Source: Justin Long, June 3, 2020
I frequently teach Lesson 9 of Perspectives [see lesson summary]. Whenever I do, one feature of the session that is often done, either at the beginning or at the middle break, is the “Worldview Demonstration.” This presentation attempts to show people the world’s population, the breakdown of religions, and how many of the world’s missionaries and the world’s mission money goes to the “more reached” vs. the “less reached.”
Inevitably, I often get asked how old the statistics are, and whether they have been updated. And the answer is, “fairly old” and “sort of.”
It takes a significant amount of time and personal relationships to attempt to gather any sort of credible estimate of missionary numbers per country. Maintaining them over time—that is, looking for trends and ebbs and flows in missionary information—is even more difficult. Fortunately, we have two good, recent sources, both from the Center for the Study of Global Christianity. One is the 2010 Atlas of Global Christianity and the other is the latest World Christian Encyclopedia.
In the latest WCE, the total number of missionary workers globally is estimated at 425,000 (this includes all traditions).
But the real question we want to get to is “What percentage of these workers are laboring among the unreached?” And that’s where it gets even stickier… [But] here is what you wanted all along:
Globally: 425,000 missionaries
- Total in World A countries: 11,940 (3%)
- Total in World B countries: 87,000 (20%)
- Total in World C countries: 326,060 (77%)
Based on this we can note 77% of the missionary work force is almost certainly not focused on the unreached. 23% of the workforce is in places where “unreached” and “evangelized” peoples are largely found, but the workforce focused on the really difficult, most unreached peoples is probably not more than 3% of all missionaries.
» Read the short essay with regional breakdowns, definition of terms, and explanation of challenges. While there, check out other research and writing from Justin Long.
» Last week’s Missions Catalyst Resource Review mentioned a new app to help would-be missionaries (from the US?) find a sending agency. If that’s you, see also the matching service MissionNext.