Mark Dawes, Staff Reporter

Jason Mandryk, co-author of 'Operation World' addressing Lausanne Younger Leaders Gathering in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in September 2006. - Contributed

For centuries European Christians were in the forefront of sending missionaries to serve in non-Western nations. But within the last 100 years, the centre of gravity of Christianity has shifted to the Southern hemisphere.

European Christianity is today a shadow of itself. Some even describe Europe as post-Christian and even anti-Christian. The new centre of gravity for Christianity includes Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific nations.

These and other worldwide trends in Christianity were the subject of a presentation made in September by Jason Mandryk, co-author with Patrick Johnstone of Operation World, a highly regarded compendium of global statistics on church growth. Mr. Mandryk was speaking in Malaysia at the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelisation's Young Leaders Gathering.

Evangelical Christianity, he said, is the fastest growing religious movement in the world at this time. "We are growing at more than double the closest religion and more than triple of the world's population growth rate," he told the audience.

By 'evangelical' he explained he meant those persons who believe Jesus Christ is the only source of eternal salvation, and that this salvation comes through personal faith in Him. Furthermore, he explained that salvation comes about through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. An evangelical, he said, is one who regards the Bible to be the inspired Word of God and is the final basis for faith and holy living. An evangelical, he said, is one who has a commitment to evangelism and missions in order to bear witness of Christ.

Significant growth

Evangelicalism, he noted, is experiencing much of its most significant growth in the global South, especially in Brazil, China, Bangladesh, and Nigeria which have exploding Christian populations.

Mandryk explained that many of the mushrooming churches in the South are now eagerly sending out their own missionaries, often as tentmakers. Christians from Nigeria to China increasingly have their sights on spreading the gospel all the way to Israel and the surrounding nations - thereby effectively closing the gaps of the 10/40 Window.

Christianity, he emphasised can hardly be described as a western religion but a global religion. Furthermore, he said, world population growth mirrors the growth of Christianity.

The world is today witnessing, he said, the end of 2,000 years of vibrant Christian witness in the West, evidenced by the fact that less than three per cent of Europe's Christians would describe themselves as evangelicals. In other continents evangelicals are a huge proportion of those who call themselves Christians, he said showing graphics to support his point.

Europe's influence on global Christianity, he said, has declined by at least 50 per cent in the last 100 years. He made the observation that about 20 countries in Europe have less than one per cent of Christians who would describe themselves as evangelicals. Some of these 20 nations have even less than 0.1 per cent evangelicals.

The spiritual mood of Europe, he said, ranges from post-Christian to anti-Christian. To illustrate how Europe has abandoned its Christian roots, he cited the case of Rocco Butiglioni, a former Foreign Minister of Italy, who last year was a shoo-in for the post of Commissioner of the European Union but who lost out on the position when it was discovered by political lobby groups and the media that as a traditional Roman Catholic he opposed homosexuality.

Notwithstanding the post and anti-Christian mood in Europe, Mr. Mandryk said there was a new kind of Reformation happening on the continent evidenced in the variety of churches that are thriving there - the post-denominational church, the post-structural church, house churches, charismatic renewal within the traditional confessions of the Christian faith, mega churches.

Missions field

With the demise of Christian Europe, Mr. Mandryk argued that the West was no longer a missions force but a missions field. The churches demonstrating the greatest capacity to send out missionaries, he said, are to be found in Africa, Asia and Latin America - the Majority World.

The Majority World, he said, is now sending out as many missionaries as the West. With this in mind, he continued, there is hardly any validity in the claim that missions is an activity of cultural imperialism where white people force their message on everyone else - "because that is simply not the case."

Missions activity is no longer a West to East activity but an everywhere to everywhere activity. Then Mr. Mandryk stunned his audience by stating that the country in the world with the greatest capacity to send out missionaries is Mongolia. He explained that for every 222 Christians that they have in Mongolia, that nation sends out one missionary. It is to shame of many nations that they have not come anywhere close to rivalling Mongolia's sending capacity.

He told the Gleaner that the lower the ratio of Christians to population, the more effective that country's churches will be in sending out missionaries.

The top 10 nations in terms of their sending capacity to the mission field, he said, tended to be:

Non-western nations

Countries which were not wealthy

Countries where Christians in general and evangelical Christians in particular formed small minorities of the national population.

Countries without a long history of having the gospel. Most of the countries in the top 10 sending nations had people who were first or second generation Christians. Most countries in the top 10 did not have the gospel for 1,000 years or more.

Jamaica was ranked 142 on this list. The best performing Caribbean nation on the list was Montserrat at 39. The Canada was ranked 13; the United States, 38, and the United Kingdom 50.

World's refugees

Mr. Mandryk's statistics includes only Protestant, Anglican and Independent Missionaries and only factors in those countries that have more than 50 missionaries serving in the field. He uses the term missionary to include those who serve on foreign soil, as well as those serving in their own home country.

To fulfil the challenge of global evangelisation, Mandryk made the following recommendations:

Make children between four-14 years old a major target for evangelism. He said most Christians are people who came to faith as children.

Focus on doing socio-economic and evangelistic ministry to the world's refugees.

Focus on doing ministry to nomadic peoples.

Seek justice for the poorest of the poor.

Focus on supporting missionary work in India, Pakistan, China, Iran, Afghanistan, Algeria, Morocco, Bangladesh, Thailand, Indonesia - the top 10 least evangelised nations of the earth where more than 100 million people live. At present one in 40 of the world's missionaries serve in these nations. In some of these nations the ratio is three missionaries per every one million persons.

Focus on doing ministry to persons living with AIDS.

Champion environmental protection.

Strategise to reach the rich and the intelligentsia with the gospel.

Since most of the world aids the environment - these are things Christians need to get involved in.

The most unevangelised persons in the world are women, there is, therefore, need for a strategy to take Christ to women.

There must be greater levels of partnership between the West and the Majority World to perform the task of evangelisation.

Jason Mandryk may be reached at Jason@operationworld.org.
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