Microsoft Word - Great Commission Prioritization _revised_of Countries.doc Great Commission Prioritization of Countries: Helping to Make Completing the Great Commission More Meaningful for All Believers John Pitterle Former missionary to Madagascar Current missions committee member and research engineer ABSTRACT Where are the people who have not heard about Jesus? This article seeks to answer this question and address the great need to prioritize the Great Commission. Because most Christians can more easily locate countries rather than people groups, readily available missions information was used to prioritize the nations using ten criteria. Data for 15,893 people groups and 222 countries were used to evaluate the status of Christianity in the nations. The results have many possible applications about world evangelization efforts. People in nations with little access to the gospel especially need prayer, gospel tools, and new missionaries. Greater emphasis needs to be placed on bringing the awesome truth of Jesus to the least reached. I. INRODUCTION In areas where there are no hospitals or schools, most people would agree that it should be a priority to provide medical help or education to the people who live there. In a similar way, where very few people have heard the Gospel, most Christians would agree that we should prioritize bringing the truth about Jesus. As Paul said, “It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else's foundation. Rather, as it is written ‘Those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.’” (Romans 15:20, 21) David Bryant said, “Today five out of six non-Christians in our world have no hope unless missionaries come to them and plant the church among them.”1 If this is true, perhaps we should do something about it. II. WHERE ARE THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE NOT HEARD ABOUT JESUS? Where are the people who have not heard about Jesus? This is a critical question that will be addressed in this article since there is a great need to prioritize and strategize. Because many Christians and churches cannot locate unreached people groups on a map or target them with their missions giving, this article focuses on a country-by-country approach. Thus we will look at the status of the Great Commission in the nations of the world to answer the question, “Where do people have the least opportunity to hear the Gospel?” The nations will then be prioritized using available data. Such findings can be helpful for praying, for churches regarding their missions program, for individual giving towards the Great Commission, etc. Possible next steps are offered. It is hoped that a country prioritization approach will provide a more concrete, understandable way for more Christians to emphasize the least reached in their Great Commission involvement. III. GREAT COMMISSION PRIORITIZATION OF COUNTRIES Excellent missions-related information is available today. For example, the Joshua Project2 (JP) has large amounts of data available freely to churches, organizations, and individuals who can apply it to their specific applications as was done in this paper. Similarly, information from the World Christian Trends AD 30 – AD 22003 (WCT) book was also used in this country prioritization. There are numerous parameters that could be used to evaluate the state of the Great Commission in the nations of the world. The weighting of the final ten criteria used here to evaluate countries and produce an overall score out of 100 possible points is shown in Figure A1 and explained in the appendix. For 15,893 people groups, the Joshua Project has scores for progress, ministry tools, and location (identified as “Country Indices” in Table A1). The JP article MFPrioritizationArticle.doc4 provides a description of these three criteria. Using a simple computer program, these three scores were separately multiplied by the respective populations of all the people groups in a given country and then added together. These country totals were then divided by the total population of the people groups in each country to provide an average score for these three categories in each nation. The JP web site5 also provides information about each country regarding the percentage of people living in a least reached people group, the population in least reached people groups, the number of least reached people groups, and the total population. Barrett and Johnson1 provide data regarding the number of disciple offers per person per year, the number of Christian workers per million population, and the cost (to lead to the baptism) of each new