General Mission Statistics   

 ·         World Population: 6 billion people.

• One third of earth’s people call themselves Christians.

• One third of non-Christians live in already reached people groups.

• One third of non-Christians live in unreached people groups.

• 680 million (~11.5%) are Evangelicals or Bible reading Christians.

·         Active persecution of Christians takes place in: Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, North Korea, Laos, Vietnam, China, Iran, Morocco, Libya, Egypt and Algeria. Over 160,000 believers will be martyred this year. 

·         US missionaries make up only 30% of the world’s missionaries. Our slightly declining annual number is being overtaken by increased participation from Africa, Latin America and Korea. 

·         Of those involved in missions in the US, 98% are Senders (Financial Support, Prayers, Letter, Mobilizers, Pastors, etc.), 0.5% are Servicers (Mobilizers, Administrative, Tech Support, Training, Communication), 1.5% are Missionaries (Church Planting, Development, Tentmaking, Tribal Outreach, Health Services). 

·         Worldwide: Last year alone, about 120,000,000 people were presented the gospel for the first time. 

·         Worldwide: About 1.7 billion people now listen to Christian radio or watch Christian TV on a monthly basis.

·         Worldwide: Christians now spend 388,000,000,000 man-hours every year proclaiming the gospel in evangelism.

 Growth of the Church  

·         Christianity is the single fastest growing religion in the world. For example, in AD 100 there were 360 non-believers for every believer. Today, there are only nine non-believers for every believer, and only four of those non-believers are from unreached people groups. Today at least 6,000 Bible-believing local churches exist to support each of the 10,000 missionary teams that will be needed to finish the task of reaching every people group for Christ. We have over 600 million Bible-believing Christians throughout the world. 

·         The number of people who are being presented the plan of salvation every day is now at least 260,274. Pray for today’s quarter million plus. May they respond to the call of Christ. Every day now the average number added to the body of Christ worldwide averages 174,000. 3,500 new churches are opening every week worldwide. 

·         Our annual growth rate of church planting is presently at more than 8% per annum. We only need 11% per annum to allow us to place a living Christian fellowship –a local church—as a witness in every community in the entire world. We have seen countries like Singapore have a 10% increase of those who have seen Christ come into their lives. In the 1980’s 10% of Korea and 10% of Chile turned to Christ, and over 10% in Indonesia – the largest Muslim country in the world. Indonesia is now over 25% Christian. 

·         Considering the growth rate of the world’s religious blocks, Christianity is by far the fastest-growing religion in the world today. The total population of the world increases by 1.72% annually. The world’s religions growth percentiles are as follows: Buddhists 1.7%, Nominal Christians 2.2%, Hindus 2.3%, Muslims 2.7%, Non-religious 2.8%, Bible-believing Christians 6.9%. 

·         True Christianity has grown by more than 300 million believers in the past ten years. About 10 million of these new Christians are from North America and Europe, and the rest –290 million—are from developing countries like Nigeria, Argentina, India and China.

·         Over 700 million people in 220 countries have seen the Jesus film, with 41,000,000 indicating a commitment to Jesus Christ and to follow-up Bible studies. 

·         After 70 years of oppression in the Soviet Union, Christians number about 100 million – five times the number of the Communist Party at the height of its popularity, and 36% of the population. More than 15,000 public school teachers are now teaching morals from the Bible and the life of Christ in their classes.

·         In Central Asia, a church planted in Uzbekistan just four years ago has grown to 3,000 members and has planted 55 other congregations. 

·         Mongolia, which had no church at all as recently as 1991, now has more than 3,000 believers in 17 congregations. And the Mongolians have sent their first missionaries to work with Operation Mobilization in India. 

·         In Nepal, the world’s only official Hindu country, over 100,000 Hindus have met the Savior in the last two decades. 

·         Every month another 15,000 in India are baptized as new believers in Jesus Christ. In India there is 1 pastor for every 7 churches. In Sudan the ratio is one to twelve. 

·         In China, there are now about 80,000,000 evangelical believers - growing at a rate five times that of the general population. Over 30,000 conversions a day take place in China alone. 

·         In just over two years more than 30,000 Chinese Xiao gave their lives to Christ. It all started with a showing of the ‘Jesus’ film and summer teams of 20-30 Christians who traveled there to teach English and witness one-on-one to the elite students of the province. 

·         In recent years, the best-selling book in Japan has been the Bible. In a government survey, Japanese citizens were asked to name the greatest religious leader in history. Sixty-seven percent replied, “Jesus Christ.” 

