Christianity is growing faster than any time in history. Why is the Church in Europe, America declining?
When we look at the state of Christianity in the world today, we see a decidedly mixed picture. In many parts of the world, there is incredibly good news: God is authoring a season of multiplication instead of addition in many parts of the world.
- Across Africa and Asia, millions of people in historically unengaged people groups are now in rapidly growing Disciple Making Movements. In 2000 there were 6 such movements, today there are now 1,035!
- Almost all of the Pygmy peoples of Africa are seeing dramatic transformation by the Gospel of the Kingdom in the last 12 years.
- Hundreds of large people groups that had been Muslim for many centuries, are now seeing ordinary people making disciples that transform whole communities.
- Across Africa and Asia many thousands of former Muslim clerics have left Islam to become fearless disciples of Christ.
Not surprisingly, Christianity’s growth in Africa and Asia is explosive. On average, using data from The Status of Global Christianity, between 2000 to 2020, (7,300 days):
- Africa had 37,825 new Christ Followers every day over the last 20 years
- Latin America had 16,988
- Asia had 13,443
- North America had 1,999
- Oceania had 473
- Europe had 8
Much of the great momentum is coming from Disciple Making Movements. Christian history has seen rapid movements happen when many thousands, or millions of people in a region became Christ Followers.
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We are living in a season of the greatest church growth since the 1st century! But half of the world is missing the move of God. How is it possible that the Global South Church is seeing Christian history being made while the Global North church is struggling for answers? God alone provides the increase, but why there and not here?
What is it that the churches of the Global South are doing that makes so much difference?
Two researchers and Disciple Making practitioners have spent five years identifying several biblical values that Jesus modeled or mandated in his disciples, and which are embraced in the Global South but not in the Global North church. The Kingdom Unleashed was the result of that research.
1. Abundant, and Bold Prayer
In Africa, it is not unusual for churches to commit 50-100 days per year for fasting and prayer. In American churches, seasons of fasting and prayer are not the norm, and if there are prayer meetings, there may be few participants. Some studies suggest that we do not spend much time in private prayer either.
It is easy for us to rely on our many resources rather than on God. And in the process, we lose the privilege of depending on God every day. In the Global South, people often have no choice but to rely on God to meet their needs — they lack the resources to do otherwise. Their acute awareness of their need drives them to pray not just for their physical needs but for guidance and direction, spiritual power and breakthroughs, healings, deliverances, and identifying people to disciple.
2. Discipling to Conversion
American Evangelicals tend to think about Christianity in terms of conversion, forgiveness of sins and Eternal Life
In the Global South, they focus far less on conversion than on disciple making. When Jesus called the Twelve, he discipled them for nearly three years before he asked them for a statement of faith —“Who do you say I am?” In other words, he discipled them to conversion rather than converting them and then discipling them. That is the model used in the Global South.
3. Obedience-Based Discipleship
Even the idea of what it means to be a disciple is different. For us, discipleship is knowledge-based. But in the Great Commission, Jesus tells us to make disciples (not converts) and teach them to obey everything he commanded. Biblical discipleship is thus obedience-based, not knowledge-based. Our sins are forgiven by faith alone, but throughout the New Testament we are told to live out our faith by obeying Jesus’ commands to love God and neighbor. So from day one in evangelistic Bible studies (generally called Discovery Bible Groups), people are encouraged to put into practice what they are learning.
This approach results in personal transformation as well as community transformation. As people sink into Scripture, they learn that it affects all of life. If Jesus is Lord of all, then there is no area of life that is not rightfully his. As Abraham Kuyper said, “There is not a single square inch in the whole domain of human existence over which Christ, who is Lord of all, does not cry out, ‘Mine!’”
4. Empowering Ordinary People for Ministry
This changes fundamentally the way the Global South conceives of ministry. In the US, “going into the ministry” means becoming a pastor or missionary. Pastors are expected to preach, pray, visit the sick, counsel people, disciple church members, evangelize, provide direction for the church, handle or oversee administration, etc. In other words, they are responsible for just about everything the church does.
But is all this really the job of pastors? Ephesians 4 tells us that pastors are to equip believers to do ministry — in other words, pastors are to be coaches and teachers, but the actual work of ministry is to be carried out by the people in the congregation —something we see in the churches in the Global South. We talk about every member ministry; they do it.
5. Make Replicating Disciples, not Converts
Members of Discovery Groups are also encouraged to tell others about what they are learning. So, even before they come to faith, they are discipled into sharing what they are learning about God. As a result, when they do come to faith, it is the most natural thing in the world to them to share it with others, to start new Discover Groups, and even to found simple churches. People like carpenters, sports coaches, taxi drivers, schoolteachers, custodians, farmers, and even politicians are making disciples and planting churches. In some parts of Africa, we can identify movements with more than thirty generations of churches planting churches. That is how the Gospel goes viral in these countries, leading to full blown Disciple Making Movements (DMM).
6. Never Ending Leadership Training for All
Lay ministry is also central in the Global South to finding pastors. In many churches in America, to become a pastor requires years of formal education, at the very least a degree from a Bible college and often a Master of Divinity degree. Aside from an internship, evidence of effectiveness in pastoral ministry is not necessary, at least for people starting out.
Where Christianity is spreading rapidly, evidence of effective ministry precedes the call to be a pastor. You have to have a track record of making disciples and planting churches before you are recognized as a pastor.
Lessons for Us
Where Christianity is growing, they do things very differently from how we do them, pointing to a totally different ministry paradigm drawn from Jesus’ teaching and example. And that paradigm in turn is based on a very different way of thinking about the Kingdom, the Gospel, the Church, and the ways the invisible world of the Spirit interacts with the physical world.
What would happen to the church in America and Europe if we revised our ministry paradigms to align with what Jesus himself taught and did? What would happen if we adopted different practices like those of the churches of the Global South?
It’s starting to happen:
- A campus minister at a large state school is reading the Word one hour a day, interceding one hour a day and listening for God’s response one hour a day 5-6 days a week. God has placed a burden on his heart for reaching guys in fraternities and God has been opening doors for him to begin training “insiders” to start Discovery Groups with their fraternity brothers who are lost.
- A woman in a New England church prayer walked every street in her town — over 700 miles — praying for a Kingdom movement where she lives.
- Many Global South ministries are mobilizing thousands of intercessors to pray daily for the Global North churches to be restored to vitality.
- Some are sending workers to help Global North churches and ministries.
- A Discovery Bible Study in Alabama went viral and impacted multiple countries and a huge number of people.
God is no respecter of persons and is the same here as He is in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Maybe, just maybe, if we don’t let our theological systems, traditions, and habits stop us from putting into practice the things Jesus taught about making disciples, we might see movements here that would make the great revivals of American history look insignificant by comparison.
Who is to say God could not do that?
For more information: www.finalcommand.com and www.kingdomunleashed.org
Glenn Sunshine is a professor of history at Central Connecticut State University, a Senior Fellow of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and the founder and president of Every Square Inch Ministries. He is a speaker, the author of several books, and co-author with Jerry Trousdale of The Kingdom Unleashed.
Jerry Trousdale is director of International Ministries for New Generations and has been a missionary among Muslim people in Africa. He pastored two mission sending churches and co-founded Final Command Ministries. He is also the author of the best-selling book Miraculous Movements.
