It’s not a ‘slam-dunk’ just yet, but research suggests that the rate of growth of global faith in Jesus Christ is growing about as fast as it’s ever done. Here are a few quotes from those who research these things.
The expansion of evangelicals since 1960
1960, 84.5 million (2.8%) 2000, 420 million (6.9%)The spread of Pentecostalism has been astonishing. Formally birthed around the beginning of the 20th century, pentecostal denominations grew and proliferated rapidly.
1960, 11 million worldwide 2000, 116 million, average growth rate 7%The strength and growth of the Church in lands that have or have had severe persecutions such as Ethiopia, Sudan, China, Korea, Indian and a number of Muslim lands
This compares with the manifest failure of human ideologies during the same periods of time:
collapse of Communism as a global threat and the bankruptcy of atheism, causing a significant turning to Christ… Fundamentalist Islam has gained in political power and its ability to cause havoc in the world through subversion and sometimes terrorism, but has lost credibility in the minds of many Muslims…
source: Operation World, 21st Century Edition, Patrick Johnstone, Jason Mandryk, www.operationworld.org
CHINA: The story behind 30,000 new believers per day
Many people around the globe have heard that China is experiencing a huge revival. Some report 30,000 conversions every day. However, only few understand that the seeds for this great revival were laid by the blood of thousands of martyrs who paid a very high price to live for the Gospel. During the Boxer Rebellion, for example, over 30,000 Christians were killed. Could the 30,000 who are now saved every day be God’s reaction?
source: missions agency Asia Harvest, www.asiaharvest.org
About 70 percent of all progress towards completing the Great Commission has taken place since 1900. Of that, 70 percent has occurred since WWII and 70 percent of that has come about since 1992.
We have before us the brightest set of hope-filled resources, the most extensive global network of eager believers in thousands of prayer cells and strategising committees. We have never had so many competent, sold-out soldiers for Jesus Christ. The job to be done is now dramatically smaller in terms of our resources than ever before:”
Christians can be found in 22, 000 denominational groups worldwide, each of which has special ways of reflecting Christ’s grace and power before the nations. Currently more than 7 million evangelical, Bible-believing congregations in the world are moving out across their communities, culture and into other cultures in the name of Christ. Five hundred million of the world’s Christians have intentionally committed to help fulfil the Great Commission. This number is growing by 6.9 percent a year, which is about six times faster than the population generally. In the hands of more than 4 million full-time Christian workers, there are 44 million computers, 50 million Bibles, and billions of dollars in uncommitted tithes to support them. Money manpower and technology are available for the cause of Christ as never before. There are 2520 Christian radio / TV stations throughout the world. About 4.6 billion of the world’s population are able to receive gospel radio broadcasts in their own tongues. We are seeing about 200,000 believers involved in short-term missions each year.
Missionary statesman, Ralph Winter, US Centre for World Mission, www.missionfrontiers.org
Today, missionaries are from everywhere to everywhere: Indian churches are sending more than 11,000 cross-cultural workers. Korean missionaries increased from 160 in 1984 to over 5000 today. Both Kenya and Nigeria support over 2000 of their own missionaries. The number of Latin American Protestant believers mushroomed from 18 million to 60 million during a ten year period, measured into the late-nineties. During a recent five-year period, more than 1500 churches of new believers were started across England. During the ’80s an average one church a week closed; during the 90’s, two new churches started each week. In France about 70,000 Gypsies have become evangelical believers; about 15,000 Muslims each year now convert to Christ, in Egypt, where new believers are heavily persecuted. In a one-year period the JESUS film was shown to more than 1.6 million people throughout the Islamic country of Sudan. In the southern region, where Christians have been beaten, bombed and even crucified, 180,000 viewed it and two-thirds indicated a desire to follow Jesus. In Zambia, about 1000 people per day die of AIDS. Here, and in north-eastern Zimbabwe, teams of Baptist believers go and preach at funerals - three day ceremonies involving thousands. More than two dozen churches have been planted in this way. In four years in Russia, 36 million Scriptures were distributed in classrooms. During the mid-90’s about 2500 Christian workers met in Nepal to make co-operative plans to evangelise Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan and Northern India. Nepali believers, just a few in the 50’s , now number between 200,000 and 300,000 Throughout a recent 12 month period in India, 20,000 new believers were baptised among the Malto and Santal peoples in Bihar - an area renowned for 200 years as the graveyard of missions! 40 percent of the people of Seoul, South Korea, are believers, where 10 of the world’s largest 20 churches are. 2.7 million recently attended a prayer mobilisation rally in Korea. Close to 100,000 students are believed to have committed themselves to mission work.
source: various, collated by author of this post
Conclusion
“Look around among the nations - What you see will completely astound you! For what is going to be done in your days you will not believe even when you are told!”
