Time Magazine reports:

A religious revolution is transforming Indonesia. Part of the spiritual blossoming entails Muslims embracing a more conservative form of faith, mirroring global trends that have meant a proliferation of headscarves and beards in modern Islamic capitals. More surprising, though, is the boom in Christianity — officially Indonesia’s second largest faith and a growing force throughout Asia. Indeed, the number of Asian Christian faithful exploded to 351 million adherents in 2005, up from 101 million in 1970.

  more. . .

Thanks to reader Bryan.

Prayer can penetrate anywhere. Long before we enter the valleys of Nepal prayer can be doing a concrete work in laying the foundations for the future kingdom. . . . When we have prepared the way with the Spirit of God in prayer, he will answer those very prayers in permitting us to occupy Nepal.

Gordon Guinness, The Quest of the Nepal Border, 1928

We can never predict where and how the next breakthrough in world missions will occur. But when it comes there are always transferable principles on display.

Here’s what John B has learned after spending much of his life in Nepal and witnessing a move of God in this former Hindu kingdom.

First, there was an unprecedented degree of cooperation among various Christian groups.

Second, rapid development in Nepal, encouraged by His Majesty’s Government of Nepal, resulted in openness among the common people to new things.

Third, the prohibition of conversion and the reality of persecution from the outset prevented nominalism and kept the church strong.

Fourth, most converts were young, vigorous, and vibrant, with a keen sense of evangelistic outreach to the majority society. Also, family conversions were not uncommon, and mass conversions occasionally took place among tribal groups.

Fifth, retired Gurkha servicemen who had converted to Christianity while in the Indian or British army returned to their villages and established small Christian communities.

Sixth, new Christians were trained across the border in India to fill the need for pastors and church leaders. Locally, there were short-term training schools and conferences.

Seventh, several parachurch groups, especially student and youth organizations, worked alongside the churches to spur evangelism and to support new Christians.

Eighth, Christian literature, including translation of portions of Scripture into several tribal languages and the translation of the whole Bible in Nepali, spread the Christian message. Radio ministries transmitted the message. Bible correspondence courses provided instruction to thousands of new believers.

Ninth, the predominant use of indigenous songs and tunes reflected the general pattern of indigenous worship that included such culturally appropriate practices as meeting on Saturdays (Sunday being a working day in Nepal) and gender-segregated seating on the floor, often in ordinary village homes.

Finally, Betty Young, added the following: “A very widespread means which God has used in the rapid spread of the Gospel is healing—there must be thousands who have come to the Lord through healing.”

John B: A Description and Analysis of the Growth of the Church in Nepal

John B shares some great news out of Nepal.

Until recently Nepal was the world’s only Hindu kingdom. The mighty Himalayas and the fact that Nepal was a closed land until the middle of the twentieth century enticed many, but from 1881 to 1925 only 153 Europeans are known to have visited Nepal and none became a resident.

The earliest recorded entry of Christians into Nepal was the visit of a Father Cabral, a Jesuit priest, in 1628.

For two centuries before 1951, Nepal was totally closed to any Christian presence.

From just a single secret Christian residing in Nepal in 1951, the number of Nepali Christians grew to about 40,000 baptized believers by 1990 and has increased more rapidly since then.

The most comprehensive survey of churches and Christians in Nepal was conducted by the Nepal Research and Resource Network.

It showed a total of 2,799 churches and 274,462 baptised church members. The survey counted 379,042 persons attending churches and presumed to be Christian; this number equals about 1.5 percent of Nepal’s population. Ten percent of the churches have sent out a missionary or evangelist, and one out of five churches has planted one or more daughter churches.

Next post: John explains why.

Is it any surprise that 85% of the churches that fitted the criteria were Pentecostal or charismatic?

Their conclusion after a four year study spanning twenty nations: some of the most innovative social programs in the world are being initiated by fast-growing Pentecostal churches.

Case studies cited include, AIDS projects in Kampala, ministries to children in the slums of Cairo, schools for the children of prostitutes in Calcutta, treatment programs for drug addicts in Hong Kong, political rights for indigenous people in Guatemala.

It seems that while Liberation Theology opted for the poor, the poor opted for Pentecostalism.

“Global Pentecostalism: The New Face of Christian Social Engagement” (Donald E. Miller, Tetsunao Yamamori)

This will make your day. It made mine.

In December, Times columnist , Matthew Parris, returned to Africa after 45 years absence. He was there to report on The Times Christmas Appeal which was devoted to providing clean water for rural communities.

Listen to what he says about the impact of Christianity in Africa. Did I mention he was an atheist?

It inspired me, renewing my flagging faith in development charities. But travelling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too: one I’ve been trying to banish all my life, but an observation I’ve been unable to avoid since my African childhood. It confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my world view, and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God.

Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.

There’s more. . .

Here’s my summary of his first three points:

1. Pneumatocentric Mission*
Pentecostal mission is grounded first and foremost in the conviction that the Holy Spirit is the motivating power behind all this activity. Pentecostal missionaries got on with the job in a hurry, believing that the time was short and the second coming of Christ was near. Reflection about the task was not as important as action in evangelism.

The Spirit bears witness to the presence of Christ in the life of the missionary, and the message proclaimed by the power of the Spirit is of the crucified and resurrected Jesus Christ who sends gifts of ministry to humanity.

