Pretty mind blowing isn’t it?

I hope that these stats and numbers challenge you to ask the serious question: “Am I willing to put a blank check before God and say, ‘Wherever you want me to go, whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it.’”

“@IMB_SBC: Would you put a blank check before God & say “Wherever you want me to go, whatever you want me to do, I will do it”? @plattdavid” — David Joannes (@davidjoannes) August 29, 2014

I have touched on this topic before on my blog: If Christians truly wanted to reach every corner of the planet with the gospel, then fortunately we have more than enough resources to do it.

Here’s some of the striking realities of untapped Christian resources that have yet to be used to bring the gospel to the unreached world:

• There are 44,000 Christian denominations in the world—14 for every unengaged people group.
• There are 700 million evangelical Christians in the world—225,000 for every unengaged people group.
• There are 4.5 million Christian congregations in the world—1,451 congregations for every unengaged people group.
• There are 4,900 Christian foreign mission sending agencies in the world—1.5 agencies for every unengaged people group.
• In AD 100 there were 12 unreached people groups for every congregation of believers. Now there is 1 unreached people group for every 1000 congregations. (Winter et al., 3)
• 91% of all Christian outreach/evangelism does not target non-Christians, but targets other Christians. (Baxter 2007, 12) 
• On foreign mission funding: 87% goes for work among those already Christian. 12% for work among already evangelized, but Non-Christian. 1% for work among the unevangelized and unreached people. (Baxter 2007, 12) 

Pray about supporting the efforts of Within Reach Global as we bring the gospel message to unreached tribes for the very first time!

Adapted from post on pewresearch.org  

Earlier this summer, on World Population Day, we explained that half of the world’s population lives in just six countries. In many cases, the world’s major religious groups are even more concentrated, with half or more of their followers living in one or a handful of countries. For several years, demographers at the Pew Research Center have been studying the demographic characteristics of eight groups: Buddhists, Christians, adherents of folk religions, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, the religiously unaffiliated and followers of other religions.

While Christians and Muslims are more widely distributed around the world, the other groups have a majority of their populations in just one or two nations, according to 2010 estimates from our Global Religious Landscape report.

The Unaffiliated

While there continues to be much attention paid to the growth of the religiously unaffiliated population in Europe and North America, more than half (62%) of the world’s 1.1 billion unaffiliated people live in one Asian country: China. China also is home to 50% of the world’s 488 million Buddhists and 73% of the 405 million global adherents of folk religions. Since China is the world’s most populous nation, it may not be altogether unexpected that it has a lot of people in a variety of categories. While China accounts for 19% of the world’s overall population, it is home to majorities of all Buddhists, unaffiliated people and adherents of folk religions.

Hindus

No major religion is more concentrated in one country than Hinduism, which has remained close to its geographic origins. More than nine-in-ten (94%) of the world’s 1 billion Hindus live in India, which is home to 18% of the world’s overall population.

Other Religions

India and China have the largest shares (a combined 63%) of the 58 million people in the “other religions” category, which includes the Baha’i faith, Taoism, Jainism, Shintoism, Sikhism, Tenrikyo, Wicca, Zoroastrianism and many others. India and China also are the world’s two biggest countries in terms of population, together home to 37% of all people.

Christians and Muslims, the world’s two largest religious groups, have spread well beyond their origins in the Middle East.

Muslims

While Islam is still associated with the Middle East and North Africa in the minds of many Americans, only 20% of the world’s Muslims live in the region. Egypt is the only Middle Eastern-North African country that ranks among the six largest Muslim populations (Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Egypt). Those nations together account for 53% of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims. Egypt is also the only country in the group where Arabic is an official language. While these six countries have a majority of all Muslims, they comprise only 30% of the world’s population.

Christians

Christians are the group whose distribution is most closely proportionate to the global population pattern. It takes at least 11 countries to total half of the world’s 2.2 billion Christians (United States, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, the Philippines, Nigeria, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Germany, Ethiopia and Italy). These 11 countries make up 38% of the world’s overall population.

