Missions Launch

Photo by maveric2003

This article the direct result of my interaction with a close Christian friend yesterday. Now, what you need to know is that this friend is REALLY into God. Really. She goes to church every Sunday, is totally into Christian concerts and Bible studies and she prays intently. She is totally IN. And, she is quite a delightful person. But we got in this conversation where I happened to throw out a stat about the unreached. 

Her response: “You’re kidding right? I thought everyone’s already heard the gospel haven’t they?”

My mouth must have practically hit the floor. Not only did she have no idea that there were unreached peoples in the world, but I had no idea there were Christians who didn’t know that. AND, she is my friend. I mean, I go on numerous missions trip and am totally into this whole thing.  How could she have not known?  How could I have not mentioned this before?  Anyway, right then and there I knew I had to post a blog about the real stats that are out there. I mean, I have seen, in person, people across the world who looked at me with a blank stare as I first mentioned the name of Jesus, so I know they exist. But I guess not everyone realizes it.

So, here they are, the real life stats. These are from a very reputable organization that researches these types of things and which has members and contributors that are active in leading the Perspectives courses.

(Stats are from the World Christian Trends, William Carey Library, David Barrett & Todd Johnson. “The summary and analysis of the annual Christian mega-census.”) Thanks to Fellowship of Martyrs for posting these. For more stats and details, check out these links: Status of Global Mission, AD 2006, In Context of 20^th and 21^st Cent , Looking Forward: An Overview of World Evangelization, 2005-2025

Ok, without further ado…

World Christian Trends: Stats and Facts

Unreached Peoples

• About 25% of the world is completely unreached and unevangelized: 1.6 Billion people.
• Despite Christ’s command to evangelize, 67% of all humans from AD 30 to the present day have never even heard of his name.
• There are thousands of language groups who do not have a SINGLE page of the Bible in their language.
• 70% of Christians have never been told about world’s 1.6 billion unevangelized individuals.  

Missions and the Church

• Percent of Christian resources in countries that are already more than 60% Christian – 91%. Percent spent in countries where less than half the people have EVER heard of Jesus – 0.03%.  
• 40% of the church’s entire global foreign mission resources are being deployed to just 10 countries already possessing strong citizen-run home ministries.
• 91% of all Christian outreach/evangelism does not target unevangelized countries, but countries that are already 95% evangelized.
• 818 unevangelized peoples have never been targeted by any Christian agencies ever.

Spending by the Church

• Less than 1% of Christian revenue is spent on evangelism to the unevengelized peoples.  
• Christians spend more on the annual audits of their churches and agencies ($810 million) than on all their workers in the non-Christian world.
• Annual church embezzlements by top custodians exceed the entire cost of all foreign missions worldwide.  Embezzling from the Church -   $16 Billion per year.
• Total Christian spending on foreign missions – $15 Billion.

Persecution of the Church

• More than 70% of all Christians now live in countries where they are experiencing persecution. In some cases, extreme persecution.
• 14 million converted Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims have opted to remain within those religions in order to witness for Christ as active believers in Jesus as Lord.

Martyrdom

• Over the last 20 centuries, and in all 238 countries, more than 70 million Christians have been martyred – killed, executed, murdered – for Christ.  
• More Christians have been martyred in the last 100 years than all years since AD 30 combined.

To bring home the facts even more, here are a couple of graphs from the Joshua Project and Operation World.

The first image shows the lack of missionaries in the world where they are most unreached and unevangelized.

The second image also shows the disproportionate amount of missionary activity to Christians versus the unevangelized.

Romans 10:14-15
And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

We would love to hear your comments…

Ever wondered the best way to reach certain countries?  Well, it seems like the people who live there might be the ones to ask. 

K. P. Yohannan grew up in a small village in southern India and accepted Jesus at age 8.  He is the author of “Revolution in World Missions” and is a life-long missionary. Yohannan is well known for his passion for spreading the Good News of Christ to the peoples of Asia. Yohannan credits the prayers and fasting of his mother with the heavy influence missions now has on his life.

When you read K. P.’s writings from any of his many books, you can’t help but understand the love he has for his country. One of Yohannan’s approaches applies his belief in the importance of Indian people hearing this message from other Indians. He believes that it is easier to convince Indians of who Christ is, if the messenger is one of their nationality.

Yohannan doesn’t discourage missionaries of other races or nationalities, but promotes the training of those men and women from India, who feel called to this assignment. K. P.’s belief was so strong that in 1979 he resigned from his pastoral position in America to work full time in missions. Through his work thousands of missionaries in 11 countries have been trained to minister to those needy and suffering in the world.

One of the trademark teachings of Yohannan is that the physical needs of the people must be met, if one hopes to have them listen to the message. So a large part of this work requires funding to provide such things as food, water, clothing to potential hearers of the Gospel. Yohannan’s philosophy is that one would have to ministerto the body in order to focus on the soul.

To read a copy of Yohannan’s book, “Revolution in World Missions,” you can purchase it at Amazon.com along with his many other books, as well.

If you are interested in missions at all, this class is for you.
www.perspectives.org

Christian mission organizations have prioritized the sector of the world between 10 and 40 degrees above the equator which includes Northern Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia. It is important for us to focus on these countries because its inhabitants are largely unreached, meaning that they have not yet heard the Gospel. Other world religions such as Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism are indigenous to these nations and the window also hosts the most poverty-stricken populations.

Emphasizing this window has its drawbacks as well as strengths. The drawback of focusing on the 10/40 window is that these nations are very unreceptive to Christianity.  Many people in these countries could lose their jobs or their lives by converting to Christianity, and often church planting is very difficult. The social and political oppression cause missionaries to consider if God’s time to share the Gospel in these nations is right now. Also, by keeping a narrow focus on the world’s mission field, we may abandon other nations that are currently receptive to the Gospel. Some countries have very small Christian populations, but they are not included in the 10/40 window. 

There are great strengths, though, in focusing our efforts on these nations. The recent interest in sending missions to the unreached people causes many to enter into long-term service.  Some choose to reach these communities through vocational opportunities. These nations are about 57 percent of the world’s population, while only 18 percent of missionaries go there. Let’s remember these nations and pray about new strategies that the Lord would use to reach them.

Photo by Terminalnomad Photography