2. Dynamic Mission Praxis
Pentecostals believe that the coming of the Spirit brings an ability to do “signs and wonders” in the name of Jesus Christ to accompany and authenticate the gospel message.

Gary McGee notes that this “confident belief that God had at last poured out his Spirit with miraculous power to empower Christians to bring closure to the Great Commission…has forced the larger church world to reassess the work of the Holy Spirit in mission.”

The central role given to healing is probably no longer a prominent feature of western Pentecostalism. But it is in the Majority World, where the problems of disease and evil affect the whole community and are not relegated to a private domain for individual pastoral care.

Thus, Pentecostal movements went a long way towards meeting physical, emotional and spiritual needs of people in the Majority World, offering solutions to life’s problems and ways to cope in what was often a threatening and hostile world.

3. Evangelism: Central Missiological Thrust
The Azusa Street revival (1906-8) resulted in a category of ordinary but “called” people called “missionaries” fanning out to every corner of the globe within a remarkably short space of time.

Despite the seeming naiveté of many early missionaries, their evangelistic methods were flexible, pragmatic and astonishingly successful.

Pentecostal evangelism was geared towards church planting, a central feature of all Pentecostal mission activity. Pentecostal churches were missionary by nature, and the dichotomy between “church” and “mission” that so long plagued other churches did not exist. This “central missiological thrust” was clearly a “strong point in Pentecostalism” and central to its existence. Thriving Pentecostal “indigenous churches” were established in many parts of the world without the help of any foreign missionaries.

*Comment from Steve: In the old days they called it “Holy Ghost power!”

“As I travel, I have observed a pattern, a strange historical phenomenon of God ‘moving’ geographically from the Middle East, to Europe to North America to the developing world. My theory is this: God goes where he is wanted.”

Philip Yancey

For the last five hundred years the story of Christianity has been bound up with Europe and European derived cultures. According to Philip Jenkins, over the past century the centre of gravity in the Christian world has shifted southward to Africa, Asia and Latin America. These are the regions in which the largest and fastest growing Christian communities on the planet are to be found. They are also the regions of fastest population growth. Combined with decreasing fertility rates in the West the result is that, “By 2050, only about one-fifth of the world’s 3 billion Christians will be non-Hispanic Whites.” While Western Christianity is may be in decline, a new era of Southern Christianity is dawning.

1. A biblical-supernatural worldview

Southern Christians, whether they are Catholic, Evangelical or Pentecostal, are far more conservative in terms of both beliefs and moral teaching than the mainline churches in the prosperous North. “Southern Christians retain a very strong supernatural orientation, and are by and large far more interested in personal salvation than in radical politics.” This may explain the neglect of Western experts who do not find these churches to their taste.

Christians in the developing world take the Bible very seriously. They believe that what they read in the Gospels is happening in their midst. They believe that the world of the apostles is a present reality. “If there is a single area of faith and practice that divides Northern and Southern Christians, it is the matter of spiritual forces and their effects on the everyday human world.”

2. Home grown

The vibrancy of the church in the global South confounds the myth that Christianity is a European-American religion exported to a passive Third World. “Over the past two centuries, at least, it might have been the European empires that first kindled Christianity around the world, but the movement soon enough turned into an uncontrollable bushfire.”

In Africa the end of the colonial period marked the beginning of the explosive growth of the Christian movement on that continent. In China, since the beginning of communist rule and the subsequent expulsion of foreign missionaries, the church has grown at least ten fold to between 60-100 million participants.

“Whatever their image in popular culture, Christian missionaries of the colonial era succeeded remarkably.” Their success was not due to the imposition of a foreign faith backed with political and economic power. They succeeded because the church that was planted in fresh soil adapted to local circumstances and took on a life of its own. Christianity became even more appealing when it no longer implied submission to a foreign power.

Leadership roles, especially in the Pentecostal and independent churches, are not restricted to those who have been formally trained in Western oriented academic institutions. Local leaders are chosen who demonstrate the required spiritual gifts and qualities.

3. Communities of Faith

As the developing world modernizes rural societies are becoming more urbanized as millions join the drift to the burgeoning mega-cities. They find in those places a desperate lack of resources and infrastructure. The old support systems of extended family and village are replaced with the anonymity and alienation of the city.

In these cities religious communities act as an alternative social system providing health, welfare and education. Congregations often replace distant family networks. It was Christianity’s “radical sense of community” that made it so appealing in the days of the Roman Empire. Likewise the appeal of the early Methodists “at once providing material support, mutual cooperation, spiritual comfort, and emotional release in the bleak wastes of the expanding industrial society.”

The astonishing growth of the world’s mega cities will continue. There is every indication that the churches in those cities will continue to grow with them.

Conclusion

“Christianity is flourishing wonderfully among the poor and persecuted, while it atrophies among the rich and secure…. [T]he distribution of modern Christians might well show that the religion does succeed best when it takes very seriously the profound pessimism about the secular world that characterizes the New Testament. If it is not exactly a faith based on the experience of poverty and persecution, then at least it regards these things as normal and expected elements of life. That view is not derived from complex theological reasoning, but is rather a lesson drawn from lived experience. Christianity certainly can succeed in other settings, even amid peace and prosperity, but perhaps it does become harder, as hard as passing through the eye of a needle.”

“The Next Christendom : The Coming of Global Christianity ” (Philip Jenkins)