·         In 1900, Korea had no Protestant Church; it was deemed “impossible to penetrate.” Today, six new churches open every day in South Korea, and it is site of nine of the world’s largest churches – some with more than 800,000 members. Today Korea is 30% Christian with 7,000 churches in Seoul alone. Millions of Buddhists have come to Christ. 

·         In 1982 there were 321 Korean Protestant missionaries. By 1992 that number had grown to 2,576.On May 25, 1995, the South Korean Church dedicated 105,000 young people for at least two years of mission service. Another 3,000 Korean missionaries are now being trained to go into China. 

·         The one million Koreans in northern China, in what Koreans call the Kirim-Song area, are experiencing revival; about 100,000 are now believers. 

·         Of over 400 million Latin Americans, more than 50 million have become evangelical Christians. By the end of this decade, a majority of the people in Brazil, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador will be evangelical believers. Chile, Costa Rica, and Bolivia are about 40% Bible-believing evangelical. Already Mexico’s population is more than 35% evangelical. In Latin America some 34,000 believers are added to the Church per day. 

·         Puerto Rico now has the highest number of evangelicals per square mile of any country in the world. Of the country’s 3.5 million people, one million are evangelicals. They have 7,000 churches, 10,000 pastors, nine Christian TV stations, 13 Christian radio stations, 130 Christian schools and 350 Christian community service organizations. More than 1,000 Puerto Rican young people are now training to go as missionaries to Muslims. 

·         One hundred years ago, there were no evangelical churches in Brazil. In 1980 there were about 12 million Protestants. By 1995, that number had increased to more than 40 million, with more than 80,000 churches and 150 Christian radio and TV stations. The number is expected to reach 50 million by the year 2,000. At least five new evangelical churches open every week now in Rio de Janeiro. Church growth country-wide has reached over 5,000 new churches annually. 

·         Brazil: One new church that is just 16 years old now runs 14 Christian radio stations, four TV stations, has missionaries serving in 25 countries and six million members. 

·         The church in Venezuela grew from 4,900 churches to 11,489 and its memberships from about 600,000 to more than 1.2 million in the span from 1992 to 1998. This represented a growth rate of 13% a year. 

·         In Buenos Aires, Argentina, the church “Ondas de Amor y Paz” (Waves of Love and Peace) attracts 225,000 people each week. Services take place daily in a converted movie theater from 9 AM to midnight, and every month another 3,000 new believers are baptized. 

·         In Africa the church is on fire. It’s the first continent to become majority Christian (over 50%) in a single century. Over 25,000 new believers per day mark the growth of the Church. 

·         In a single summer in Mombassa, Kenya in East Africa, 56,000 Muslims came to faith in Jesus Christ.

·         In one baptismal service in the ocean on the coast of Angola in southern Africa, 10,000 were baptized in one day.

·         In a six-year period in one Muslim country two million Muslims came to Christ, and missionaries in dozens of Muslim people groups are planting small churches of former Muslims worldwide. 

·         More Muslims in Iran have come to Christ since 1980 than in the previous 1000 years combined. Before Khomeini’s revolution in 1979 there were about 2,000 Iranian believers. After years of intensified persecution, there are now more than 15,000. 

·         There’s a seminary in Indonesia where to graduate you have to do all the schoolwork plus start a whole church plus see at least 15 Muslims come to faith in Jesus Christ. In the past 6 years, these students have started more than 600 churches and seen 40,000 Muslims find new life in Christ. 

·         The government of Papua New Guinea recently mandated Bible teaching in every school in the country. 

·         The Philippines: In October 1993, the Philippines was solemnly consecrated to Jesus Christ in a massive rally around the Quirino Grandstand in Luneta Park in Manila – a rally attended by a million believers. 

·         In North America, 85 million copies of the New International Version of the Bible have been sold in the past 15 years; and 42 percent of its purchasers read the Bible every day. Every week 34 percent of the American population reads the Bible outside of church – that’s 75 million weekly exposed to the Word that “will not return void”. On an average day Americans will buy 35,932 Bibles. 

·         North America: Many cities are experiencing a fresh spiritual awakening – mostly among young people. For example, recently in Wichita, Kansas, each of 3,000 Christian high schoolers committed themselves to pray over the lockers of 10 students in their schools and to then invite them to a massive rally. Ten thousand showed up at the rally, where more than 6,000 teenagers came to faith in Jesus Christ.

·         Prayer groups are getting big. More than 2.7 million gathered at one time in Yoido Plaza in Seoul, Korea –the largest face-to-face meeting of humans in history. About 45,000 gathered for prayer at the national soccer stadium in Guatemala City, Guatemala. And 26,000 gathered in the Blue Jay Stadium in Toronto, Canada to pray. In southern California, about 300 high schoolers gather once a month to pray for the world. In October 1995, more than 30 million Christians prayed around the world for 100 key cities. 

