MMRC: Pastoral development in Worlds A, B and C

Pastoral development in Worlds A, B and C
by Justin D. Long

In response to our recent e-mail soliticing suggestions for future reality-checks, David Sitton of To Every Tribe Ministries wrote to ask, "I heard the following statistic several years ago, but have been unable to confirm it. Can you help? 86% of all the ministers in the world are ministering to something like 2% of the world's population -- This overloading of ministers is concentrated, of course, in the easy-to-get-to (reached!) regions of the world. Can anyone confirm the accuracy of this statistic or update it?"

The answer: It's more like 95% among 33% of the world.

"Pastoral workers" is our category "M-6" in our recently published Annual Statistical Table on Global Mission, 1996, in the International Bulletin of Missionary Research (published by Overseas Ministries Study Center, 490 Prospect Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, USA). These include bishops, church leaders, clergy, pastors, ministers, chaplains, deacons, administrators, preachers, parish workers, teachers, theologians, contemplatives, religious and all others not primarily in outreach mission situations.

There were 3,499,400 pastoral workers at year's end, 1995. 349,940 quit during the year, while 439,190 came on board, leaving us with a net increase of 89,250. 95% of these pastors work in majority-Christian (World C) countries, presumably pastoring and calling the people to renewal. 3% work in World B (majority evangelized non-Christian) countries, and 2% in World A (unevangelized) countries.

The total population of World C countries is 1.57 billion; of World B countries, 2.34 billion; and of World A countries, 1.85 billion. (Source: Global Diagram 61, International Bulletin of Missionary Research, January 1995).

Therefore, 95% of the pastors work among 27% of the population (World C); 3% work among 41% of the population (World B), and 2% work among 32% of the population (World A).

However, what must be borne in mind is that this is only a generalization. Many of the pastors working in World B, for instance, are by default working among World C peoples. After all, why would a pastor be pastoring non-Christians? The very definition of a pastor is that they they train, disciple, discipline and mentor believers.

Of more interest, perhaps, is the question, "What should the local church be doing?" For example, there are 1.9 billion "non-professional" Christians (e.g. those not involved in ministry). Of these, roughly 700 million are involved in supporting missions in some way (prayer, giving, short-term missions, mobilization, research, training). Yet, we are sending out only 1.4 million missionaries, of which 392 thousand are foreign missionaries. This isn't even a tithe--it's not even 1% of the total available lay apostolate. We must continue to challenge churches to challenge people. The church's reason for existence is to bring the Good News of Jesus to the whole world.