convert. Table 1 shows the resulting total scores for 222 countries in common between the JP and WCT using the previously mentioned weighting. The highest scores indicate the poorest Great Commission status and the highest priority, starting with rank / priority #1. Scores for selected countries are shown in Figure 1. These scores are not intended to show minute differences that can distinguish between consecutive countries in the list. Rather, one could possibly say that countries within 20 places or ten points may have a similar priority. IV. HELPING TO MAKE COMPLETING THE GREAT COMMISSION MORE MEANINGFUL FOR ALL BELIEVERS This study is based on statistics. While it is certainly very important to be led by the Holy Spirit, the data here most likely reflect on the truth of the status of the Great Commission. Thus, such information can be used to help make prayerful and objective decisions regarding world evangelization efforts. There are many possible applications for data like these. For example, the overall prioritization of the U.S. is 123 and of Afghanistan is 1. Table 2 emphasizes the severe lack of Christian resources in Afghanistan and the excessive amount in America. 27.8% of the world’s full- time Christian workers and 34.1% of all Christian personal or church income are in the USA while 0.0013% and 0.00002% of these resources, respectively, are in Afghanistan.3 Considering the overabundance of Christian resources in the United States, perhaps we should consider minimizing our Great Commission investment in this country where most people have many opportunities to hear the truth about Jesus while there are so many people around the world who have heard little or nothing. For instance, of the 1,533,000 Christian workers in the U.S.,3 1.28 million or 83.4% of these Christian workers could perhaps be missionaries in another country in order to achieve global equity.6 People living in the countries with the highest scores typically have little or no exposure to the Gospel or opportunity to hear about Jesus. For this reason, the people in these countries really need prayer especially since there are few Christians there to pray for all the lost people. It could also be strategic to send new missionaries and focus more outreach on the higher priority nations because many of the people groups in these nations have little or no evangelical activity. There is a great need to prioritize the Great Commission and strategize. There are many ways that this information can be practically applied to prioritize participation in the Great Commission based on need. For example, we can all maximize our investment in high priority nations. Churches and individuals can evaluate the missionaries / organizations they support and consider focusing more on countries near the top 1/3 of the priority list. Churches could especially think about adding more new missionaries in high priority nations. Churches can establish goals to increase the percentage of their support in the top nations. Scripture / gospel literature support could be earmarked for high priority countries. Lastly, greater emphasis could be placed on international student ministry, in particular seeking to reach people from high priority nations. It can be very easy and strategic to befriend and reach out to future international leaders who are studying in universities away from home. As agreed upon by more than 2,300 evangelicals from more than 150 nations in the Lausanne Covenant of 1974,7 “We are convinced that this is the time for churches and para-church agencies to pray earnestly for the salvation of the unreached and to launch new efforts to achieve world evangelization. A reduction of foreign missionaries and money in an evangelized country may sometimes be necessary to facilitate the national church's growth in self-reliance and to release resources for unevangelized areas. . . . The goal should be, by all available means and at the earliest possible time, that every person will have the opportunity to hear, understand, and receive the good news.”8 V. CONCLUSION In conclusion, in order to more quickly complete the task Jesus left the church to do, there is a great need to prioritize reaching people who have little or no access to the Gospel. Country prioritization like that done in this article can be used to help churches, ministries, and individuals prioritize their participation in the Great Commission. Many follow-up actions like more focused prayer and new missionaries or gospel resources targeted for countries with many least reached people can be pursued. ENDNOTES 1“100 World Christian Quotes.” March 2007. http://thetravelingteam.org/?q=node/196. 