Pressure Point #2 The West as a Mission Field 8

This is the third post in the series related to my forthcoming book Pressure Points: Twelve Global Issues Shaping the Face of the Church. You may find the first HERE and the second HERE.

Through many of the Western nations of the world have historically experienced a strong Christian presence, the West is now a post-Christianized mission field.  It was during the 200 years of the great advancement of the Protestant missionary movement that the ideologies of secularism, modernity, and postmodernity developed with much force.  These helped facilitate the demise of Christendom.  As time progressed, the shadow of the steeple shrank across the West and the chime of church bells grew faint.  Western European contexts, once bastions for theological orthodoxy and missionary movement are now spiritual deserts with only a small percent of evangelicals.

Here are the nation-wide evangelical percentages across a few Western countries:

• United Kingdom  9%
• Canada 8%
• Australia 14%
• New Zealand 18%
• Denmark 4%
• Netherlands 4%
• Switzerland 4%
• Germany 2%
• Spain 1%
• France 1%

And while the United States remains with a 26% evangelical presence, she also finds herself as a post-Christianized mission field.  Sure, states such as Alabama, Oklahoma, and Mississippi are comprised of about 40% evangelicals, but such is clearly not the case across the country.

• Utah 2%
• Rhode Island 2.5%
• Massachusetts 3%
• New Hampshire 4%
• Vermont 4%
• New Jersey 4%
• Connecticut 4%
• Maine 4.5%
• New York 4.5%
• Delaware 7%

And whenever we become even more specific, we see the following realities in some of our metropolitan areas:

• Provo-Orem, UT  0.5%
• Pittsfield, MA 2%
• Salt Lake City, UT 3%
• Utica-Rome, NY 4%
• Kingston, NY 2%
• Protland-Biddeford, ME 4%

A 2012 study confirmed that the United States is no longer a Protestant-majority country. Adherents have dropped just below the 50 percent mark for the first time. Coupled with this shift in Protestant numbers is the rise of Americans stating they have no religious affiliation. Presently, 20 percent of all US adults (thirty-three million) comprise the quickly growing category of the “nones.” In all likelihood these demographic shifts reflect changes to come. Like the inching of a glacier that ever so slowly reshapes the land, changing faith systems are part of an ongoing sculpting process in the United States. The country has now reached a tipping point in the numbers of those with little to no connection to a Judeo-Christian worldview.

While I plan to address international migration in a future post in this series, it is worth noting here that in addition to the aforementioned matters, the West is also a major recipient of large numbers of migrating Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Atheists.  The West is home to an estimated 1200 unreached people groups, with many of these representing some of the world’s unengaged-unreached peoples.

Returning to the Apostolic

Effective mission in the West is going to require the church to return to a radically biblical approach to her labors. This return will cause many people to believe they have discovered something new, avant-garde, innovative, or creative. Nothing could be further from the truth. We need to frequent that which is already in place.

The challenge for the Church in the West is not just how to think about her context as a missionary should think, but also how to act as a missionary would act in the shadow of dominant structures and organizations that are more pastoral in nature, birthed and developed within a Christian context of yesteryear.

The return to apostolic or missionary thought and practice will be a great challenge for many churches. If the late twentieth century brought about “worship wars” among congregations, I can only speculate how such missional shifts will be received. In light of how poorly we (at least in the U. S.) resist change, I believe few churches will make the necessary changes to reach the post-Christian West. Churches that are most likely to move forward effectively are those who embrace a radically biblical approach to sending missionary teams to function in apostolic ways when it comes to making disciples, planting churches, and appointing pastors in those churches.

Pressure Points may be pre-ordered HERE

(image credit: Microsoft Office)