Gordon-Conwell’s Center for Global Christianity issued a report on the Status of Global Christianity. It highlights several surprising facts about Christianity in the world today. One of the most important is that Christianity as a percentage of the global population decreased at a rate of .01% over the past year. Regionally, Europe has been completely flat, with 0.00% increase in the number of Christians, followed by North America at .35% and Oceania at .76% growth.

The trend is predicted to continue downward through 2025, though the projected growth will reverse by 2030.

With growth so low or non-existent in what has been the heartland of Christianity, how does that reversal occur? The answer is that the center for world Christianity has shifted definitively away from North America and Europe to Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

The growth of Christianity in Africa has been nothing short of astounding. In 1900, there were less than 8.5 million Christians on the continent. By 1970, the number had climbed to 112,636,000. In 2000, 30 years later, it had more than tripled to 363,736,000, and in the last 20 years it has jumped to 639,832,000.

There are a lot of reasons for this growth. Much of it has been fueled by indigenous Disciple Making Movements (DMM) and related approaches to mission work which have resulted in personal and community transformation throughout the Global South (i.e. Africa, Asia, and Latin America).

But one of the side effects has been a tremendous expansion on persecution across Africa by Islamists seeking to shut down the growth of Christianity permanently through terrorism, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. We see a similar process at work in China, in India with the BJP, and other regions as well—where Christianity is growing, persecution generally follows.

So what should we be doing in light of these statistics?

First, those of us in North America and Europe need to take seriously Jesus’ instructions to pray to the Lord of the Harvest to send out workers even in our own countries and neighborhoods—and we need to be prepared to be the answer to those prayers. We should also study in detail Jesus’ instructions for disciple making in Matt. 10 and Luke 10 and consider what obeying those instructions would look like in our context.

Second, we should thank God and rejoice in the advancement of the Kingdom in the Global South. God is doing amazing things there, and we should both praise God and pray for the continued growth of the Kingdom in those regions.

Third, we should be praying against the persecution that is occurring throughout the world. Tertullian may have claimed that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church, but that is not always the case. For centuries, Christian communities flourished in Central Asia until they were exterminated by Islam in the fourteenth century, leaving that region one of the most resistant areas on earth to the Gospel. We need to pray for the protection of our brothers and sisters in the Global South, for the conversion of their persecutors, and for the continued growth of the Kingdom.

Lastly, we need to recognize that Christianity is no longer centered in the Global North. Its greatest dynamism is found in the Global South, and although we in the Global North have things to offer them, they have far more to teach us about the critical elements of living as Christians and making disciples.