Lausanne World Pulse – Perspectives Articles – Great Commission Prioritization of Countries: Helping to Make Completing the Great Commission More Meaningful for All Believers
By John Pitterle
January / February 2010
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. Great Commission prioritization scores for the countries are shown by color on a world map in Figure 1, with red representing the highest priority.
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 twenty places or ten points may have a similar priority.
This study is based upon 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, India, and China 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 U.S., while 0.0013% and 0.00002% of these resources, respectively, are in Afghanistan.
Figure 2 shows the nations’ relative shares of the world’s Christian workers on a per capita basis. 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 the sake of highlighting the current allocation, consider that of the 1,533,000 Christian workers in the U.S., 1.28 million or 83.4% of these Christian workers would need to become missionaries in another country in order to achieve global equity.2
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 this information can be practically applied to prioritize participation in the Great Commission based upon 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 can 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.
- Greater emphasis can 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,
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…
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. Barrett, David, and Todd Johnson. 2001. World Christian Trends AD 30 – AD 2200. Pasadena, California, USA: William Carey Library, 416-425.
2. “Great Commission Priorities.”
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John Pitterle and his family have lived in South Africa and Namibia for several months and in Madagascar for four years, helping with the gospel for children and the first Malagasy study Bible. The author has been to Ukraine, India, and Zambia on short-term trips. |