia, twenty in Africa and four in Latin America. Therefore, when we talk about the persecuted church or Christians, we are basically referring to Majority World Christians. A distinctive of Majority World Christianity is a suffering, and so any missiology emerging from these contexts should incorporate it. To frame it the way Christians during the Patristic period did, we are speaking of a kind of “martyrology missiology’—a missiology rooted in martyrdom.

The suffering aspect of Majority World Christianity also has implications for racial justice because, while Majority World Christians physically suffer the most for their faith, Western Christians and Christianity are very quick to leverage this for prayers and testimonies in church services. Whilst this is not necessarily bad, sometimes it is unsettling how the Western churches can seem to glorify, revel in, or even celebrate the suffering of other believers in a triumphalistic sense.

Another distinctive of Majority World missiology that develops from the first is the idea of liberation. If you are in a context of suffering, liberation becomes an imperative. It is therefore no surprise that due to imperialism, colonisation, empire, conquest, settler colonialism, exploitation, and enslavement, Majority World Christians have had to develop liberative theologies—longing for freedom of constraints imposed upon them (which academics call oppression). We first of all see this within the Latin American liberation theology developing “a preferential option for the poor” and the oppressed within the socio-political and economic context of Latin America at the end of last century. South African Black liberation theology developed in the apartheid context of South Africa. Palestinian liberation theology emerging from the (re)settler colonisation in Israel/Palestine. We cannot ignore that Black Theology emerged in the United States because of the oppression of people of African ancestry whose value was determined by slavery, followed by an existence of racial discrimination and segregation.

If suffering and liberative lens becomes a focal distinctive of Majority World missiology, how can Majority World missiology collaborate and speak distinctly into issues and concerns that have been ignored by Western Christianity—and today are being actively invalidated by some Western Christians?

In frustration, Palestinian Christians and theologians wrote to Western Christians in the aftermath of the tragic incident in October 2023 about how the Western Church has been silent regarding their trauma and pain.[3] A Palestinian theologian stated that Gaza is a missiological crisis for the global Church. Whilst some pockets of the Western Church have been speaking into the Palestinian struggle and the atrocities in Gaza, largely, the influence of  Christian Zionism has resulted in many in the Western (and Majority world) context are either not sure how to engage the issues or do not want to fall into the Western Church’s past and ongoing sin of antisemitism. If for some of these reasons and more, the Western Church is silent or the voice is not loud enough, can the Majority World Church, with its suffering and liberative lens, enter into solidarity and collaboration and speak prophetically into the Palestinian struggle and the atrocities in Gaza? This could shift Majority World missiology in a new direction of prophetic witness and global consciousness.

A second area that such a Majority World missiological collaboration could engage is the concern of climate and environmental justice. Every part of the globe suffers the impact of the climate crisis, but people from the Majority World disproportionately suffer from the impact of the climate crisis more. If this is rightly observed, then surely, Majority World missiology should be engaging collaboratively climate and environmental justice. The holistic worldview and contextual indigenous theologies of Asia, Africa, MENA, Americas, Northern Europe, and Oceania will tell us that our missiology cannot be divorced from this biblically faithful foundational worldview and current reality.

Conclusion

Majority World Christians have come a long way from been conquered, colonised, and enslaved. The great southern shift in the global Christian population means that the Majority World is numerically growing, yet power, resources, and theological frameworks remain largely controlled by Western Christianity because of “the schema of things” (to use Sam K. Law’s descriptive framing of worldviews).

If Majority World Christians are to become independent before entering an interdependent relationship with Western Christianity, it is imperative that we develop our own agency and sense of self-determination, to engage in colonial resistance and re-imagine our existence free of such constraints, and finally continue to develop indigenous contextual theologies that address global issues largely ignored (or argued against) by Western Christianity. This in turn helps to create a distinctive Majority World missiology that will be of benefit to world Christianity, including the Western expressions of our faith.

Footnotes:

[1] Israel Oluwole Olofinjana, Towards a European Public Missiology, Centre for Missionaries from the Majority World (CMMW). Available at https://cmmw.org.uk/2025/09/04/towards-a-european-public-missiology/

[2] World Watch List 2025, Open Doors. Available at https://www.opendoors.org/en-US/persecution/countries/

[3] A Call for Repentance: An Open Letter from Palestinian Christians to Western Church Leaders and Theologians. Available at https://infemit.org/response-call-palestine/

Pray

• And ask God to examine your heart and reveal any judgments that are rooted in self-focus or centring one’s own contextual or ethnic perspective (ethnocentrism). Repent of what is revealed.
• For opportunities and wisdom to learn from leaders local to new missions/ministry initiatives in places traditionally without a strong gospel witness.
• For humilty to adapt our perspectives when outsider biases do not match local realities.
• For restraint as outsiders reporting on or evaluating the growth of biblical faith in Jesus in other contexts.