Tuesday, January 06, 2015

Why doesn't the American Church spend $ on non-Christians?

This is a great question, isn't it? I found these great figures at the site of Global Frontier Missions:

Basically, the world can be divided into three parts based on how people respond to two questions:
  1. Do you have access to a Christian witness?
  2. Are you a Christian?
People that respond “yes” to both questions are considered “World C”. These people are spread out in countries like the United States, Spain, England, Poland, Kenya, Romania, and all throughout Latin America. They have had significant access to the gospel and many people living in these areas would at least claim to be “Christian” even though they may be very nominal or cultural followers of Christ. About 10% of the world’s population is estimated to be true believers while another 23% are at least considered adherents to the Christian faith.
People that respond “yes” to the first question and “no” to the second question are considered “World B”. These people are spread throughout countries like India, Thailand, Japan, China, Nigeria, and Vietnam. These are people that for the most part have had access to the gospel but have not chosen to embrace it for a many number of reasons. They are what we would call exposed unbelievers because they have had a chance to respond to the message.
People that responded “no” to both questions are considered “World A”. These people live in countries like Iran, Bhutan, Somalia, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Algeria. Many of these people have no access to a Christian, a missionary, a church, or a Bible. These guys are virtually unreached and would need an outside witness to come and share Christ with them. We refer to them as unexposed unbelievers because they really do not have any chance of hearing about Jesus.
As of 2011, the world’s population can be divided into these three categories:
World A – 1.6 billion people 29.6% of the world’s population
World B – 2.4 billion people 40.1% of the world’s population
World C – 2.0 billion people 33.0% of the world’s population
So, where are the missionaries going?
This is the breakdown of the worldwide foreign missionary force and where they are currently deployed:
World A – 10,200 (2.4%)
World B – 103,000 (24.5%)
World C – 306,000 (73.1%)
So, basically, we only have 2.4% or 1 out of every 40 of our foreign missionaries serving among “World A” where the majority of the unreached people groups in the world live.

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