Pentecostal Mission Must Recognise Displaced Believers as Co-Workers

Pentecostal mission often speaks about reaching displaced people. The language is compassionate, but it can place agency on only one side: the settled church gives, teaches and leads while the refugee or migrant receives. That picture is too small for Pentecost.

People carry more than need across a border. They carry Scripture, prayer, songs, languages, vocational skill, memories of churches, experience of suffering, gifts of the Spirit and knowledge of communities that outside organisations may never acquire. Some have planted congregations in camps, settlements, cities and transit corridors. Others lead households, businesses, youth networks and digital fellowships while living with uncertain status and interrupted education.

A Pentecostal theology of displacement should therefore begin with dignity and vocation. Refugees and migrants may need protection, food, documentation, medical care, schooling and legal assistance. They may also be pastors, theologians, evangelists, mentors, interpreters and public witnesses. The Church becomes more faithful when it serves real needs without reducing people to those needs.

A peer-reviewed South African study published on 11 September 2026 examined five African Pentecostal churches in Cape Town through interviews and participant observation. It found that church networks helped migrants access emotional support, information, employment opportunities and livelihood resources through informal relationships of trust. The author describes these congregations as hybrid institutions providing spiritual, social and economic support. Anjofui

This is current qualitative evidence from five…