In the midst of “de-christianisation”, secularism and materialism Europe has kept
one leadership position in the Christian world. But now even this hegemony seems to fall.
According to Status of Global Mission 2012 there are still more church members in Europe than on any other continent. But within the coming one-two years Latin-America will overtake Europe. Just a few years later Africa will surpass both Latin-America and Europe and take the leadership role. Since the church grows faster in Africa than on any other continent, Africa will probably keep on top of the church member statistics for many years to come.
100 years ago no one could challenge Europe’s top position as the World’s Christian center of gravity. In year 1900 70 per cent of all the world’s church members belonged to European churches. Since then the churches in Europe have experienced stagnation or decline. At the same time the population growth on the continent has been very small.
Huge growth
The churches in Africa have had the opposite development. In year 1900 less than nine million Africans were members of a Christian church. Today the African churches in total have approximately 500 million members.
– The church growth has been greatest in areas where we earlier found the traditional, African religions. The gospel has given people hope and filled spiritual needs that the traditional religions could not meet. Now we also see that the Gospel is advancing in the Muslim areas in the northern part of Africa despite the threats and persecution that the believers are facing there, comments Tiowa Diarra. He is the head of Tentmakers International Africa (TIA), a network that is training African tentmakers to take the gospel to all the unreached areas in Africa and beyond.
Tentmaking is seen as a great mission model in Africa. Because most tentmakers are supporting themselves through their work, this model allows all churches to be involved in the worldwide mission work even if their resources are limited.
Growing impact
According to Operation World the evangelical churches in Africa are growing faster than all other congregations. 100 years ago the continent had 1.6 million evangelical Christians. Today they number 182 million.
Tiowa Diarra believes that the African churches to a growing extent will impact
the worldwide Christian church in the years to come.
– The African congregations can contribute with many things. For instance I believe we can give valuable input when it comes to evangelism and discipleship training, says the TIA leader.
Next year Tentmakers International Africa will host the TI World Congress on tentmaking. The Congress is taking place in Dar es Salaam in the beginning of August.