Jews

By contrast, the concentration of Jews – a group that has often migrated because of hostile conditions, including the Holocaust, throughout its history – varies most greatly from the world’s population. The United States and Israel each are home to about 40% of the world’s 14 million Jews. While 81% of all Jews live in these two countries, together they have only 5% of the world’s people.

Adapted from post on pewresearch.org 

The post 50% Of All Christians Live In These 11 Countries, Surrounding The Unreached World On All Sides appeared first on Within Reach Global.

“We want to live a life dedicated to something greater than our personal satisfactions. We want our actions to live beyond us.” – I Like Giving

Just watched a few videos from ILikeGiving.com, and was immediately moved, inspired and challenged to give above and beyond.

Get your tissue box out for this one:

At Within Reach Global, we recognize that our time / money / words / clothes / food / wisdom / love / actions / lives are not our own. We have been intentional about giving, especially to those who are far off the grid of the Christian community. By and large, unengaged unreached people groups are surprisingly forgotten by the Christian Church. Yes, there are pockets of people who have a heart for the final frontier of missions, but in general, There’s a bunch of people who have never heard of Jesus before, and chances are, most don’t care.

That might sound like a harsh thing to say, but statistically speaking, it could not be closer to the truth.

But here’s the greater truth: God is calling / equipping / inspiring / moving / blessing people just like you to give generously and transform lives with the love of Jesus

I want to encourage you to join us as we reach tribes like the Ake, Khmu, Yao, and many others who are unengaged (no one reaching them) and unreached (no viable Christian witness among them).

Revelation 7:9 describes every ethnicity, every culture, every community, and every ethnolinguistic people group standing before God, emanating worship from every unique facet of God’s own masterpieces. The full brilliance of God’s glory will be seen in the gathering of all his creation.

We need you to help us reach those who have never heard of him before, to speed the return of Jesus as described in Matthew 24:14.

Give above and beyond today. God has blessed you to be a blessing. Don’t bury those talents. Unearth your treasure and share the wealth with those who need it most.

“We don’t give in order to receive. We give because it’s the nature of Jesus Christ. He gave us his life, so we have the deity of Jesus Christ of giving. – Katherine

Photo credit: Apostolos

The post Everything Is About Us. Or Is It? A Life Dedicated To Something Greater appeared first on Within Reach Global.

The Center for the Study of Global Christianity, based at Gordon Conwell Seminary, published In June 2013 an excellent report regarding Christianity in its Global Context. The full report can be found online at here. From this report I identified the top 20 countries that have the highest percentage Christianity Average Annual Growth Rate (AAGR). They are listed in Table 1.  I have also calculated the number of years for the number of Christians to double, based on the Average Annual Growth Rate.

You might be surprised at the top 20 countries where Christianity is growing the fastest.
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Here’s another incredible article on the dramatic shift of Christianity around the world. [click the image]

Table 1. The Top 20 Countries Where Christianity Has the Highest Percentage Growth Rate

What’s happening in these countries?

• Are you surprised to see that 19 of the countries in the top 20 are in Asia and Africa
• Did you notice 11 countries on the top 20 list are Muslim majority countries?
• Did you catch that not a single country from Europe, Northern America or Latin America makes the top 20 list?
• Did you notice the world’s newest country, South Sudan? South Sudan became an independent country in July 2011, separating from the Muslim majority of Northern Sudan.
• Did you see that highest Christian growth rates are found among all major non-Christian religious groups: Hindus, Non-Religious, Buddhists, Muslims and Ethno-religionists (Benin and South Sudan)
• Did you observe that the majority of the top 20 countries are clustered in three areas: Eastern Asia, Western Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.

Clearly some interesting things are happening in these countries. I shall look a bit deeper at what factors are contributing to the growth of Christianity in each area.

