Graham Wells

Living in the West we are often self focused and even blinkered to the God stuff going on beyond our own countries. However, when it comes to the global church there are astonishing things going on that cannot fail to inspire and challenge us. The media is always quick to talk down the Church, describing it as an institution that will be gone within a generation, irrelevant and outdated. In the midst of this negative barrage I am keen to provide you with a tiny glimpse as to what God is doing in and through his Church around the world.
Jason Mandryck, co-author of the mission prayer guide Operation World, is quoted as saying that although Christianity has barely kept pace with world population growth over the last century, evangelical Christianity is “far and away the fastest growing major religious movement in the world today.” Evangelical Christianity, he says, is growing at twice the pace of Islam and three times as fast as the overall world population. Most significantly, the global growth is seen in countries such as Brazil, China, Bangladesh and Nigeria which have ‘exploding’ Christian populations.
Christianity in China is currently growing faster than anywhere else, with an estimated 10,000 new believers each day and a total of 100 million believers. One house church system in China is typical. Reaching 300 miles in every direction, this network has nearly 100,000 members with a leader who is 30 years old. Rather than looking toward a job with an office and a comfortable retirement plan he leads a huge church knowing that at some point he will probably be arrested, tortured and imprisoned for his faith.
Christians in India face serious persecution from Hindus and Muslims but have an amazing capacity to plant new churches. According to a leading church planter there are three things that are integral to this: bold evangelism, intentional discipling of new believers, and casting the vision for pioneer church planting. He didn't mention the 300,000 intercessors praying for the church planters. Another leader shared that every new church in his network starts with a miracle. First an Acts-type encounter with the Holy Spirit, then immediate church planting.
The 250 million ‘untouchables’ or Dalits of India, who have been told they are not human, are turning to Christianity by the thousands and triggering violent retaliation from Hindu radicals. A pending court decision, which would give the Dalits more religious freedom, could trigger the largest-ever influx of converts into the Christian faith. Yet already over 1 million of these ‘untouchables’ have come to Christ in the last two or three years.
Until 1960, Western evangelicals outnumbered non Western evangelicals by two to one. In 2000, non-Western evangelicals outnumbered Westerners by four to one. There are now more missionaries sent from non Western nations than Western nations, and in the future China and India will lead the way in missionaries being sent out.
The increase in growth can be directly related to the growth of the prayer movement worldwide, as one leader has said, "There is now under way in the world the greatest prayer movement ever in the history of the Church. It is unprecedented in breadth because it is not confined to one nation. It is unprecedented in scope because it is not limited to one denomination. It is unprecedented in strategy because it is a wedding of prayer and evangelism.” An estimated 300 million people in stadiums around the world came together on the same day this year to pray for their lands. There were over 70 packed stadiums in Indonesia alone.
As prayer rises, church growth and breakthrough happens, and persecution and martyrdom also increase, especially in the areas where growth is happening. An estimated 400,000 Christians experience persecution daily, around 100,000 of them undergoing torture in prison camps. More Christians are now being persecuted than at any other time in history – some 200 million, with another 300 million experiencing discrimination.
In America where I work our human tendency is to pray that God would bring an end to the suffering and persecution of Christians. However, the leaders in places like Indonesia are asking us to pray that the persecution would continue as this is the thing that is fuelling such growth and momentum. I long for such a reckless faith and trust in the Lord.
A revolution is taking place. In the face of much suffering and hardship God continues to build his church and nothing will get in the way.
Where else is there good news of massive church growth?

• Kazakhstan went from 100 evangelicals in 1990 to 6000 in the year 2000.
• Between 1990 and 2004, Christians in Cambodia grew from 200 to 400,000.
• In 1981 Rio de Janeiro had 30 spiritist centers for each evangelical church. By 1996, that had flip flopped to 40 evangelical churches for each spiritist center.
• In beleaguered Kurdistan, there were no believers in 1992. Today, there are churches in every major city.
• In the Middle East, there are perhaps millions of isolated 'radio Christians' who have become Christians through hearing evangelistic transmissions.
• Over the past three years well over 200,000 Bibles have been downloaded from the internet via computers in the Arabian Peninsula.
• More Muslims have turned to Christ in the last ten years than in the previous 1000 years.
• More than 100,000 members of the Hmong tribe in northern Vietnam have turned to Christ after listening to Christian radio programs.

Love to you all

Steve Cole