Died: Peter Maiden, Who Saw Expanded Role for International Leadership in Global Missions

The British evangelical led Operation Mobilisation through time of transition.

Peter Maiden, a British evangelical who transitioned one of the world’s largest missionary organizations into an era of global leadership, died on Tuesday at the age of 72.

Maiden served as the No. 2 at Operation Mobilisation (OM) for nearly 20 years, working as associate director and strategic planner for founder George Verwer before taking over as director in 2003. At the time, OM was the third largest missionary organization in the world, after Campus Crusade for Christ and Gospel for Asia.

When he took the lead, Maiden said OM needed to grow and change. The ministry needed to move past the “pioneer era,” where an organization is very closely identified with its founder, and away from the Western missionary model of “sending” and “receiving” countries.

Maiden thought that in the future, the work of spreading the news of Jesus should be led by Christians from all over the world, with missionaries coming from everywhere and going to everywhere.

“The mission of God is to redeem this fallen creation from its groaning and its pain. And within that, to redeem people from every tribe, every tongue, every nation, to the praise of God’s glory,” he later explained. “There will be all kinds of people gathered around the throne in heaven worshipping the lamb. That’s the future. And we must prepare for it.”

When Maiden retired in 2013, OM had nearly 7,000 missionaries from 100 countries proclaiming the gospel in 118 countries. Maiden passed the leadership role on to Lawrence Tong, a native of Singapore who did groundbreaking mission work in China. Today, members of the OM board come from six continents.

“OM’s leadership had been very Western-dominated, ...