Asia heads of the pack

The primary growth factor in Asia is conversion growth. China, Nepal, Cambodia and Mongolia have high conversation rates among their indigenous people.  The majority of becoming Christians come from non-religious, Buddhist and Hindu backgrounds. The conversion rate is two to eight times higher (in the case of China) than rate of population growth. Currently China has the third highest number of Christians in the world, following the United States and Brazil. Keep your eye on China. If the high growth rate continues, China may become the country with the most Christians by 2030. In an earlier post I’ve explained some of what is happening in Mongolia. (Link)

Table 2 contains the Population Average Annual Growth Rate (AAGR) and the calculation of the Net Christian Average Annual Growth Rate, which represents conversion. Subtracting population AAGR from Christian AAGR eliminated the growth that comes from population growth, the net result of births minus deaths, immigration minus emigration.

Table 2. The 20 countries having the highest Average Annual Christian Conversion Rate 1970-2020

All seven countries in this area make the top 20 list. The CSGC report indicates that ”Much of this growth has come as a result of immigration, partially by those displaced from other countries in the region, but primarily through the influx of migrant workers to the service industries of the region’s wealthy nations. Many of these workers are Christians, coming from countries such as the Philippines and working in Western Asia for two or three years at a time” (p.42). So the primary growth factor in this region is immigration. Table 3 presents a more in depth analysis of this region.What’s happening with the Muslim majority countries in the Arabian Peninsula?

Table 3. Factors Contributing to Christian Growth in the Arabian Peninsula

What’s up in Western Francophone Africa?

The primary growth factor in Western Africa is biological growth, though conversion growth is nearly as significant. Relatively good social stability and religious freedom since the 1960s have permitted churches and missionary organizations to make disciples. Because overall Christian growth is a combination of net population growth (births minus deaths, immigration minus emigration) and net conversion growth (those embracing Christianity minus those leaving Christianity) it is sometimes helpful to subtract Population AAGR from Christian AAGR to determine “Conversion Growth. Table 4 and the following graph show how these factors come in to play in Western Africa. In each country it is seen that population or biological) growth is slightly higher than conversion growth.

Table 4. Population and Conversion Growth in Western Africa.

The Turks and Caicos Islands: An Abnormality?

The Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean, the only Christian majority country in 1970 on the top 20 list, enters the top 20 mainly due to a high population growth rate (4.14%). The Christian AAGR is 3.97%, slightly lower; but a small difference leads to a larger change over a 50 year period. The actual percentage of Christians in the country actuallydecreased almost 8% over the 50 year period because the population growth rate is higher than the Christian growth rate. Although the number of Christians in the Turks and Caicos Islands grew significantly, the contribution factor was biological growth.

Georgia: Overcoming Population Decline.

The only country to have a negative population growth rate on Table 2,  The Top 20 Countries with the highest conversion rate is, Georgia. The situation here is somewhat interesting in that the country will most likely experienced a population decline between 1970 and 2020. A significantly lower birth rate and economic emigration since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 are the primary contributing factors to the net -0.29% population decline. The Christian AAGR for 1970-2020 is 1.52, but because the overall population decline, the Net Christian AAGR is 1.81.

Conclusion: Growth Factors May Vary

This brief survey suggests that the primary growth factor is different for each reason. In Asia, the primary factor is conversion. In the Arabian Peninsula, the chief factor isimmigration. In Western Francophone Africa, the primary factor is “natural” or biologicalgrowth, although conversion is also significant. In the Turks and Caicos Islands, the high biological growth rate offset a decline in the overall percentage of Christians in that country, which masks the trend of people turning away from the Christian religion; whereas in Georgia, a population decline masks the real conversion rate in that country. These examples evidence the need to search out the dynamic factors that contribute to the growth (or decline) of Christians in any context.

What factors are contributing to the growth of Christianity (or its decline) in your context?

Credit: discipleallnations.wordpress.com

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