In U.S. terms, the take-out order would include 100 pizzas instead of just 10 in order to feed all the Christians gathered for fellowship. That, in so many words, is what is happening in Nepal, as it currently has one of the fastest-growing Christian populations in the world.
Bishwa Mani Pokharel, news chief at Nepal’s Nagarik News, said, “Before when Christians had a party they slaughtered a chicken. Now they slaughter a goat” because the extra meat is necessary to feed all of the new people who have joined the guest list, NPR.org reported.
According to Nepal censuses, there were no Christians in Nepal in 1951. Just 10 years later there were 458 recorded. By 2001 there were 102,000 and another decade later the number tripled to 375,000.
In Nepal the growth could be attributed to internal changes, NPR reported, because the country was closed off to foreigners before 1950. The country also has transitioned from a Hindu nation to a communist-led secular republic, allowing for greater freedom of religion, although sharing the gospel is still illegal.
World Christian Database, a resource of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, reports interpretations of 2010 data that show there were approximately 2,361,224,000 Christians worldwide in 2013 and 2,418,026,000 in 2015.
The International Mission Board (IMB) is focused on the growth of evangelical Christianity, Jim Haney, director of IMB’s global research department, told The Alabama Baptist.
And although Christianity is rapidly growing in places like Nepal, he said, “Over the past 100 years the percentage of the world’s population adhering to some form of Christianity has remained relatively constant at roughly one-third of the global population. In other words Christianity is growing at the same rate as the global population.
“Within Christianity, the fastest growing population is that of evangelicals which is growing at nearly twice the global population rate,” Haney said.
Sammy Gilbreath, director of the office of evangelism for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, said his office has found that “telling one’s story/testimony is the easiest and most effective witness since it is hard to argue with a person’s own story” (see How to share your testimony).
According to IMB’s Annual Statistical Report, 337,385 people who heard the gospel presented by Southern Baptist missionaries became new believers in 2011 and 266,451 believers were baptized. Another 127,385 people became new believers in 2014 and 54,762 were baptized, according to the report.
Steve McCord, the IMB’s analysis services and Geographic Information Systems team leader, noted that work continues to increase in hard to reach places and among unreached people groups, but those statistical gains are not as evident as when IMB missionaries worked among countries and people groups with a Christian background.
Haney said, “The rise of evangelical Christianity is primarily a Global South phenomenon with exciting growth in countries such as China, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Philippines, Kenya, Uganda and even countries that would scarcely attribute any conversions to Christianity at all due to their historical religious traditions,” like Nepal.
He did warn, however, that “global counts can be very misleading as they come largely from self-reports of churches and denominations. IMB depends on estimates of evangelical believers as we have defined evangelical faith and practice.”
Natural disasters like the 2015 earthquake in Nepal may have boosted the rapid growth in Christian population because of groups like IMB and Climbing for Christ (C4C), an evangelical group based in New York, who have provided humanitarian aid and shared the gospel in the process.
C4C began its “Mission: Nepal” in 2008 and by 2011 it dedicated the first church in Dapcha, a village about 25 miles east of Kathmandu. There are now three churches in the village.
Tej Rokka, pastor of a C4C partner ministry called Savior Alone Redeems Asians, said, “(C4C) found some sick people and broken families and talked to them and prayed for them and miraculously these people were convinced and began to follow Christ,” NPR reported. “They distributed some food for the people and clothes. Because of that, people began to listen to them.”
Baptist Global Response (BGR), IMB’s relief partner, responded after the April 2015 earthquake with $50,000 for initial efforts and secured a source for rice within the first few days of response.
Today BGR is still in the process of helping rebuild Nepal, with homes being reconstructed at 45 sites using BGR donations and volunteers.
Despite the growth of Christianity in some areas of the world, Haney noted there have been several challenges facing growth in the Global North such as intellectualism, cultural relativism and “a worldview that undercuts biblical authority and evangelical faith and practice.”
Engage the unengaged
“It is important that we do not associate the growth of Christianity with the health of Christianity,” Haney said. “Global numbers of Christian adherents can give us a false picture of the health of our churches and those within churches. For example some people groups may have a significant number of Christian adherents — counted because they were baptized into churches as infants — but have very few practicing Christians. This is why it is so important to engage the unengaged with church planting teams and reach the barely engaged with evangelical faith and practice which leads unbelievers to accept Jesus Christ as their sole source of salvation through faith in Him.”
Share with others: