Love Where You Live: Understanding the Mission

But it would be a mistake to view the decline of cultural Christianity in North America as signaling the decline of Christianity as a whole. This is exactly why we need to broaden our perspective to see the global nature of our faith—because around the world, the Church is growing exponentially. In the global South and East, in particular, there is a vibrant zeal for the gospel embodied by our brothers and sisters in nations like Brazil and South Korea. We would do well to develop a listening posture in order to learn from them—and just maybe let a bit of that evangelistic zeal rub off on us. 

The future of Christianity in North America will depend on our ability to foster genuine relationships with our neighbors, engage with diverse perspectives, and live out our faith with integrity from a vantage point that looks and learns globally but strategizes and acts locally³—what many call thinking “glocal.” We need to broaden our perspective to include other voices, including ones from the global church, that strengthen our local ministry and help us innovate better. We need to think both global and local (glocal) if we are going to make sense of our cultural moment and live faithfully on God’s mission. 

Psalm 97:1 (CSB) declares: “The Lord reigns! Let the earth rejoice; let the many coasts and islands be glad.” Be encouraged by the big picture; God is a global God and desires all people, everywhere, to declare his praise! Christianity remains a global force to be reckoned with. 

In a recent Lausanne Global Analysis,  Philip Lutterodt, Joabe G Cavalcanti and Loun Ling Lee present a summary of three presentations made at Spurgeon’s College Conference 2022.⁴ They showcase important perspectives from Africa, Latin America and Asia and confirm the vast proliferation of Christians in the Global South. In a world of discontinuous change, disruption, and cultural turmoil, they highlight the fact that Christianity in the Global South is growing both qualitatively and quantitatively at a phenomenal pace, especially when compared to Christianity in the Global North.⁵ This means that we have much to learn from the Global South as we position our mission for success in North America.  

How we apply those learnings to our North American context is something we will explore in Part 2 of this series.

³I have written more extensively on the topic here: “The Future of Christianity in North America,” The Exchange, May 2019.
⁴This article is a summary of the three presentations at Spurgeon’s College Conference 2022 by Philip Lutterodt, Global Christianity – A Voice from Africa: Ghana; Joabe G Cavalcanti, Global Christianity – A Voice from Latin America: Brazil, and Loun Ling Lee, Global Christianity – A Voice from Asia: East Asia.
⁵Philip Lutterodt, Global Christianity – A Voice from Africa: Ghana; Joabe G Cavalcanti, Global Christianity – A Voice from Latin America: Brazil, and Loun Ling Lee, Global Christianity – A Voice from Asia: East Asia.