Some things are more predictable. There will probably be a new wave of immigration and asylum seeking from the region into Europe- particularly Libya if the uprising there fails. Given the age group of those involved in the protests, we can assume many of these will be young people, and the church needs to be ready for this. I was at Swedish church this week which was responding amazingly to the needs and opportunities immigration and asylum seeking was giving them. The Alpha Group had 40 participants from 15 nations! Later that night I sat with the pastor in his house, marvelling that he was now a missionary to some of the most unreachable nations on earth, without leaving his village!

What is less predictable is how these changes will impact North Africa and the young people who live there. We tend to fear Islamist movements will take over, close the countries off and persecute the tiny church. And there could be grounds for these fears. Just as possible though is a brand new day of greater freedom and openness of young people to the gospel. I was brought up in an era when we were all convinced Russia’s triumph was inevitable. Nuclear war would happen. It was just a matter of when. If someone had told me that just ten years later, the iron curtain had been torn in two, I would have laughed!

We need to keep watch and pray. These are crazy days, but they aren’t out of control- not God’s control anyway. We need to be ready- ready to meet needs and opportunities in Europe and in North Africa. We need to believe. These aren’t days to fear- much of our fear is groundless and even more is pretty selfish- but to believe great things. Let’s face it we haven’t much to lose when it comes to spiritual movement among young people in either region, and potentially we have much to gain.

Colin Piper

And the new world order is more than just more accessible, it offers exciting new opportunities to the brave new world missionaries. And I use that phrase quite deliberately. I recently spoke about a wonderful time in Africa the other month when I sat with African youth workers dreaming and strategising together. The other week I sat with Europeans working out how they could work together to offer a youth work discipleship strategy for a nation. Never before has mission looked quite like this. Gone are the days of mission being one nation expanding their way of working into another. Now we can sit shoulder to shoulder around a blank sheet of paper and work out together what is best and how together we can do it.

There are those who hold to the old paradigm and surprisingly not all are old mindset old school old world old people! Some are new world who believe this is their day to do unto others what they had done to them, and to reverse the missionary flow from Africa to Europe and Asia to America. I can’t see it. Or more to the point I haven’t seen it yet, at least not in Europe. And it would be a shame if we did the same old same old but just the other way around. I’m guessing we’d repeat our failings culturally and in many other ways and so limit our fruitfulness. But what if from the outset we allow God to speak to us as His global body or family. I’m guessing our pooled God given creative and wisdom coupled with our complimentary gifting and dispositions could enable us to come up with something very different and see the world really radically changed for ever!