How can we analyze the level of dependency in a church or ministry that has support from overseas? Can we monitor the effectiveness of measures that are implemented in order to increase local sustainability over time?
In the last decade, research on and response to migration has become a priority for nations and communities. More recently, mission organizations, denominations, and congregations have rallied to locally address migrants.
Missiologists have already observed that the center of the Christian faith has shifted to the Majority World (Latin America, Africa, and Asia), what most of the current literature in missiology calls the “Global South.”
The Church in Nepal is the fastest-growing Church in the world today (Mitchell 2013). Officially, there were no Christians and Protestant missionaries living in Nepal until 1951.
A 2015 published Pew study on America’s changing religious landscape spanning from 2007 to 2013 indicates that the Christian population in the U.S. is shrinking from 78.4% to 70.6%, a 7.8% decline. This is in contrast with the world religions category, which saw an increase from 4.7% to 5.9%, a growth of 1.2%.
Whatever else one may say about Paul’s logic, he makes it clear that all the credit and glory for his work belongs to God. Every person in ministry would humbly acknowledge the same truth. And yet, how often do we seek to position ourselves so that when the report, article, or book is written, we will receive significant credit for the breakthrough? We can’t seem to help wanting to take some of what should be God’s glory alone.
by Sam Metcalf
by M. David Sills
by Harold A. Netland
by Juliana Barbassa Touchstone, 2015.
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