An Upside-Down World
Distinguishing between home and mission field no longer makes sense
By Christopher J. H. Wright

This year, the Christian Vision Project asked a select group of church leaders, What must we learn, and unlearn, to be agents of God's mission in the world? Here is Christopher Wright's answer—an urge for believers to rethink the meaning of mission, whether your mission field is across the ocean or across the street.

The map of global Christianity that our grandparents knew has been turned upside-down. At the start of the 20th century, only ten percent of the world's Christians lived in the continents of the south and east. Ninety percent lived in North America and Europe, along with Australia and New Zealand. But at the start of the 21st century, at least 70 percent of the world's Christians live in the non-Western world—more appropriately called the majority world.

More Christians worship in Anglican churches in Nigeria each week than in all the Episcopal and Anglican churches of Britain, Europe, and North America combined. There are more Baptists in Congo than in Britain. More people in church every Sunday in communist China than in all of Western Europe. Ten times more Assemblies of God members in Latin America than in the U.S. the rest