Hello friend. Sometimes the work of God is quieter than we expect. It doesn’t always arrive with obvious momentum or visible results. More often, it unfolds through steady faithfulness—through whispered prayers, patient discipleship, and ordinary believers who keep trusting him in places where following Jesus is costly.

None of that, however, means his work is small.

God is still strengthening believers, still raising up leaders, still drawing people to himself through local churches that keep praying, sending, and serving. What looks ordinary or unremarkable to us is often exactly how his kingdom moves forward—with patience, courage, and hope that is never wasted in him.

In today’s edition:

🇰🇵 Why the church in North Korea still whispers—and how Christ is drawing people to himself there.

🗺️ What Scripture actually means by “missions” and why the local church is God’s Plan A for the Great Commission.

🇲🇦 How church-rooted formation in Morocco is strengthening believers to live and share the gospel with courage.

Where the Church Whispers 🇰🇵

North Korea has long been one of the hardest places on earth to follow Jesus. 

Once home to a vibrant Christian presence—Pyongyang was even known as the “Jerusalem of the East”—it is now a land where owning a Bible, praying, or openly professing faith can lead to imprisonment, torture, or death. The ruling regime demands absolute loyalty and treats Christianity as a direct threat, so for the few believers who remain, faith is often hidden, fragile and costly.

And yet the church has not disappeared. 

God is still sustaining a small body of believers who meet in secret, and many North Koreans who flee the country encounter Christ for the first time beyond its borders. In a place where almost every door seems shut, the gospel is still finding its way in—quietly, securely, and often unseen.

This is part of the work Radical is helping fuel across hard-to-reach countries in Asia—secure gospel efforts in places where open witness is nearly impossible. Even in North Korea—one of the most restricted places on earth—Christ is still drawing people to himself.

How to Pray:

🙏🏼 Pray for secret believers to be protected, strengthened, and encouraged with safe fellowship.

🙏🏼 Pray for more North Koreans to encounter Jesus through the few channels where the gospel can still reach them.

🙏🏼 Pray that Christ would continue building his church in North Korea, even where the world sees only darkness.

The Local Church: God’s Plan A for Global Mission 🗺️

As words get used over centuries there can be a drift in their meaning. 

For example, the word “nice” came from Old French and had the meaning in Middle English of “stupid” or “ignorant.” This word developed—I’ll spare you the details!—into the meaning today of “fine” or “pleasant.”

A similar drift has happened with the word “missions” in Christianity. 

However, unlike the word “nice,” the word “missions” is a biblical word and we can’t let the meaning drift. We must go back to the Bible to recover the original sense of the word.

Missions is an English word that comes from the Latin word missio, and this Latin word is a translation of the Greek word apostellō, which means “to send.” 

So missions is about sending. And an individual who is sent, in the Bible, is called an apostolos, a “sent-one,” or, today, a “missionary.”

But who can send? And who is sent?

When we look at the Bible we see at least three categories of senders and sent-ones; and only one is still in effect today.

The first “missionary” is Jesus (Heb. 3:1), as he was sent by God the Father (John 5:36).

The second type of missionaries are the disciples. 

In this instance, Jesus is the sender and his disciples are the “missionaries” (Matt. 10:1–20; John 17:18, 20:21). This group includes the Apostle Paul, as he was sent by Jesus after his conversation on the Damascus Road (Acts 9:6; Gal. 1:12). We call this group the apostles (often with a capital “A”), and by that we mean those sent by Jesus.

But they are not the only apostles mentioned in the Bible.

Barnabas (Acts 14:14), Epaphroditus (Phil. 2:25), and a group of unnamed individuals (2 Cor. 8:23) are all called apostles. In the ESV, this is not as clear, because the Greek word apostolos is translated “messengers” in Philippians 2:25 and 2 Cor. 8:23 to distinguish this group from the Apostles sent by Jesus.

Since there are other apostles—other missionaries, other sent-ones—we must ask, “Who sent them?”

In 2 Corinthians 8:23 we are told they were sent by “the churches.” 

Paul says that Epaphroditus was sent by the church at Philippi, and Acts 13:1–4 shows Barnabas was sent by the Holy Spirit through the church at Antioch. 

