EMQ » October–December 2019 » Volume 55 Issue 4
By Marvin J. Newell
This is the final edition of EMQ for the decade. Many readers may recall the way the decade began. The year 2010 was unprecedented for mission gatherings, as it was the year of four global mission conferences. Each conference commemorated the 1910 World Missionary Conference held in Edinburgh a century earlier. Perhaps you attended one or more of these:
- Tokyo: Global Mission Consultation & Celebration—From Edinburgh to Tokyo: Celebrating the Past and Embracing the Future (May 2010)
- Edinburgh: Witnessing to Christ Today: Centenary of the World Missionary Conference (June 2010)
- Cape Town: Third Lausanne Conference on World Evangelization: God in Christ, Reconciling the World To Himself (October 2010)
- Boston: The Changing Contours of World Mission and Christianity (November 2010)
Besides commemorating Edinburgh 1910, one of the overarching purposes of these conferences was to seek new directions for missions for the decade that lay ahead. That decade has now come to a close. As we look back over the past ten years, it is appropriate to ask ourselves, “How have we done in making disciples of the nations?”
Certainly new and/or more strongly promoted directions have either emerged or blossomed. Here are some easily identifiable standouts: Disciple Making Movements (DMM), the Orality Movement, the Honor/Shame paradigm, diaspora/refugee ministries, the surging Majority World missions movement, Business as Mission, the new label “Frontier Peoples,” and intensified efforts by churches and agencies in partnership/collaboration.
But have we come any closer to making disciples of the world’s inhabitants? In 2010 the world population was 6.93 billion. As we enter 2020 it is closing in on 7.75 billion. There were 2.2 billion adherents to Christianity (31%) in 2010.1 Currently, there are 2.5 billion Christians (32.4%). According to Lifeway research, Christianity is growing faster than the world population. Globally, Christianity is growing at a 1.27% rate while the world’s population is growing at a 1.20% rate.2 While this is encouraging, it should not be the only metric referenced, considering the label “Christian” takes into account every brand and stripe of Christianity.
Another measure is to look at those considered “unevangelized.” The percentage of the unevangelized is shrinking. More than half of the world’s population in 1900 (54.3%) were unevangelized. By 2010 it was about 30%. That percentage continues to shrink, dropping to 28.4% in 2019.3
When it comes to Unreached People Groups (UPGs), the decade has seen a refinement of data. In 2010 Joshua Project reported that there were 16,302 ethnolinguistic people groups globally, with 6,649 (40.8%) considered unreached. Today that same source reports that there are 17,060 people groups with 7,096 (41.6%) considered unreached.4 That may seem like a regression, except for the fact that due to the untiring efforts of mission researchers the data today is more accurate than it was ten years ago.
Another useful lens in helping determine mission progress is to highlight what has become known as “finishing the task.” At the beginning of the decade, there were approximately 1,850 Unengaged, Unreached People Groups. Meaning, those groups over 500 in population and considered beyond the reach of the gospel of Jesus Christ, with no church or mission agency that had taken responsibility to engage them in gospel witness. Today the number has decreased to 269 groups! These people are at the very heart of the unfinished Great Commission task.5 Recently it was reported that every one of these remaining groups have been “adopted” by some committed church or group, although engagement may still be distant.6
Thus, the most common metrics used in the world of mission indicates a mixed bag of efforts and results over the past decade. However, it has clearly been a decade of advance for the gospel. There are more disciples of Jesus in the world than in any time since the day of Pentecost. Jesus is indeed building His Church just as he promised. Making disciples of the nations continues unabated. The numerical results may not be as astronomical as attendees of the four global conferences at the beginning of the decade optimistically envisioned. Nevertheless, we salute the steady progress that has been made by the hundreds of thousands of message bearers who have labored cross-culturally so creatively, sacrificially, and faithfully over these past ten years.
This issue of EMQ helps push missiological thinking and practice forward. A wide-range of topics are addressed by competent writers who deal with various aspects of the task at hand. There is something here for most anyone engaged in making disciples of the nations.
Marvin J. Newell, D.Miss
Editorial Director
1. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/04/02/397042004/muslim-population-will-surpass-christians-this-century-pew-says.
2. https://factsandtrends.net/2019/06/11/7-surprising-trends-in-global-christianity-in-2019/.
3. ibid.
4. https://joshuaproject.net.
5. https://www.finishingthetask.com/index.html.
6. Paul Eshleman, Finishing the Task newsletter, June 14, 2019.
