We thank God for how His kingdom is expanding around the world. But we still face huge mission challenges. Let’s look at the four biggest challenges we face.
Every 30 seconds, somewhere in the world, someone becomes a Seventh-day Adventist. In 2021, a new Adventist church was established every 3.6 hours. And last year we reached 22 million members.
We thank God for how His kingdom is expanding around the world. But we still face huge mission challenges. Let’s look at the four biggest challenges we face.
First, the retention rate in our church. For every 10 people who come into the church, four leave.
Second, the cities. This is where most of the world’s population now live. This is a particularly difficult challenge for Seventh-day Adventists. We’ve had a difficult history with cities and prefer country living. But we must face our new mission field.
Third, the 10/40 Window, which stretches from Northwest Africa into the Middle East and through to Asia. This is where most of the world’s population live and the fewest Christians. Millions here have never even heard the name of Jesus.
Consider, for example, Uttar Pradesh [pra-daysh]. It’s just one of 28 states in India. Most of us know it as home to the Taj Mahal. But if this relatively small state were a country, it would be the fifth most populous in the world. In central Uttar Pradesh, we have six Adventist churches—one for every 10 million people.
The challenge is even greater in Bihar [bee-har], another Indian state bordering Uttar Pradesh. In the Bihar Region, we have just four churches—one for nearly 32 million people. If we had the same ratio as Bihar in the United States and Canada, we would have just 12 churches instead of 5,630 churches. In Kenya we would have about two churches instead of 7,347 churches. In Brazil we would have fewer than seven churches instead of nearly 10,000 churches. And in the Philippines, we would have about three churches instead of 5,300 churches.
The final major challenge is the growing secular and post-Christian population. For the first time in history a minority of people in England and Wales ticked the “Christian” box in Census 2021. And this trend that we’ve seen for many years in Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand is now reaching the United States and other areas.
As we look at these challenges, we must remember that they’re also God’s challenges. He has a plan for the salvation of this world and has graciously invited us to participate with Him in His plan. This is the purpose of Global Mission—to reach the unreached with hope. Every Global Mission center, every Global Mission pioneer, every tentmaker, and every urban center of influence has the same goal—to start new groups of believers among unreached people groups. It’s time to refocus our time, resources, and prayers on these major mission challenges!