2“Joshua Project – Downloads.” April 2006. http://www.joshuaproject.net/download.php. 3Barrett, David, and Todd Johnson. World Christian Trends AD 30 – AD 2200. Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 2001, pp. 416-425. 4“MFPrioritizationArticle.doc.” March 2007. http://www.joshuaproject.net/assets/MFPrioritizationArticle.doc. 5“Global Countries Listing.” May 2006. http://www.joshuaproject.net/globalctry.php. 6“Great Commission Priorities.” March 2007, slide 9. http://www.geocities.com/AdvocatesForTheUnreached/Great_Commission_Priorities.pps. 7“The Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization.” March 2007. http://www.lausanne.org/Brix?pageID=12891. 8“The Lausanne Covenant.” March 2007. http://www.perspectives.org/about/lausanne.html. Total Score Country Rank Priority 96.38 Afghanistan 1 94.11 Algeria 2 94.00 Iran 3 91.94 Bangladesh 4 91.07 Tunisia 5 90.62 Pakistan 6 89.53 Turkey 7 89.03 Morocco 8 88.57 Yemen 9 87.88 Maldives 10 86.55 Nepal 11 86.28 Azerbaijan 12 85.73 Western Sahara 13 85.01 Korea North 14 84.66 Cambodia 15 84.33 Comoros 16 84.26 Mongolia 17 84.08 Iraq 18 83.72 Saudi Arabia 19 82.81 Laos 20 82.60 Niger 21 81.91 Guinea 22 81.90 Kyrgyzstan 23 81.83 Mauritania 24 81.53 Bhutan 25 81.52 Mali 26 Table 1 – Country Great Commission Status Scores and Prioritization Ranks 81.23 Libya 27 80.58 India 28 78.29 Senegal 29 78.12 Oman 30 77.51 Syria 31 77.28 Uzbekistan 32 76.59 Japan 33 76.40 Somalia 34 76.03 Jordan 35 75.95 Turkmenistan 36 75.80 Chad 37 75.72 Kuwait 38 75.25 Thailand 39 75.14 Bahrain 40 75.09 Tajikistan 41 74.64 Israel 42 74.56 Viet Nam 43 74.02 Gambia 44 73.83 Egypt 45 73.82 Mayotte 46 72.84 Sudan 47 71.42 United Arab Emirates 48 71.38 Kazakhstan 49 70.43 Myanmar 50 69.24 Djibouti 51 69.09 Indonesia 52 69.04 Guinea- Bissau 53 68.72 Qatar 54 68.26 Sri Lanka 55 67.84 Eritrea 56 67.36 Serbia and Montenegro 57 65.74 China 58 65.26 Sierra Leone 59 64.93 Taiwan 60 64.63 Georgia 61 64.42 Brunei 62 64.09 Malaysia 63 63.52 Tanzania 64 62.44 Ivory Coast 65 61.80 Benin 66 61.45 Nigeria 67 61.00 Russia 68 60.36 Mozambique 69 60.12 Burkina Faso 70 59.96 Bosnia- Herzegovina 71 59.60 Central 72 African Rep 58.67 Liberia 73 57.16 Ethiopia 74 56.82 Togo 75 56.46 Palestine 76 55.37 France 77 54.70 Belarus 78 54.64 Singapore 79 54.37 Guyana 80 53.52 Ghana 81 52.80 Lebanon 82 52.71 Cameroon 83 52.54 Macedonia 84 52.17 Kenya 85 51.84 Netherlands 86 50.02 Gibraltar 87 49.49 Estonia 88 49.43 Zambia 89 48.78 Liechtenstein 90 48.36 Bulgaria 91 48.22 Moldavia 92 48.07 Ukraine 93 47.74 Equatorial Guinea 94 47.33 Trinidad & Tobago 95 46.96 Austria 96 46.60 Armenia 97 46.40 Gabon 98 46.28 Albania 99 46.03 Madagascar 100 45.83 Germany 101 45.21 Italy 102 45.15 Cyprus 103 44.80 Cuba 104 44.75 Spain 105 44.71 East Timor 106 43.76 Philippines 107 43.68 Lithuania 108 43.07 Britain 109 43.03 Belgium 110 42.87 Namibia 111 41.49 Reunion 112 41.29 Malawi 113 41.28 Congo- Brazzaville 114 41.25 Latvia 115 40.48 South Africa 116 40.27 Australia 117 39.73 Suriname 118 39.51 Canada 119 39.14 Fiji 120 38.72 Monaco 121 38.56 Northern Mariana Is 122 38.14 United States 123 37.64 Luxembourg 124 37.54 Argentina 125 37.53 Uganda 126 37.07 Sweden 127 36.71 Greece 128 36.66 Mauritius 129 36.16 Andorra 130 35.85 Jamaica 131 35.25 Finland 132 34.98 Czech Republic 133 34.97 Chile 134 34.31 Zimbabwe 135 33.69 Venezuela 136 33.61 Congo-Zaire 137 33.33 Uruguay 138 33.33 Slovenia 139 32.81 Saint Vincent 140 32.42 Cayman Islands 141 32.25 Sao Tome & Principe 142 32.17 Romania 143 32.04 Croatia 144 31.85 French Guiana 145 31.62 Hungary 146 31.32 Switzerland 147 31.02 Isle of Man 148 30.93 Belize 149 30.90 Paraguay 150 30.65 American Samoa 151 30.20 Colombia 152 29.83 Botswana 153 29.74 Denmark 154 29.33 Guatemala 155 28.94 New Zealand 156 28.64 Mexico 157 28.60 Peru 158 28.37 Papua New Guinea 159 27.57 New Caledonia 160 27.51 Haiti 161 27.36 Ireland 162 27.26 Rwanda 163 27.06 Seychelles 164 27.06 Angola 165 26.92 Slovakia 166 26.83 Norway 167 26.58 Bahamas 168 26.55 Iceland 169 26.50 Burundi 170 26.50 Virgin Is of the US 171 26.46 Puerto Rico 172 25.71 Marshall Islands 173 25.67 Bermuda 174 25.42 Nauru 175 24.81 Ecuador 176 24.76 El Salvador 177 24.11 Netherlands Antilles 178 24.05 Barbados 179 23.75 Saint Lucia 180 23.63 Portugal 181 23.60 Brazil 182 23.55 Honduras 183 23.45 Turks & Caicos Is 184 23.13 Vanuatu 185 22.73 Aruba 186 21.95 Antigua 187 21.54 San Marino 188 21.52 Martinique 189 21.44 Poland 190 21.44 Bolivia 191 21.21 Greenland 192 21.20 Dominican Republic 193 21.19 Micronesia 