This is our third group of missionaries: those sent by the churches.

So missionaries are individuals sent by local churches for gospel work.

In the ancient world, churches lacked the infrastructure—travel, communications, finances—that we have today to continue supporting missionaries. And so, after an individual was sent by a church, they would look for other churches who would send them on. Paul, likely sent by Antioch, was seeking the Romans to send him on his way to Spain (Rom. 15:24). When churches send people on, people like Zenas and Apollos (Titus 3:13), they become co-laborers in this gospel work (3 John 5–8).

Today, however, many missionaries are sent through agencies, often with very little connection to the local church. 

Local churches are vested with Christ’s authority on earth (Matt. 16:18–19), not agencies. Mission agencies can help local churches, but they ought never replace local churches. Mission agencies may prepare and support missionaries, but only local churches can send missionaries.

As the word “missions” has accumulated meaning, we often think of mission work as requiring someone to travel across an ocean, learn a new language, and stay for 20 years. What’s interesting is that the Apostle Paul did none of these things! 

Using a modern definition, even Paul wasn’t a missionary.

The biblical definition, however, is simply an individual sent by a local church to do gospel work.

What if a church sends a team to do construction work on a new building for gospel preaching—are they missionaries? Probably not. We must be careful not to let everything become missions, because then nothing will be missions. And it’s not wrong to adopt a mission strategy that involves crossing oceans and learning languages. But we can’t let a particular strategy define for everyone what missions is. 

We need the Bible to define missions.

So, when a persecuted, underground church in Iran, Afghanistan, or China sends their pastor to preach at another small, persecuted, underground church that currently lacks a pastor, they have engaged in biblical missions.

When churches of North Africa train missionaries in Tunisia and send them to share the gospel in Morocco—they did not cross an ocean or learn a new language—they have engaged in biblical missions.

You don’t have to be a perfect church to do missions. 

Think of the messiest New Testament church, Corinth, sending Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achaicus to refresh Paul (1 Cor. 16:17–18). And you don’t have to stay for 20 years to do missions—though that may be helpful.

And so, start today. 

Send people. Send gifted people. Send people to cross the street, cross country lines, and even cross oceans. Send people for short-term and long-term work. Find teams you can join. 

If you have no one to send, find those sent by other churches that you can send on.

But if you are a church, be engaged in missions by sending laborers and becoming co-laborers.

—Jonny Atkinson

Sent Across Borders, Rooted in Christ 🇲🇦

Morocco is one of North Africa’s strongest Islamic strongholds, and today less than 1% of the population identifies as Christian. 

Christianity has ancient roots there, but openly following Jesus can still carry a real cost. It is illegal to convert a Muslim to another religion or to criticize Islam, which means many believers live and witness with wisdom, patience, and quiet courage.  

And still, God is at work. Radical partners with Moroccan church leaders through a training program, seminars, and Bible studies that help disciple believers and strengthen churches. 

In a place where open witness is costly and many believers feel alone, that kind of steady, church-rooted formation matters deeply. Christ is still drawing people to himself and raising up leaders who can shepherd his people with clarity and courage.  

How to Pray:

🙏🏼 Pray for bold and wise gospel conversations in a place where open witness can carry real consequences. 

🙏🏼 Pray for Moroccan believers to be strengthened through healthy churches, biblical teaching, and faithful discipleship. 

🙏🏼 Pray for Moroccans at home and abroad to know that true freedom and life are found in Christ alone.

📍 Attention Worthy

• Hard to Reach: Nepal is now live on our YouTube channel. See the cost of taking the gospel into one of the hardest-to-reach places on earth—and the cost of staying faithful once you come to Christ.

• Church planting isn’t a solo assignment for a gifted leader. Preparing to plant starts long before anyone is sent—and the whole church should feel the weight and joy of that work. 

• Discipleship is more than showing up to the right events. Real growth happens when believers move toward one another with intentional, life-shaping relationships that strengthen both people and the church. 

• Prayer and evangelism are not competing priorities. They fuel each other—deepening dependence on God while giving us courage to speak of Christ with greater love and clarity.