DAWN Fridayfax 2002 #6

Global figures and trends

The current issue of the American magazine "Mission Frontiers", published by Ralph Winters, contains a summary of figures and trends from the 2001 issue of Patrick Johnstone's book "Operation World". The following are some extracts from the study, which give a brief overview of the development of global Christianity:

1990-2000: 120 million growth

Evangelicals have grown in number from 300 million in 1990 to around 420 million in 2000. That is 4.7% growth per year - the fastest-growing major religious movement in the world. Even excluding biological growth, that means an average of 6 million new believers in Evangelical churches each year. The figure of 420 million includes around 17 million 'Evangelicals' in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches.

Daily conversions

(Editor's note: the figure of 6 million new believers per year also means that either the integration ability of existing churches is way too low for the number of new believers, and that new churches must be planted, or that we must work on new ways to integrate more people who 'make a decision for Christ'.)
There are a number of estimates of the number of 'daily conversions' ranging from 25,000 to 160,000 per day:


'Decisions' per day	per year	integrated in %
25,000	9.125 m	60%
50,000	18.25 m	33%
80,000	29.2 m	20%
160,000	58.4 m	10% (approx.)

Growth of non-Western churches

Some 40% of the Evangelicals are no longer part of a Western denomination or organisation. These independent churches have tried to 'de-Westernize' Christianity, even though many of them were founded by the pioneering work of Western missionaries. 80% of all Evangelicals are the result of Protestant missionary work over the past 200 years.

The dark-skinned global village

According to the study, the least-reached nations in the world are Somalia with 67,314 inhabitants per Evangelical believer, Tunisia (28,192:1) and Yemen (14,374:1). In Kenya and the USA, the relationship is 2:1. In a 'global village' of 12 Evangelical Christians, two would be from North America, two Latin Americans, three Africans, three Asians, 1 European and one from Oceania. Europe brings up the rear with 2.4% Evangelicals.

Religious change in the 20th Century

(All figures in millions)

Religion	1900	% global pop.	2000	%
Christians	558.1	34.5	1,973	32.5
Moslems	200.1	12.4	1,279	21.1
Atheists	2.9	0.2	938	15.5
Hindus	203	12.5	820	13.5
Buddhists	127.2	7.8	400	6.6
Chinese Religions	450	2.8	383	6.3
Ethnic Religions	106.3	6.6	176	2.9
Others	21.4	1.3	95	1.6

Distribution of Evangelicals in 2000

(All figures in millions)

Continent	Evangelical pop.	Global %	% of Continent
Africa	116.1	27.6	14.8
N. America	93.8	22.3	30.3
Latin America	55	13.1	10.6
Europe	17.3	4.1	2.4
Asia	135	32.1	3.6
Pacific	4.8	1.1	15.2

Increase of non-Western missionaries

One of the most dramatic changes is in the sending of missionaries: the number of missionaries sent out by the 2,900 mission agencies which Johnstone examined grew from 76,120 in 1990 to 97,732 in 2000. Ten years ago, 91% of all missionaries were from Western nations; this figure has dropped to 79%. In 1990, South Korea had sent out 2,032 missionaries; by 2000, the number had grown to 10,646. Brazil sent out 1,080 missionaries in the last 10 years, the Philippines 678. The USA is still the main source of missionaries, sending out 46,000 - a number which has grown by 6,000 in the last decade.

Europe: mission field number one

The nations which saw the largest drop in missionary numbers between 1990 and 2000 are Zaire (-818), Brazil (-416), Taiwan (-318), Pakistan (-249) and the Philippines (-240); the nations seeing the greatest increase were Russia (+1,711), England (+660), India (+535), Ukraine (+524) and Japan (+446). On a continental level, Europe is currently experiencing the greatest increase in missionary numbers, having gained over 5,000 in the last 10 years.
Source: Missions Frontiers and the Friday Fax team

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