Habakkuk 1.5, Acts 13.41
Do we believe that Jesus is Lord? Doing a work in our day, so great we would not believe it, if it were told to us….
Still a need
Great news, and thankyou John for the links.By using them, I was able to find out that in the part of Japan where I live,Fukuoka-ken, there are still 130,000 people without a church in their town.But I was surprised at the growth rate, as you say. Even in the slowest growing area of Japan,Shikoku island, 37 new churches have still been planted in the last 10 years.
great need... great opportunity
That is great news to hear, Andy. Love to hear more about what you are doing in Japan, how mission fits in with that and what your experience has been.
These figures in no way can be taken to suggest that the task (of world evangelism) is even near completed. The outstanding need is still very, very great. However, they are a trememdous encouragement for those with the eyes to see and the ears to hear about the work that the Spirit of Jesus is doing “amongst the nations.”
Moreover, they combine with the outstanding needs to provide us with a huge encouragement to respond to the outstanding opportunity of world mission. That is one of the other encouraging trends of the last 30 years or so of the world mission movement: the change from motivating involvement by imposition of the weight of 2 billion individuals, waiting to hear the gospel for the first time, to the invitation to be a part of the ‘end game’ which we are now approaching, focussing upon the ‘planting’ of an indigenous, self-reproducing Christian community (ie. not neccessarily what we would recognise as “church”) amongst the remaining 6,500 or so “unreached” people groups which remain without one.
Shalom!
Asian church
You are right. A culturally appropriate church is crucial.I have often failed to be as sensitive as I should have been in talking about Jesus here. Not that I am connected to any mission groups, I am merely a lay person, and a sinful one at that.
Good news amongst the "Lies, damned lies and statistics"
According to “World Christian Encyclopedia: A comparative survey of churches and religions - AD 30 to 2200,” Oxford University Press, (2001). 33% of the world population claim to be Christian and this percentage is falling (although they do optimistically predict a small rise in the coming century). There are more and more but there are also more and more of those who don’t call themselves Christian. There are more and more of those who call themselves Muslim but interestingly there are less and less of those who describe themselves as non-religious.
This debate looks to me like the environmentalist versus car-user debate here in the UK. We are regulary bombarded by statistics telling how car use is likely to double in the near future. Our population is stable and the maximum number who could theoretically legally hold or want to hold a driving licence is only 20% more than currently do. How can the number of cars on the road double?
Similarly with the spreading of the Christian message; in areas where information is widely, cheaply and freely available, less and less people are not choosing to become Christian. But, it looks like concentrations of Christians are (like cars) moving where the work is. Plant anything it will compete for the moisture and sustenance amongst the other plants but unless you can plant the Amazonian rain forest you will not create more water.
Our Mission industry appears successful
Your work in gathering these data is appreciated. It appears that the huge sums of money that we pour into our church and mission projects is paying a return.
However, statistical data notwithstanding, the disappointment and disillusionment within our churches is palpable. No statistical evidence can convince us otherwise. My intuition and personal experience tell me that club members are allowing their memberships to lapse at a rate greater than that of new memberships added.
If we continue the approach of the past century, we will spend increasing amounts on mission work to bring in new members, as the total membership decreases, until we can no longer afford it. Only then, will most church leaders look within rather than without for a solution.
