"The Changing Face of the Church
by Rick Thompson
Council Road BC e-Newsletter
Yesterday in our staff meeting our High School Pastor,(& recent seminary graduate) Michael Butler, passed along a fact he had recently heard at a conference stating the demographics of Christianity world wide have changed from white to non-white.
Just 50 years ago, this was the opposite as over 60% of the Christian world population was western & Anglo. I have heard this for the past several years, & the data I have seen from missiologists has continually affirmed the fact that the world'schurch growth movement are no longer western in nayure, but instead ten to be Asian,African or South American. There are noe more Christians in Africa than in North America. The Asian church dwarfs the American church.
Contrary to what many believe, we in America are not the center of the Christian universe.
Michael made the observation that we tend to think of the emergent church as " 20-something white guys with goatees lighting candles, but in truth the emergent church is more likely represented by a group of believers meeting in a house in China or South America.
Consider this from the UK magazine, Christianity;
For over 200 years the missionary movement has been a stream of people sent from the UK, later the US, to Africa, Asia & Latin America. Today the notion of the gospel 'from the west to the rest' has disappeared. the growth of the church in parts of world, & shrinkage of the church in parts of of the 'west' has meany that there are more non-western Christians in the world.
The statistics are overwhelming. Missions statistician, David Barrett, records that in the 20th century, the Christian population in Africa exploded from an estimated 8 or 9 million in 1900(8 to 9%) to some 335 million in 2000 (45%). In Asia the proportion of Christians grew from 2.3% in 1900, to 8.3% in 2000. The Atlas of World Christianity estimates that the number of Pentecostal Christians across South America grew 500% between 1960 & 1980.
The evangelical church in Argentina grew from 1 million in 1980 to 3 million in just 20 years,in Venezuela from 1 to 2.5 million between 1990/2000. In bogota, Colombia, Cesar Castellanos at MCI church has witnessed incredible church growth from 70 small groups to 20,00 cells in only 8 years.
I Asia, the growth of the church in South Korea,China & Indonesia, means there are now more evangelical Christians in Asia than in North America. Songapore's churches now the most evangelistically active in the world, with 1 missionary sent out per 1000 Christians. In the Phillipines 7% of the 8 million overseas contract workers are evangelicals.
The tentmaker movement of the Phillipine church plans to recruit 200,00 by 2010 to engage in mission. Already many serving as nannies & Chambermaids have seen churches planted swome in countries where Christianity is not welcomed.
Of course, this is very exciting stuff. But beyond the obvious reasons for rejoicing at these statistics, I see this as a natural outpouring of the work of the Holy Spirit for the following reasons:
!. This church movement is more related to the early church in that it is not affected by the western church's enlightenment individualistic worldview. Therefore, this church will be somewhat unencumbered by our existential humanistic tendicies.
2. This church seems to be more organic & grass roots, & therefore shows sognds of more dynamic multiplication.
3. Because the 2/3rds world church growth movement is primarily a house church movement, there is more focus on intense study & community life based around the teaching of scripture.
4 The small group nature of the church provides more opportunity for genuine biblical community. The iriny of Christian history is that the mor persecuted the church, the more "underground" it has been, the more dynamic its growth.
5. The western church will get better. Perhaps there cwill come a day when the western church will look across the oceans to the south and see that we have as much to "unlearn" as we have to "learn".
