Just before ascending into heaven, Jesus gave the Church a command: “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19).

The other gospels and Acts echo this mandate in various forms (Mark 16:15; Luke 24:47,49; John 20:21; Acts 1:8).

How well are Christians fulfilling the Great Commission today? What challenges and opportunities do we face in the near future?

The Lausanne Movement, founded by Billy Graham in 1974, sought to answer such questions in its 2024 State of the Great Commission report.

Matthew Niermann, the report’s director, recently spoke with Influence about his findings.

INFLUENCE: When Jesus gave the Great Commission, the Church was small and localized in Roman Judea. Today, Christianity is the world’s largest religion. What is the state of Christianity globally?

NIERMANN: Christians currently represent about one-third of the world population.

Within that, evangelicals hold about 5% of the world population, while Pentecostals and charismatics are 7–8%. (This report treats Pentecostals/charismatics and evangelicals as separate demographics.)

Combined, evangelicals and Pentecostals account for 33–34% of all Christians.

When you look across time, the percentage of the global population that is Christian is flat. In 1910, we were 33–34% of the global population, and we’re projected to be the same in 2050.

It is important to note that Christians have kept up with population growth since 1910, and we want to honor all the Christian workers who have dedicated their lives to spreading the gospel. Their efforts were valuable and worthwhile.

But it’s a gut-check moment for the Christian world when we say the percentage of Christianity hasn’t grown globally.

That’s a hard reality, but there’s a really dynamic reality that needs to be noticed too. Christianity in 1910 looked very different than it will in 2050.

In 1910, the majority of Christianity existed in Europe and North America — what we might call the Global West. About 80–85% of Christians were in the Global West.

Fast-forward to 2050 — or even look at 2020 — and the situation is inverted. Christianity is about 25% of Europe and North America, with the rest of Christianity being in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

A word picture may help the average Christian understand the demographic shift. A representative Christian in 1910 would be a European male. Today, the representative Christian is a Nigerian female.

What share of the global population is unreached, and what progress is the Church making toward taking the gospel to these populations?

Let’s talk about the measures we have.

The evangelized is the percentage of the world that has heard the gospel and had an opportunity to respond.

Unreached people are a different category. They don’t even have access to the gospel, let alone having ever heard it.

The story about the evangelized mirrors the rise of the Global South. In 1910, 97–98% of Latin America, North America, and Europe were evangelized. That has continued until now.

Contrast that with Asia and Africa. In 1910, 10% or less were evangelized. In 2020, Africa was about 75% evangelized, and Asia was about 55% evangelized.

“Out of 450,000 missionaries, we’re sending 435,000 to the evangelized and 15,000 to the unreached. This is massively disproportionate.”

“We need to focus on discipleship, which is the Great Commission, to close the back door of the Church, because so many people are leaving.”

Between now and 2050 may be the first time the percentage of Christians in the West no longer keeps up with population growth. So, the percentage evangelized is taking a dip in the West.

If we look at Western missionary activity, we can take heart. North America is still by far the highest missionary sending region.

The number of missionaries coming out of Europe and Oceania has dropped significantly, but that is replaced by a massive rise of missionaries coming out of Asia, somewhat out of Latin America, and a little bit less out of Africa.

Now let’s talk about unreached people. This is a hard story about resource allocation.

There are roughly 450,000 (primarily Protestant) missionaries in the Christian world.

If you look at the percentage of the world that’s reached and unreached, it’s about 4.5 billion people reached and 3.3 billion unreached.

But out of 450,000 missionaries, we’re sending 435,000 to the evangelized and 15,000 to the unreached. This is massively disproportionate.

What role do legal restrictions and cultural barriers play in this?

If a particular people group is unreached at this point, it’s because it’s not easy to reach them. That’s why few missionaries are headed that way.

Regardless, we should continue to consider how to take the gospel to them.

Christianity is not the only religion or ideology appealing to the masses. The report mentions secularism and Islam, the world’s second-largest religion. How are these competing for people’s affections?

Let’s start with Islam.

Christianity is the world’s largest religion, and its percentage of the global population has stayed relatively flat. It was about 34.5% in 1900 and is projected to be about 34.3% in 2050.

Hinduism and Buddhism also sit on a flat line. Hinduism was 12% in 1912 and will be about 12% in 2050. Buddhism was 7% in 1906 and will be 6% in 2050.