the low down of mission
There’s quite a lot I’d like to say in response to the broad brushstrokes you’ve painted. Your own disillusionment seemingly shines through. Before you think I’m taking a dig, let me explain that I know how it feels, to be deeply disillusioned, and by missionary success stories in particular. In fact, I thought hard about posting these statistics, sensing they would be misunderstood by some and that, to others they would be plainly unwelcome, something seemingly so irrelevant to the hard world they feel they are personally inhabiting. Allow me to flesh out my thoughts a little…
Firstly, while I genuinely believe that statistics can be helpful in gaining a bigger or different picture, as far as they go, it’s only human contact that makes mission meaningful; statistics at best can only be a window onto that. Part of my personal work (www.eternalpurpose.org.uk) is to build relationships between western and non-western mission partners, with such an end in view. I deeply believe that the purpose of “revival” (which so much of the westernised church seemingly craves in one way or another) is mission: i.e., revival is not an end in itself; mission, on the other hand is God’s eternal, unchanging purpose. Bringing people into the kingdom of God through the proclamation of the Good News is the urgent cutting edge of mission - though not the end of it. Discipleship and service are the broad edge of the sword. I’ll leave others to define the remainder.
What is interesting about the modern missionary movement, spawned 250 years ago by a tailor from middle England, William Carey, is the way it has run in parallel to the mainstream “church.” In fact, reformation theology pushed world mission firmly to the edges of even the post-reformation church’s agenda. My point in saying this is that in fact the huge “gains” being made around the world are in fact paid for by about 5% or less of the global offering of the worldwide church (not the global SPEND, just 5% of that which is measurably given by believers). The other 95% being spent by the global church is, by and large, being spent on ourselves, our buildings and our local environs and, as you say, without much discernible fruit. But let’s not kid ourselves the great work which God is apparently doing around the world has much to do with the work of the majority; history informs us it’s always been done by a minority, a remnant. God bless them; may they be an inspiration to us…
So let’s come full circle to those parts of the world and church which are disillussioned, leaking members with a leadership that you assert refuses to ‘look inwards and be healed’. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not an ‘either / or’ scenario. Mission and revival are inextrably linked. And by revival, I mean a returning in heart and mind of God’s people to doing God’s will, not just a load of charismatic smoke and mirrors. I assert that by supporting inter-cultural, frontier mission, our own local mission and world is impacted, revived, renewed. How? In losing our life we find it. In giving we receive. In fact, it is more blessed to give than to receive.
Granted no amount of disappointment and disillusionment, particularly the palpable kind, will be wanded away by mere statistics, no matter how apparently wonderful. Nevertheless, if we want to find ourselves within God’s story, we do have to realise it really is bigger than us and our small worlds. And we also need to recognise that most of biblical history, most of the history of God’s people, most of the history of just about anything, was actually worked out amidst circumstances that were disillusioning, disheartening and discouraging - including the history behind those statistics, we can be sure of that! Consequently, we may indeed need to get a lot more used to gutter-up ministry before we see much harvest ourselves.
Nevertheless, as God’s people we are called, not to continually and manipulatively insist he (again) leaves his environment in order to break into ours (Romans 10:6-end) - instead we are to seek him, to break out of our limited horizons, to continually re-discover his kingdom, to co-work with him. That is our calling and it is a high one. But it’s also a low down, dirty and gritty one for the most part. Enjoy!
Notes:
While I agree that the numbers are encouraging, I must note that there are cult groups which are far more vibrant.
For example, the Mormons have grown at a rate of about 40% a decade since their inception, a figure which is comparable to the extrapolated growth rate of the early Christian movement (circa 30-80AD), and the current growth rate of the moonies.
Source: Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity, Princeton University Press 1996
I'd be careful about
I’d be careful about statistics - they often count the numbers going in, but forget that the door is often revolving. I know a little about the Bahai faith and its growth, where there is a great reluctance to uncount those who have lapsed and discontinue.
As for churches, a number of them are in the condition where recruitment is almost a random phenomenon.
I know something about Unitarianism from past involvement. There congregations can fall to dangerously low numbers, say half a dozen of elderly people. Many such church will close. But sometimes someone comes along who can see a wide open opportunity for involvement and influence, or perhaps someone who is already committed to the movement moves to the area. Congregations like that have turned around, and in a few years have a good number attending again, and because the people are new the place has a freshness and direction that had been missing for many years. But it is a knife edge situation.
Although other denominations have much higher numbers, their age ranges tend to be the same, and there must be a significant rationalising of “plant and machinery” to come for the few younger people (getting older) to congregate in more practical numbers, and there could be a return to more institutional forms of ecumenism and mergers than of late.
http://www.pluralist.co.uk