We are living in the midst of the greatest global Baptist revival in 400 years,” declared Elijah Brown, the new General Secretary of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA).
That declaration surprised me. Perhaps it surprises you as well. In the United States we are used to hearing reports of declining membership, not stories about great revival.
Brown was making his first report to the BWA Executive Committee since becoming general secretary in January. Prior to that time he was associate professor of religion at East Texas Baptist University in Marshall and worked with the 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative, a human rights organization in suburban Washington, D.C.
Brown, a native Texan, earned a doctorate in divinity with a focus on world Christianity from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Now he stood before about 75 people from 25 nations talking about a time of global religious revival.
“In the 400 years of Baptist life,” he said, “the last 25 years have seen the greatest global expansion of the Baptist faith than at any point in the previous 375 years.”
Membership changes
He cited BWA membership changes from various countries during that 25-year period to support his conclusion: Bangladesh — 186 percent (28,106 to 80,432); Brazil — 175 percent (760,000 to 2,086,813); Ghana — 1,763 percent (16,100 to 300,000); India — 140 percent (1,157,195 to 2,778,804); Nigeria — 832 percent (540,440 to 5,036,100).
Breaking down the membership figures by geographic areas, Brown pointed out the European Baptist Federation had grown 1 percent in 25 years; the Caribbean Baptist Fellowship, 76 percent; Asia Pacific Baptist Federation, 122 percent; Union of Baptists in Latin America, 193 percent; and All Africa Baptist Fellowship, 832 percent.
North American Baptist statistics have been skewed because Southern Baptists withdrew from BWA during that 25-year period.
Still, BWA represents 238 member bodies in 124 countries and territories representing 169,000 churches. It is the largest and most internationally diverse Baptist body in the world.
“Baptists around the world are currently living in an age of their greatest global revival and expansion,” Brown continued. “It is unprecedented growth. We are living in an age of global religious revival.”
Citing a study by Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, he pointed out that in 1910 the 10 countries with the largest Protestant populations were all in Europe, North America or Australia. By 2015 seven of the top 10 nations with the largest Protestant populations were in Africa, Asia or Latin America.
In order they are: United States, Nigeria, Brazil, United Kingdom, China, Germany, India, Kenya, Indonesia and Ethiopia.
Although not a missions sending agency, BWA strives to lead Baptists around the world in missions and evangelism. Through regional bodies and in worldwide meetings, training is offered and partnerships established to help local Baptists share the gospel in culturally appropriate ways.
BWA also sponsors a “Baptist Fund for World Evangelization and Discipleship.” The fund does not have large amounts of money but because BWA works with national leaders around the world, investments go far. For example, a $5,000 grant was made to Baptists in Nepal. Local leaders wrote and published 35,000 copies of an evangelism tract which they distributed to five unreached Nepalese villages.
BWA empowered national Christians to develop a culturally appropriate presentation of the gospel and national believers then used the tract to witness to all the people in five unreached villages. That is efficiency.
In the Central African Republic a similar-sized grant was used to plant 10 new churches among the Pygmy people group in 2017. More than 4,200 Pygmies were directly reached with the hope and love of the gospel. Again, that is efficiency.
More importantly, both are examples of how the gospel is being shared as national Christians are empowered to reach the people who live around them.
BWA also provides a structure for Baptists of the world to work together in responding to people in need, especially in times of crisis like floods and earthquakes. The level of response is not the same as what the Southern Baptist Convention does but it still is helpful. In the last three years BWA has donated more than $1 million to 45 countries for projects such as emergency shelter, refugee assistance, hunger and water relief, agricultural development and natural disaster responses.
Of one relief project, a national Christian wrote, “It was a great challenge to our faith the time when we dug the well. My fellow tribal people who are far from salvation mocked and humiliated us. But God gave victory. … Now more than 500 people in our village will drink water from the bore well which bore fresh potable water and the Living Water!! Thank you Lord for your Son, the Living Water!”
This is just another example that ministry and evangelism always go together.
At the recent March meeting, BWA Executive Committee members agreed on a new structure that will allow Baptists from many parts of the world to work together to provide a coordinated response to major disasters. It is all a way of making the little that members have go as far as possible to help others in times of need.
Unreached people groups
These numbers don’t change the fact that more than 2 billion people have never heard the gospel, according to reliable estimates, or that more than 3,000 people groups remain unreached.
But the numbers indicate that God may be “blowing a fresh wind and doing something truly exciting,” as Brown said.
Personally, I pray that is exactly what is happening. I am grateful for the ministry of BWA as it works with national Baptist bodies around the world and pray that all believers — including those of us in North America — may be a part of a great global revival.
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