The church has the call to take the message of the gospel to the nations of the world. Even though Jesus Christ gives this high calling, it is affirmed by the writers of the New Testament and exemplified by the whole of scripture; very few people go to fulfill this call. In reality, most churches only use a small portion of their budget for missionary activities. This should be alarming, but it generally does not seem to be. I sincerely hope and pray that as you read the following statistics, you will become so burdened that you will make your voice heard in your Christian circles and lift up the great need to reach the unreached.
On average, less than three percent of church resources will support missions in reached regions (areas with a sizeable Christian population), and less than a tenth of a percent goes to the unreached areas (less than 2% Christian) of the world.1 The problem is compounded by the fact that only a few people are willing to go. According to Missionary Portal, there were 341,904,000 evangelical Christians, with an estimated 59,292 missionaries in 2017.2 That is one evangelical missionary for every five thousand seven hundred Christians in the Evangelical world. The biggest issue becomes clear when we understand that only about 1 out of every 200,000 Christians will go to an unreached area.3
As followers of Christ, we must encourage each other to make significant changes in our missionary efforts. We are to be the light of the world and the church cannot overlook the fact that very few missionaries go to the least reached parts of the world4. The assumption must be made that God calls less than 1 out of every 200,000 Christians to go to unreached areas or that there are major theological and practical issues within the church. Scripture gives witness to the significance and importance of the call to take the gospel to all nations, so it must be the latter that is the issue. We must first consider the gospel's missional call in our lives and then encourage others. Please share these statistics with others and pray about going to or supporting ministry efforts for the world's unreached people.
1 “Join the 1%,” Pray1040, accessed February 10, 2023, https://pray1040.com/join-the-1-percent/#:~:text=Only%201%25%20of%20the%20money.
2 “Christian Missionary Statstics,” Missionaryportal.webflow.io, accessed February 15, 2023, http://missionaryportal.webflow.io/stats.
3 “Mission Stats” The Traveling Team, Accessed December 18, 2023, https://www.thetravelingteam.org/stats
4Zurlo, “World Christianity and Mission 2021: Questions about the Future,”
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