{"id":9421,"date":"2020-07-01T07:04:45","date_gmt":"2020-07-01T11:04:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/?p=9421"},"modified":"2020-06-30T14:32:31","modified_gmt":"2020-06-30T18:32:31","slug":"world-where-do-missionaries-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/?p=9421","title":{"rendered":"WORLD: Where Do Missionaries Go?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source: Justin Long, June 3, 2020<\/p>\n

I frequently teach Lesson 9 of Perspectives [see lesson summary<\/a>]. Whenever I do, one feature of the session that is often done, either at the beginning or at the middle break, is the \u201cWorldview Demonstration.\u201d This presentation attempts to show people the world\u2019s population, the breakdown of religions, and how many of the world\u2019s missionaries and the world\u2019s mission money goes to the \u201cmore reached\u201d vs. the \u201cless reached.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inevitably, I often get asked how old the statistics are, and whether they have been updated. And the answer is, \u201cfairly old\u201d and \u201csort of.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2014that is, looking for trends and ebbs and flows in missionary information\u2014is 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<\/em> and the other is the latest World Christian Encyclopedia<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In the latest WCE, the total number of missionary workers globally is estimated at 425,000 (this includes all traditions).<\/p>\n

But the real question we want to get to is \u201cWhat percentage of these workers are laboring among the unreached?\u201d And that\u2019s where it gets even stickier\u2026 [But] here is what you wanted all along:<\/p>\n

Globally: 425,000 missionaries<\/p>\n