Three Hope Labs on mission in and from Europe

Across Europe the ground beneath mission is shifting. Historic churches are shrinking while new, often migrant-led and Pentecostal congregations are rising. Christian faith — and evangelical faith especially — increasingly finds itself a minority among many, on a continent that is at once deeply secular and newly, visibly multi-religious. It is tempting to meet this moment either with anxiety about all that is being lost, or with easy optimism about all that is emerging.

Mission Paradigms invites us to do neither. Across three linked HopeLabs, leaders of networks, mission organisations and Evangelical Alliances will think together about mission in and from Europe — including the role of diaspora communities and the reality of a multi-religious continent — holding hope and honesty together. Using the Three Horizons framework, we will look clearly at the pattern of mission that is passing, discern the one that is emerging, and ask how we cross faithfully from the one to the other. Each horizon is, in a sense, one mission paradigm giving way to another — which is where the series takes its name.

The three HopeLabs

1  ·  The present — what is passing

An honest, unhurried look at today’s dominant pattern of mission in Europe: the long shadow of Christendom, the pressures of secularisation and funding, and the fear and the hope that migration and religious plurality stir. We name what is fading — without either defensiveness or despair.

2  ·  The emerging future — what is being born

Where is the church of the future already among us? We explore a polyphonic, many-voiced, everywhere-to-everywhere church — with diaspora and migrant-led congregations as signs of what is coming — and test that vision against its hardest question: what faithful witness looks like in a genuinely multi-religious Europe.

3  ·  The crossing — from here to there

The contested middle ground, where renewal is either real or merely the old system in new clothes. Together we weigh emerging initiatives against honest questions of power, participation and allegiance, and name concrete steps each of us can take now.

The thinking behind it

The HopeLabs draw on a rich range of missiological voices — among them Harvey Kwiyani on decolonised, polycentric mission; Jay Mātenga’s WEA Mission Commission forecast; Bernhard Reitsma’s work on vanishing and emerging churches; and the Polyphonic God project on intercultural, many-voiced ecclesiology.

Contributors

Convened by Jan Wessels (General Secretary, European Evangelical Alliance; International Director, Faith2Share), with live contributions from:

• Dr Ruth Wall — Co-Leader of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) Mission Commission, alongside Jamie Matenga
• Israel Oluwole Olofinjana — Intercultural Catalyst for the EEA One People Network and Founding Director Centre For Mission from the Majority World
• Usha Reifsnider — Co-Regional Director, Lausanne Europe
• Jiska Chin-A-Teh — MissieNederland; incoming EEMA representative to the WEA Mission Commission
• Anton Ponomarev — Associate International Director, Faith2Share

For leaders of networks, mission organisations and Evangelical Alliances  ·  Three linked 90-minute sessions 

Mission Paradigms · HopeLab 1 of 3

The present — what is passing

An honest look at where mission in Europe stands today.

We begin where we are. The first HopeLab takes an unhurried, honest look at the dominant pattern of mission in Europe — and at what, within it, is quietly losing its fit. Together we name the long shadow of Christendom, the pressures of secularisation and funding, and the mix of fear and hope that migration and a newly multi-religious Europe stir up.

This is honest ground-clearing. We name what is passing without defensiveness and without despair, so that whatever hope we reach for in the sessions that follow has something truthful to stand on.

Across all three HopeLabs we hold one question:

What is faithful, hopeful evangelical witness in a Europe where Christianity is losing its cultural default and evangelicals are a minority within that shrinking minority — with Islam growing alongside — without that hope being either a chaplaincy for cultural fear or a denial of real loss?

In the session

At your table you will help name what in our inherited pattern of mission is fading — and what grief, loss or hope attaches to that, for you and for the communities you serve.

With  input from the WEA Mission Commission (Dr Ruth Wall), drawing on Jay Mātenga’s 2026 mission forecast.

Part of Mission Paradigms · three linked HopeLabs · Hope for Europe Gathering, Golem, Albania · 5–9 October 2026

Mission Paradigms · HopeLab 2 of 3

The emerging future — what is being born

Where the church of the future is already among us.

In the second HopeLab we turn from what is passing to what is being born. Where is the church of the future already visible among us? We explore a polyphonic, many-voiced, everywhere-to-everywhere church — one in which diaspora and migrant-led congregations are not a problem to be managed but signs of what is coming.

And we hold that hopeful vision to its hardest question: what faithful witness, presence and honest disagreement look like in a Europe that is now genuinely multi-religious — neither retreating into a fortress nor dissolving into a faith with nothing to confess.

Across all three HopeLabs we hold one question:

What is faithful, hopeful evangelical witness in a Europe where Christianity is losing its cultural default and evangelicals are a minority within that shrinking minority — with Islam growing alongside — without that hope being either a chaplaincy for cultural fear or a denial of real loss?

In the session

You will help name the pockets where the emerging church is already visible, and wrestle together with what a many-voiced church asks of us when the growing voice next door belongs to another faith.

With  Israel Oluwole Olofinjana and Usha Reifsnider, drawing on Polyphonic God and the work of Harvey Kwiyani and Bernhard Reitsma.

Part of Mission Paradigms · three linked HopeLabs · Hope for Europe Gathering, Golem, Albania · 5–9 October 2026

Mission Paradigms · HopeLab 3 of 3

The crossing — from here to there

How we cross faithfully from the old pattern to the new.

The third HopeLab is about the crossing — the contested middle ground between the pattern that is passing and the one that is emerging. Here renewal is either genuine or merely the old system dressed in new clothes, and telling the two apart is much of the work.

Together we weigh the initiatives already emerging in our networks against honest questions of power, participation and allegiance — and, most importantly, we move from talk to action.

Across all three HopeLabs we hold one question:

What is faithful, hopeful evangelical witness in a Europe where Christianity is losing its cultural default and evangelicals are a minority within that shrinking minority — with Islam growing alongside — without that hope being either a chaplaincy for cultural fear or a denial of real loss?

In the session

You will bring the real initiatives emerging in your own networks, test them together, and leave with at least one concrete next step you can begin now, within your own reach.

With  Jiska Chin-A-Teh (MissieNederland / EEMA) and Anton Ponomarev (Faith2Share), with Usha Reifsnider connecting the conversation to Lausanne Europe.

Part of Mission Paradigms · three linked HopeLabs · Hope for Europe Gathering, Golem, Albania · 5–9 October 2026