194 20.51 Korea South 195 20.17 French Polynesia 196 19.96 Nicaragua 197 19.68 Panama 198 19.09 Solomon Islands 199 18.67 Tonga 200 17.67 Samoa 201 17.42 Lesotho 202 17.38 Costa Rica 203 17.37 British Virgin Is 204 16.99 Dominica 205 16.59 Kiribati 206 15.99 Saint Kitts & Nevis 207 15.61 Swaziland 208 15.27 Cape Verde 209 14.40 Guam 210 13.75 Palau 211 13.15 Anguilla 212 12.95 Cook Islands 213 12.50 Tuvalu 214 12.25 Saint Pierre & Miquelon 215 12.03 Wallis & Futuna Is 216 10.58 Malta 217 10.07 Guadeloupe 218 9.07 Faeroe Islands 219 8.51 Montserrat 220 7.23 Saint Helena 221 5.81 Grenada 222 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Fig. 1 - Great Commission Prioritization / Status of Christianity (Top 28 + Misc. Countries) Table 2 – Comparison of Christian Resources/Criteria in the USA and Afghanistan USA Afghanistan Priority 123 1 % of World’s Full-Time Christian Workers 27.8%3 (6.0 x % pop.) 0.0013%3 (1/292 x % pop.) % of All Christian Personal or Church Income 34.1%3 (7.4 x % pop.) 0.00002%3 (1/19000 x % pop.) % of World Population 4.6%3 0.38%3 # Discipleship Opportunities per Person per Year 3683 Less than 13 % Population Least Reached in the Country 0.3%5 99.9%5 % Christian 76% 0.03% % Evangelical Christian 32.5%5 0.0%5 Average Cost / Convert $1,551,0003 $30,0003 Appendix – Description of Prioritization Criteria and Method Figure A1 - Prioritization Weighting Percent Least Reached (25%) Number Evang/Disci Opportunities (18%) Joshua Project Progress (15%) Christian Workers per Million (14%) Ministry Tools (8%) Country Indices (7%) Population People Least Reached (6%) Number Least Reached People Groups (4%) Population (2%) Cost / Convert (1%) Table A1 – Prioritization Weighting Criteria and Description Criteria (Percent Weighting) Description Percent Least Reached (25%) Percent of the country's population living in a least reached people group Number Evangelism/Discipleship Opportunities (18%) The (average) number of discipleship offers per person per year in the country Joshua Project Progress (15%) Progress of or response to the Gospel Christian Workers per Million (14%) Number of Christian workers per million population Ministry Tools (8%) Bible translation status, Jesus film, audio recordings, & Christian radio broadcasting Country Indices (7%) Location indices (country persecution index, human development index, & percent evangelical) Population People Least Reached (6%) Population living in a least reached people group Number Least Reached People Groups (4%) Number of least reached people groups in the country Population (2%) Population of the country Cost / Convert (1%) Average cost to lead to a baptism Numerous weighting parameters of the ten prioritization criteria were analyzed. The categories are described in Table A1. For a while, the actual numerical values of the criteria were used. However, because extreme values skewed some aspects of the relative comparison, countries were ranked and scored from 1 to 222 for each of the topics and these numbers were used to produce the final weighted scores. The top three criteria provide a good indication of the current status of the Great Commission. The percent of people living in a least reached people group is most heavily weighted because it is an important indicator of the country’s need for the Gospel. Similarly, the average number of opportunities a person in a given country has to become a disciple of Jesus in a year reveals a helpful glimpse about the status of evangelism. Originally Joshua Project Progress was weighted the most because it incorporates information for all people groups but the data appeared less discriminating than other parameters and thus it was reduced. The next group of three categories represents vehicles (tools or people) that can be used to share the Gospel and also a composite score of Christian life in the country. Ministry Tools initially had the largest weight of these three topics but it was reduced because some of the data seemed to be less consistent. In general, somewhat greater emphasis was typically given to data more directly related to the Great Commission. Three population items were used to add more weight for countries with more people. The total of 10% for these three criteria was selected in attempt to not excessively bias the influence of population. Finally, the cost per baptism (i.e., convert) was included mostly because it is an interesting statistic although it could potentially be used as a tiebreaker. Published in the special issue “A Memoriam of Paul G. Hiebert”, Contemporary Practice, www.globalmissiology.org April 1, 2007