6 minute read
Learning From the Story of the Global Progress of the Gospel
SIMON GILLHAM
Gospel ministry is busy, and there are always more good things to do than there is time to do them. Amid that busyness we rarely take time to lift our eyes beyond the immediate; to see and rejoice in what God is doing in his world, as he draws more and more men and women to the Lord Jesus.
It is particularly difficult to do that if we feel under siege in any sense ourselves – struggling to see much fruit for our labours, with the noise of the ‘cultured despisers’ ringing in our ears and filling our newsfeeds. But the story of the global progress of the gospel is one we need to hear and retell.
If we accept the important maxim (as I do) that mission is no longer ‘from the west to the rest’, but is now ‘from everywhere to everywhere’, it is important that we understand the nature of the global progress of the gospel. This will enable us to make wise decisions about where we might most usefully contribute in ‘going’ or ‘sending’ to other parts of the world, and where in humility we might look to other places to teach, train and resource us in areas of our weakness.
The progress of the gospel is a varied story of dramatic growth in some places and significant decline in others. We in Australia feel the weight of the story of decline, because that has been our story in the past decades. Our census figures tell us that the percentage of Australians who identify as Christian has fallen from 88% in 1966, to 52% in 2016, with 30% of Australians then indicating that they had no religion. 1 Australia is also a nation with many followers of other religions too, but after Christianity the next most common religions are Islam (2.6%) and Buddhism (2.4%), so the numerical dominance of Christianity is a long way from being challenged.
The rise of those identify - ing with no religion is mirrored in Western Europe and North America, and it would be natural for us to believe that the world is becoming a less religious place. In fact, the numbers of atheists in the world has plummeted over the last thirty years – due primarily to the decline of the communist bloc. Once the active suppress ion of freedom of religion and the state sponsored promotion of atheism relaxed, these areas witnessed the flowering of all kinds of religious thought, and the Christian church has grown dramatically in some of those places. While global numbers of those not identifying with any religion are predicted to continue to grow over the next 40 years, they will grow at a significantly slower rate than the numbers of Muslims or Christians and shrink as a percentage of the global population.
As we reflect on these things, the trend of decline in Australia is a cause of great concern for all who long to see men and women come to know and trust the Lord Jesus – more of that later. Knowing the global picture, though, helps us to see that this decline is neither universal nor inevitable.
Between 1900 and 2008 the number of Christians in Africa grew from about 9 million to 424 million. 3 That’s an average growth of over 10,000 new Christians per day, sustained over more than 100 years. In 2008, the growth in the Chinese church was even stronger, averaging 16,500 new Christians per day. 4 In fact over 90% of the global increase in numbers of Christians comes from Africa, Asia and Latin America. 5 Even amongst some of the most notoriously difficult people groups in the world for Christian evangelism, there are signs of encouraging growth. David Garrison’s work, A wind in the house of Islam, 6 documents significant movements of people to Christ from Islam (defined as 1000 new baptisms or 100 new churches in a given area). During the first 1350 years of Islam he could find no reliable evidence of any such movement. There were two such movements documented in the next century (1880–1980), eleven more between 1980 and 2000, and sixty-nine between 2000 and 2015! Whilst these numbers are still small in global terms, they are unprecedented and tremendously encouraging.
We must note that in these areas of significant numerical growth, rapid growth in numbers has followed local evangelism rather than evangelism by western missionaries. Ex-pat missionaries were often crucial in the pioneering phase of taking the gospel to new places and people groups, but the most significant evangelism and churchplanting work was undertaken by locals. Where growth has been rapid and sustained, however, the church has understandably not been able to keep pace with adequately preparing leaders for their roles. This leaves young churches with many new believers in the vulnerable position of being blown about by the latest wind of false teaching (Eph 4:14).
How does all of this help us to think about our place in global mission? Well, in at least two ways. Firstly, we need to recognise the way God has blessed us with theological education and ministry training in this country. Many of us go to church where there are staff teams of well-trained leaders, backed up by congregations full of more well-trained people. We have systems and conferences and access to resources that are the envy of Christians around the world. Surely this places a moral obligation on us to generously share those resources for the good of the kingdom and the building of the church around the world. Some of us need to be prepared to “go” to places where the growth of the church and the scarcity of resources is greatest, and the rest of us need to get behind sending them and making available whatever other resources we can. 7
Secondly, prompted by our concern for men and women in Australia to hear and respond to the gospel, we should look to learn from our brothers and sisters in parts of the world where the church is growing. Why would we send evangelists and church planters to places where locals are doing that so much more fruitfully than we are? The growth of the church in places like Africa, China and the Middle East has largely come about through ordinary Christian people witnessing to their friends and neighbours. Small, rapidly replicating churches are more characteristic of growth than a reliance on high profile leadership or evangelism. Ordinary people telling others about Jesus is the key.
The best social research in Australia points in the same direction. In 2017 the McCrindle group published their Faith and Belief in Australia report. 8 From a myriad of fascin-ating statistics, it is worth us noting that more than half of all Australians already identify with Christianity, and of those who don’t, one in four are open to exploring or considering it. Despite this openness, and that Australians are regularly having all kinds of conversations about religion, 82% of Australians have a conversation about Jesus less than once every 3 months. It seems that even some of those who go to church at least once a month (22%), don’t have a conversation about Jesus every three months. Those who are talking about Jesus must almost all only be talking to other people who already go to church!
The best social research in Australia points in the same direction. In 2017 the McCrindle group published their Faith and Belief in Australia report. 8 From a myriad of fascin-ating statistics, it is worth us noting that more than half of all Australians already identify with Christianity, and of those who don’t, one in four are open to exploring or considering it. Despite this openness, and that Australians are regularly having all kinds of conversations about religion, 82% of Australians have a conversation about Jesus less than once every 3 months. It seems that even some of those who go to church at least once a month (22%), don’t have a conversation about Jesus every three months. Those who are talking about Jesus must almost all only be talking
For all of the baffling statistics and the complexities of tracking the progress of the gospel and the growth of the church around the globe, it comes down to this. The genius of church growth in Africa and China and other places where it is found, is that ordinary people talk to others about the Lord Jesus. The heart of the problem in places like Australia where the church is in decline, is that on the whole, ordinary Christian people are not talking about Jesus to those who don’t already know him.
“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (Romans 10:13–15)
ENDNOTES 1 Australian Bureau of Statistics www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/ 2 Figures sourced from the Pew- Templeton Global Religious Futures Project www.globalreligiousfutures.org/ 3 David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, “Missiometrics 2008: Reality Checks for Christian World Communions,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 32, No. 1 (January 2008), p. 30. 4 Ibid., p. 29. 5 Ibid., p. 28. 6 David Garrison, A Wind in the House of Islam: How God is drawing Muslims around the world to faith in Jesus Christ, (Midlothian: WIGtake Resources, 2014). 7 For more information about how we as a College are rising to this challenge, check out the work of the Centre for Global Mission cgm.moore.edu.au 8 faithandbelief.org.au
