discovering missions - Southern Nazarene University

245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 62
62 A Global Church
Sometimes it has taken a long time for the gospel to take root in an area.
The reasons are many. Sociological factors have kept some groups from being receptive
to the gospel. In other situations, outside forms introduced by missionaries
produced churches with an air of foreignness about them. Once in a while, as
happened in China in the 800s and again in the 1300s, a nascent church has
been crushed by government opposition. At other times expatriate missionaries
remained in charge too long, stunting the development of indigenous leadership.
Over the long run, however, Christian missionary efforts have paid enormous
dividends with clusters of churches springing up all around the globe. As
prophesied in Isaiah 9:2, 42:6, and 49:6, the light did come to the Gentiles.
The gôyim or nations have heard the Good News and have responded to it.
David Livingstone may not have had more than a couple of converts during
his 30 years in Africa. His life, however, inspired generations of missionaries to
go to Africa. As a result, sub-Saharan Africa is today more than 50 percent
Christian. 1 In the early 1800s Robert Morrison worked in China for 7 years
before seeing his first convert to Christianity. In the last 50 years the Church in
China has grown in unbelievable ways.
Significant church growth is occurring in parts of the Muslim world.
Though Indonesia is earth’s largest Muslim country, 1.5 million Indonesians
have been baptized since Dutch colonialism ended in 1949. The iron curtain
that separated Europe for half a century fell apart in 1989. In former Eastern
Bloc countries where atheism was a suffocating state religion, Christian believers
can now freely gather. On the day after the Berlin Wall came down, a
Methodist church in Prague that had suffered under Communist rule put up a
sign proclaiming: “The Lamb wins!” 2
The Church has recently experienced growth in several parts of the majority
world, that 80 percent of the world that is not part of the North Atlantic
system. The Church in Africa, for example, is increasing by more than 24,000
people a day. Such growth has caused Stephen Bevans, former missionary to
the Philippines, and Roger Schroeder, professor of mission theology at
Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, to say that Africa is becoming “the
most Christian continent” in the world. 3 Evangelical churches in Latin America,
an area already considered at least nominally Christian, have grown tremendously.
The Economist reported that 400 people an hour join evangelical
churches in Latin America. 4 As a result, evangelicals in Latin America have
grown from under 250,000 in 1900 to more than 60 million. 5 In the last half
century rapid church growth in Korea has produced some huge Christian
churches. Indeed, recent research indicated that 6 of the 10 largest evangelical
churches in the world are in South Korea, the world’s 28th largest country. 6
The growth of the Church in China is a special story. During the rule of