·         Every 14 days another translation of the New Testament is begun in a new language. If we’re still here, at least some portion of the Bible will be translated into every language on earth by the year 2020.

·         In 1991, the United States boasted 1,485 Christian radio stations, 300 television programs, 148 million professing Christians and 70 million born-again believers.

The Unreached (the task before us)

·         Of the world’s 24,000 Major People Groups, 10,000 (having 2.1 billion persons) are considered Unreached – though Christian work occurs among most of them.

·         Adherents of Major Religions:

• 2.0 Billion – Christians                                 680 Million – Evangelicals

• 1.1 Billion – Muslims                                   340 Million – Buddhists

• 1.0 Billion – Roman Catholics                      340 Million – Chinese Folk Religions

• 890 Million – Hindus                                   220 Million – Tribal Religions

• 875 Million – Atheists & Non-religious         7 Million – Judaism

·         Annual Growth Rates:

World population 1.6%, Muslims 2.7%, Hindus 2.3%, Buddhists 1.7%, All Christians 2.6%, Roman Catholics ~ 1.2%, Protestants 2.9%, Evangelicals 5.7%, Pentecostals and Charismatics ~10% . 

·         Most of the unreached people groups are located geographically in what some scholars call  “The 10/40 Window” – from West Africa across Asia between ten degrees latitude north of the equator to 40 degrees north. To learn more about the 10/40 Window, please see our link in the Resources page.

Within this 10/40 window are:

• Most of the world’s unreached peoples;
• Two-thirds of the world’s population, although only one-third of the earth’s land area;
• The heart of the Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist religions;
• Eight out of ten of the poorest of the world’s poor, enduring the world’s lowest quality of living.
• Only 8% of the world’s missionary force and 0.01% of the income of the world’s Christians.

·         While about 900 of these unreached people groups are scattered among various world cultures, 9,100 of them are primarily in five major cultural blocks:

(1)     3,330 unreached Muslim groups. Nearly a billion individuals are Muslims. One sixth of the world’s population.

(2)     2,550 unreached tribal groups with only about 140 million individuals.

(3)     1,660 unreached Hindu groups comprise a population of about 550 million individuals.

(4)     830 unreached Han Chinese groups in which live 150 million individuals.

(5)     830 unreached Buddhist groups. About 275 million individuals are in these groups.

These 10,000 groups in total are in 3,000 clusters, which have similar cultural characteristics such as having dialects of the same basic language, etc. 

·         Over two billion people live in these unreached people groups and every day some 50,000 of them perish without having heard the Gospel. That is about 26 million a year. 

·         60% of unreached people groups live in countries closed to missionaries from North America. 

·         22 million internationals visit the US each year. Of these, some 500,000 are university students from 220 countries 25% of which prohibit Christian missionaries. 80% of those students will return to their countries having never been invited to an American home. 

·         40% of the world’s 220 Heads of State once studied in the US. 

·         60% of international students come from the 10/40 window (the most unreached nations). 

·         10% of international students are reached with ministry while in the US. 

·         Worldwide Christian churches devote more than 85% of their resources on our own development. That is, only 15% of this arsenal of personnel, finance, prayer and tools goes to bless unreached people groups. In the U.S., the picture is even bleaker. According to the Bibles for All World Prayer Map, American Christians spend 95% of offerings on home-based ministry, 4.5% on cross-cultural efforts in already-reached people groups, and 0.5% to reach the unreached.

American evangelicals could provide all of the funds needed to plant a church in each of the 10,000 people groups with only 0.2% of their income. If all the missionaries needed came from this country, less than 0.5% of evangelicals aged 18 – 35 could form the teams required. 

The Resources 

·         Missionaries:

• 410,000 Missionaries from all branches of Christendom

• Only between 2 and 3% of these missionaries work among unreached peoples.

• 140,000 Protestant Missionaries

• 64,000 Protestant Missionaries from the US 

·         Distribution of Protestant Missionaries among cultural blocks.

• 74% Among Nominal Christians                3% Among Buddhists

•   8% Among Tribal Peoples                       2% Among Hindus

•   6% Among Muslims                                2% Among Chinese Folk Religions

•   4% Among Non-Religious/Atheists          1% Among Jewish Peoples

·         Global Church Member Finance in US Dollars:

• 12,300 Billion – Total Annual Income

•      213 Billion - Giving to Christian Causes (1.73% of total income)

•       11.4 Billion – To Foreign Missions (5.4% of giving to Christian causes)

• 87% of foreign mission money goes for work among those already Christian,

• 12% for work among evangelized non-Christians; and

•  1% for work among the unevangelized.