Islam is the one religion whose growth is not a straight line. It’s an aggressive line upward on a graph. In 1900, Islam represented about 12% of the global population. By 2050, it’s projected to more than double to around 29%.

So, Islam is a religion many are turning toward. We see this not only in adherence, but also in interest.

You can map digital interests on Google and other search engines. Interest in Christianity is flat, but interest in Islam continues to grow.

It’s the same kind of thing when you look at print publications. In the English world, you have a declining number of Christian publications and a huge rise in Islamic publications.

Now let’s look at secularism. The Great Commission focuses on inviting people through the front door. How can we share the gospel with people?

With secularism, people are saying, “I don’t want to come in the front door. I’d rather have a secular lifestyle.”

Secularism is a story about people leaving out the church’s back door. Most won’t go to Islam or other religions. Their focus is on getting ahead materially.

We need to focus on discipleship, which is the Great Commission, to close the back door of the Church, because so many people are leaving.

State of the Great Commission examines 10 questions Christians around the world will need to answer in the coming decades. One of those questions is, “What does it mean to be human?” The report considers how artificial intelligence, transhumanism, and sexuality/gender are changing that discussion. What challenges do these issues pose to Christians carrying out the Great Commission?

As director of the State of the Great Commission report, I firmly believe “What does it mean to be human?” is the preeminent question of our age.

We must be able to provide a Christian answer to this question to help shape the conversation and direct these trends within our world.

Of course, one might ask how this question affects the Great Commission in the first place. It has to do with the plausibility and desirability of the gospel itself.

Today, talk about artificial intelligence or transhumanism or transgenderism expresses a deep hope that we can overcome our limitations through technology. If that’s possible, we no longer need God or the gospel.

Sure, there are moral, ethical, and civic considerations that need to be talked about, and Christians can participate in those conversations. But if we believe we can save ourselves through technology, that’s a real challenge to the gospel.

Technological developments pose challenges, but they also offer opportunities. Another question State of the Great Commission asks is, “What is ministry in a digital age?” How is digital technology changing the way Christians think about evangelism?

There are amazing opportunities to use technology for the Great Commission.

Technology reduces geographical distance. It provides personalized and direct content to people when they need it. It allows people to interact with Scripture and Christian doctrine in personal ways.

The way Christian ministries are using artificial intelligence, natural language processing, and even Web3 and other parts of the digital sphere is fascinating and fantastic. Wonderful things are happening.

Let’s tie this question back to the issue of unreached people. “Unreached people” is a very helpful category. We need it because ethnicity is part of identity.

But what’s happening in our digital age is that digital identity is becoming another layer. A young lady in Moscow may have more in common with someone in New York than with another person from her ethnicity in a rural part of Russia.

We need to understand ethnic identity and reach people groups, but we also have to understand digital identity. Are we doing contextualized missions to these digital identities?

Missions-minded Christians have done great work crossing geographical, cultural, and linguistic borders for hundreds of years. We've changed our appearance, learned new languages, and eaten different foods so we can speak contextually to people who need the gospel.

Unfortunately, too often we produce digital content for people like us. Algorithmic programming sends our messages to people with our digital identity.

We’re very intentional about crossing physical borders, but we need to begin thinking about how to cross digital borders as well.

The digital world offers a wonderful opportunity to gather outside the physical church, to connect and learn.

But one of the things we’ve learned in reflecting on the digital age is that we cannot give up completely on embodiment. There’s something beautiful, necessary, and mandatory about physically coming together as a congregation.

Certainly, physical church can be partnered with digital ministry, but coming together physically as a church is unique, necessary, and even sanctifying.

The digital world allows us to get together with people who are like-minded from around the world. We are able to share, think, collaborate, and grow in particular areas of life or ministry. That’s incredibly valuable.

But if we only stay with people like us, we miss the sanctification opportunity of sitting next to people who are different, and even difficult.

And that’s the beauty of embodied Church. It puts us all together to make us more effective in ministry and to sanctify us personally.

This interview, originally featured on the Influence Podcast, has been edited for clarity and concision. For more information about the State of the Great Commission report, visit Lausanne.org/report.

This article appears in the Fall 2024 issue of Influence magazine.