The internet brims with statistics on Christians missions.
Some are more reliable and helpful than others, but many discourage those of us who orient the challenge of discipleship around the Lord’s Great Commission: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:19–20).
Cold, Hard Facts
There are nearly 8 billion people in the world today and, according to the latest data from the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, 28 percent of them are unevangelized. There are more than 2.5 billion Christians altogether (counting everyone who names the name: Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, everyone) and 435,000 foreign missionaries—so a little more than 0.01 percent of all Christians serve as foreign missionaries. The total annual income of Christians in the world is $53 trillion; the amount we spend on foreign missions is $52 billion. Christians today spend slightly more than 0.09 percent of our income on global missions.
Bringing these numbers closer to home, the study shows that Americans spend as much on Christmas as we spend on all Christian ministries. We spend as much on dieting programs as we spend on foreign missions. And we spend more on Halloween costumes for pets than we spend on evangelizing unreached people groups.
What Are We Missing?
What are we to make of this? If you’re like me, you find these statistics shameful and depressing and perhaps convicting. Many Christians, of course, are unaware of these numbers. But the number one problem behind the numbers, I suggest, is a lack of genuine faith in what the Lord says about his sovereign, saving work in the history of redemption. We’re losing sight of—and confidence in—God’s eternal plan for the history of the world and our own place within it.
Christians today spend slightly more than 0.09 percent of our income on global missions.
This is stunting our discipleship. Throughout the centuries, most Christians believed our history has an end that transcends this mundane world. It has meaning and direction, as laid out in Scripture. It emerges from the inner-Trinitarian counsel of God (an agreement between Father, Son, and Spirit before the world began).
History commenced with creation, spiraled downward with humanity’s fall into sin, and was propelled onward by God’s grand design to rehabilitate the lost. It centered on the Israelites, elected by God to shine light on the world. It culminated in Jesus, the Israelite Messiah whose death and resurrection can save us from our sin and who commands us to participate in sharing this good news, making disciples of all people and building up his church. History will end with the Savior’s second coming and his wedding to the church, with whom he will live forever in a lustrous New Jerusalem. These events were real and true for most Christians in the past. They drove the universe forward.
Such belief is long gone in much of the Western world, at least among culture-shapers in secular universities, the entertainment industry, and most of the media. History is what we make of it, many now assume. It’s not given by God. So build yourself a future. Construct your own identity. Control your own narrative. You only live once—do what makes you happy. The only truly mortal sin is keeping others from doing the same.
Construct your own identity, the world says. Do what makes you happy. The only truly mortal sin is keeping others from doing the same.
The philosophy around us can influence our own thinking, and where Christians have lost their sense of mission, it may be due to accepting secularism’s reading of human history and destiny. When there’s no true north, our behavior is diminished. It’s thought that it doesn’t matter where we go, so long as we enjoy the ride. Our everyday choices—and our relationships with others—now lack objective value and eternal significance.
The famous poet Emily Dickinson addressed this problem in the 1800s as belief in God’s providence began to disappear. She wrote of a bygone era,
Those—dying then,
Knew where they went—
They went to God’s Right Hand—
That Hand is amputated now
And God cannot be found—
The abdication of Belief
Makes the Behavior small—
Better an ignis fatuus [a faint glow of bogs and swamps]
Than no illume at all—
The waning of belief in divine providence, she thought, had massive implications for the way we live. It has massive implications, we might add, for the stewardship of time, talent, and treasure in our lives.
As we encourage one another toward lives of costly discipleship, let’s shore up our confidence in God’s plan for history—and the role he has for us to play.
Christians Used to Know This
A brief church history lesson might help the cause. On the day of his ascension, Jesus told his apostles to wait for “the promise of the Father” before heading out to make more disciples. When the Holy Spirit “comes upon you,” Jesus explained, “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:4, 8).
As we encourage one another toward lives of costly discipleship, let’s shore up our confidence in God’s plan for history—and the role he has for us to play.
Well, the Spirit came and the church grew. Though estimates of ancient Christian growth rates vary, even the most cautious scholars place the number of disciples by the year 150 at about 40,000, by the year 200 over 200,000, and by the year 300 in excess of 6 million. The Spirit raised disciples who equipped more disciples—a few of whom traveled “to the ends of the earth”—accelerating the growth of the church for years to come. By 1900, the church topped 600 million, nearly 35 percent of the global population. Many thought the next century would be “the Christian century,” a golden age of world Christianity.
Of course, the spread of Christianity has had its ups and downs. During the so-called Middle Ages, the geography of Christendom shrank severely, due in no small measure to the conquests of Islam. In the year 500, Christianity comprised one-fifth of the global population and was centered demographically in the eastern Mediterranean. In 1500, though, it comprised a smaller portion of the global population (about 2 percent less than a millennium before), and its global center of gravity was in the heart of Europe. Indeed, nearly 92 percent of all Christians lived in Europe—a remarkable proportion, more than ever before or since. So as faith weakened further during modern Western history, some began to speak about inevitable secularization. A few even claimed to have observed the death of God.
But God was not dead. In fact, as Jesus told Peter in Matthew 16:18, the church is indefectible—not subject to decay (the gates of hell, he said, will not prevail against it). Yes, the faith may have declined among Western Europeans. But God has been at work—in supernatural ways—saving and sanctifying his people in many parts of the world.
By 1900, at the height of the modern missions movement, the Christian church was seven times the size it was in 1500. But the 20th century failed to become the “Christian century,” at least in the West where the prospect had been heralded. Two world wars, massive population growth, the decline of Christian commitment in most parts of Europe, and the increase of Islam in Asia and Africa meant that Christianity decreased by more than 1 percent of the global population over the course of the 20th century. In the northern hemisphere, it fell into a tailspin from 82 percent of the general population to 41 percent. Why, then, did it decrease only 1 percent overall? Because in several regions of the “two-thirds world” the Christian faith grew, from nearly 99 million people in 1900 (18 percent of the general population) to nearly 1.2 billion in 2000 (59 percent of the whole)—making the 20th century a Christian century indeed, and the 21st a great time to engage in cross-cultural discipleship.
Obedience Starts Small
Let’s join this movement of the Spirit in our time. Let’s expand our horizons with respect to God’s mission and view world history through the spectacles of faith, as John Calvin said. Let’s obey the Great Commission at home and abroad. If you do not have money, or cannot afford to participate in overseas missions, you can still play a role. The nations have come to most of us. We can reach out to immigrants right where we live, partner in the missions work of local congregations, and pray for the lost wherever they may be.
Christ has promised to be with us to the very end of the age, and he’s asked us to be working, found ready, when he comes—evangelizing, baptizing, discipling, and loving—playing our part in the history of redemption.
The Gospel Coalition