·         The church of Christ has over 100 times the resources needed to plant native churches in these people groups.

 Great Commission Christians (all statistics as of 1990) 

·         Globally there are 1.2 billion people who call themselves Christians and who share their faith.

·         There are 500 million Christians committed to acting on the mandate to “bless all the peoples” –sometimes called the “Great Commission Christians”. This number grows at an average rate of 6.9% per year, which is faster than the global population rate. For example, while world population has doubled since 1950, the number of Great Commission Christians has grown more than six times in the same period.

·         About 100 million evangelical believers worldwide are young people. Just one-tenth of 1% of these would field a force of 100,000 new missionaries – the missions force needed to send church-planting teams to each of the remaining unreached people groups.

·         Worldwide, Great Commission Christians earn $2.5 trillion in disposable income. We give about $8 billion annually to missions – about one-third of 1% of our disposable income. To send a mission force of an additional 100,000 to the unreached peoples of the world would require about $1.25 billion more – about one-twentieth of one percent.

·         There are 7 million Great Commission churches in 23,500 denominations in the world. This means there are about 583 congregations that could adopt each remaining unreached people group for prayer, giving and sending missionaries.

·         The world is home to about 170 million believers who daily pray for salvation to come to all people groups.

·         Twenty million believers are engaged in full-time prayer ministries.

·         There are at least 3 million full-time Great Commission workers.

·         Thirty thousand Christians work full-time in broadcasting the Gospel in cross-cultural mission efforts. About 4.6 billion of the world’s population receives Gospel radio broadcasts in their own mother tongue.

·         Twenty-five thousand are involved in leadership positions in Great Commission efforts to bless every nation with the Gospel.

·         There are at this time 3,970 mission agencies, 285,250 career missionaries, 180,000 short-term missionaries and 400 Great Commission research centers worldwide. One thousand of the mission agencies are new Third World organizations.

·         Annually 2,500 mass evangelism campaigns broadcast the Gospel.

·         More than 11,000 evangelistic items are produced each year; about 23,800 Christian periodicals proclaim the Good News; over 51 million Bibles are distributed yearly.

 The stats above are adapted from data by David B. Barrett and Todd M Johnson of the Global Evangelization Movement web site www.gem-werc.org. Other portions come from Patrick Johnstone’s The Church is Bigger Than You Think, Bill and Amy Stearns’ Catch the Vision 2000, and the course material for Vision for the Nations published by the US Center for World Mission. 

·         63% of the world population - 3.8 billion people - are under 34 years old Yesterday's youth culture is becoming mainstream, with similar values, a common language (English) and a common communication medium (the Internet) around the globe.

·         11.1% of the world's population knows Jesus Christ According to missiologist Ralph Winter, only 1% of the world's population had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ in 1430. Today, there are some 680 million Evangelical Christians -people who started to follow Christ after a personal conversion. The rate of increase is around 7% per year, compared to around 2.6% for Islam.

·         The strongest growth is currently in the following areas:

1.        House churches: in many nations, Christians are again meeting in the most normal places, there where they live or spend most time: apartments, houses, huts, in the street, in squares, bars, cafes and offices. In an age of increasing individualism in religion, anti-institutionalism, growing rejection of religious bigotry, confessionalism and denominationalism, organic and loosely organized forms of Christianity are experiencing a boom.

2.        Underground churches: underground churches, known only to insiders, are forming not only in China, Indonesia, Cuba and India, but also in the 'social underground' in the West.

3.        Youth churches and post-modern churches: churches planted by youths or post-modernists in the growing youth culture. In the USA alone, according to youth church expert Andrew Jones, some 5,000 such churches have been planted in the past 4 years.

4.        Cell churches: churches with a focus on discipline people in cell groups, and growth through cell multiplication.

5.        Indigenous churches: churches and movements led by nationals without outside intervention or startup help from other churches. 

·          120 million evangelicals in China. With a population of 1,262,556,787, of which between 4% and 12% are evangelical Christians, China has the world's highest population and the highest number of Christians. Due to persecution, which gives rise to highly secret organizational structures, and the in some cases explosive growth dynamics of the house church movement, experts' estimates range between 86 million and 150 million Christians in China.

·         Christian radio stations reach 99% of the world's population.

·         * 8 out of 10 know who Jesus is Missiologists such as Patrick Johnstone estimate that between 75% and 85% of the world's population have heard the gospel at least once.

       Source: Friday Fax, Jan 18, 2001

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