We're Not in Kansas Anymore

Dan McNerney, Associate of Presbyterian Frontier Fellowshp

On any given Sunday morning in Europe, less than 5 percent of the population worships in a church. Increasingly, people are feeling more comfortable calling Europe a secular continent rather than a Christian one. In 1900, roughly 70 percent of the world’s Christians lived inside the Western world and 30 percent lived outside the Western world. In the year 2000, almost the exact opposite became true. Today, approximately 30 percent of the world’s Christians live in the Western world and 70 percent live outside the Western world. In fact, the Gospel is exploding in the “two-thirds” world: Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

As Dorothy in the “Wizard of Oz” once said: “We're not in Kansas anymore.” Yet, I think a lot of people are not aware of the kind of statistics I cite. Unknowingly, they still base many of their assumptions around the older reality of the Western world being the center of Christendom and the remaining areas of the world comprising the mission field. Nothing could now be farther from the truth!

The fastest growing church in the world today is in China. Experts predict that in the next five years, Africa will numerically be the new center of Christianity in the world with more than 400 million believers. The Church is exploding in Latin America and most people agree that by the year 2020, 50 percent of Latin America will become Protestant and the Catholic Church will become more internally strong as a result. There is a brand-new missionary force in the world today. Nearly half of all missionaries in the world today are non-western. Did you know, for instance, that the two largest churches in Europe are being pastored by Africans: a 10,000-member congregation in London is being lead by an evangelist from Ghana, and a 12,000-member congregation in Kiev, Ukraine, by a Nigerian?

The Church in the non-western world is worried about us here in the West; they see how easily we could lose our way – ever so slowly.

Do you know what power evaporates from our lives when we attempt to lead a life apart from a faith in God? We become people without vision, fairness, love, and forgiveness. We turn inward and become more concerned with self-preservation and personal rights. Our world becomes narrow and dark. And, eventually, we lose our way. It is only a matter of time.

Some would even say that the spiritually tumultuous times of the ‘60s were precipitated by a people in the Western world with too much wealth and comfort. A generation of people optimistic that they could find something greater, with more energy and love than God, had put themselves on the dangerous path of an overly sanguine view of human nature. They had become unaware of the fact that many of the good things given to them were the result of hard-working, brave followers of Jesus who had come before them.

So, here we are at the crossroads of history. Which way will my generation go -- toward God -- or away from God?

I love my mission mobilization work with Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship. It is multi-dimensional! The mission field is no longer “over there” somewhere in the darkest parts of Africa; it is often right here before our noses in the Western world as much as with any other people who have never before heard about Jesus. The word mission comes from a Latin word “missio” which means “sending.” Missionaries are “sent” people. It is now the obligation of every church in the Western world to send itself into whichever culture in the world needs to hear the Gospel for the first time, including its own.

The United States is filled with middle-aged people who left church and struggle now to know even the most basic elements of the Bible story, or the history of the world as seen through a faith perspective. And their children are struggling even more.

While some people might panic under these conditions, I hope you feel as motivated and optimistic as I do to view North America as much a mission field as anywhere else in the world. It’s fun to explain the Gospel to someone for the first time, especially when it is done with cultural sensitivity, historical awareness and love. May you and your church be a “sent-people.” Segments of the whole world, especially many parts of the Western world, still need to hear the Good News of Jesus for the first time.