The world population is now over 7 billion people. What percentage are Christians? Where is the church growing the fastest? How does Christianity influence global challenges from poverty to politics?  And how can we strategically pray for the world’s population?
Molly Wall is lead researcher for Operation World — the definitive prayer resource for missions — and she joins us to discuss the future of the global church. We dig into the part each of us can play in advancing God’s Kingdom.
Molly explains that her organization seeks to conduct research that inspires prayer and prayer that inspires action. Their primary goal is to encourage prayer around the nations. In her view, it’s key to do our best to pray the prayer that Jesus has set before each of us.
So what would it mean for Christians around the world to truly unite in prayer? We look at the sheer numbers.
There are 2.2 billion Christians in the world today, spread across 38,000 Christian denominations. We have now arrived at a remarkable point in history where it’s entirely accurate to say that there are Christians in every corner of the globe.
“The world is becoming more religious – not less religious!”
Christianity is nearly matched in its global reach by Islam, a faith that continues to grow at a rapid pace. We examine the relative birth rates in the predominately Christian and Islamic regions of the world and what that means for the future of religion.
Meanwhile, there has been a distinct shift in the center of the global Christian church. The American church is so culturally dominant that at times we have difficult clearly seeing the needs across the globe. Yet prayer can prove a unique tool in combating that issue. It’s an avenue toward unification.
