If you trace the history of the modern missions movement, you’ll find a recurring theme: students saying yes to God. From the 1886 Mount Hermon gathering that birthed the Student Volunteer Movement, to the first Urbana gathering in Toronto in 1946, young adults have consistently stood at the intersection of God’s call and the world’s need.
The original Urbana slogan captured that heartbeat: “From every campus to every country.” The phrase still echoes through generations of students who have knelt at the altar of obedience, whispering the same words Isaiah spoke: “Here am I. Send me” (Is. 6:8).
But as cultural winds have shifted and the church’s credibility has eroded in the West, the very idea of cross-cultural missions is suspect. Once celebrated, the vocation of missionaries can even face outright hostility.
But the moment we’re in doesn’t change the mission we’re on. The call of Jesus hasn’t changed. The Great Commission have never been a mission of Western expansion (or it shouldn’t have been). The Great Commission is a Kingdom mandate. And history shows that God often raises up new movements of students and churches who will carry that mission forward. So, let’s talk about some of those movements, and what we can learn for our moment today.
When the World Celebrated Missionaries
There was a time when missionaries were front-page heroes. In 1956, Life magazine ran the story of Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, and three others killed in Ecuador while seeking to reach the Huaorani people. Their deaths electrified evangelicals but also reverberated throughout the world. These men were heroes and martyrs.
In a journal now housed 100 feet from my old office at Wheaton College, Elliot had written, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” And an entire generation of students believed him. Many in the wider world respected him, even if they didn’t fully agree with him. That moment helped catalyze thousands of new missionaries, and the church’s imagination for global mission burned brightly.
When the World Called Them Fools
Fast forward to 2018. Another young man, John Chau, sought to bring the gospel to a protected island off India’s coast. He, too, was killed in the attempt. But the response six decades after Eliot and Saint was dramatically different. He was mocked as naïve, and despised as reckless and dangerous. Social media piled on with contempt.
I wrote about it in the Washington Post under the headline, “John Chau prepared more than we thought. But are missionaries still fools?” In one sense, Chau was not fool that some made him out to be. He had trained linguistically, medically, and theologically. Even if we could critique parts of his strategy, he was better prepared than almost every angry story shared. And he believed the nations still need Jesus. In that conviction, he stood shoulder to shoulder with Jim Elliot, not as a hero or a villain, but as a disciple.
But in another sense, Yes, he was a fool—and that’s exactly the point. Paul told the Corinthians that “the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing” (1 Cor. 1:18). The world will always think gospel obedience looks foolish. Sometimes it’s just more obvious than others.
The Shifting Cultural Tide
When Elliot died, he asked, “What would I give my life for?” Today, many are asking, “How can I protect my life?” Comfort has replaced calling. Convenience has eclipsed conviction. I wonder if this has consequences for mental health, as we experience even more anxiety over what we could lose in this life.
That shift also has consequences for mission fervor in the West. A century ago, student missionary unions emerged at hundreds of universities, and now at Biola we have the only student-led one remaining from that movement. Cross-cultural mission sending continues from the Global South, while many Western churches have turned inward.
