80% of the world’s evangelical Christians live in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Over the last 50 years, God’s church has grown exponentially in these areas.

These regions have tremendous mission sending potential to help bring the gospel to unreached peoples, but they currently send only 20% of the world’s cross-cultural missionaries!

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Total Number of Evangelicals

Cultural Bridges to UPGs

Regional Access to UPGs

Religious Freedom

Prosperity

Current Sending Abroad

Mobilization Potential

Custom Mobilization Potential

Number of Evangelicals

Cultural Bridges

Strategic Access

Religious Freedoms

Current Sending

This infographic provides a visual score for seven data points ranked on a 0 to 100 scale. Faded icons show scores for other countries on the mobilization index. See below for actual scores and country-specific insights.

ADDITION

FINANCIAL DEPENDENCY

INACCESSIBLE

LIMITED MISSION FORCE

DISTANT AND FOREIGN MISSION FIELD

THE WORLD IS THE MISSION FIELD

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Every child is in the process of discipleship. The question is: What is discipling them?&nbsp;
Consider a day in the life of a child. Who are the people they are following: peers, teachers, celebrities, coaches? How much time do they spend at athletic practices? How much emphasis is placed on academic achievement?&nbsp; How much time are they spending playing video games or reading books?&nbsp;
Children are being discipled through academics, athletics, extracurricular activities, relationships, and entertainment. Every child is in the process of discipleship, whether intentionally begun... or not. If their discipleship is focused primarily on these types of activities, consider the natural result. They might be an excellent athlete, academically strong, or socially active&mdash;but are they following Jesus?&nbsp;
Christians often associate the term discipleship with the process of becoming more like Jesus, but by its most basic definition, discipleship is the process by which a student becomes more like the person or subject he or she is following.
So, consider the amount of time your children spend in Christ-centered activities in a day. How much time do they spend reading the Bible, singing songs about God, or in prayer? Does your family gather for meals to share about your day or have Christ-centered conversations regularly? Do they walk or hike trails to appreciate the beauty of God&rsquo;s creation? How often do you take advantage of everyday moments to point them to Jesus?&nbsp;
It's important to note that playing sports or focusing on academics are worthwhile pursuits. Children need a variety of activities and relationships to grow into well-rounded, healthy adults. Under the right circumstances, almost every experience can come under the lordship of Christ and be part of the process of discipleship in Christ. But if we aren&rsquo;t regularly evaluating a day in the life of our children, then we aren&rsquo;t considering what we are emphasizing and the choices we are helping them make.&nbsp;
We need to recognize that from infancy, children are being discipled. At the same time children are growing taller, learning vocabulary words, developing social skills, and understanding themselves and others, they are developing their beliefs about God, God&rsquo;s Word, and God&rsquo;s work in their lives and the world.&nbsp;
In the same way we practice a sport with them and help them develop good manners, we should actively and intentionally place our children on a discipleship journey toward Christ. We can&rsquo;t just expect children to arrive at the destination of belief in God; we need to guide them along the path. We need to ask the question on a regular basis: Are they following Jesus and becoming increasingly more like him?&nbsp;
Proverbs 22:6 encourages us to &ldquo;start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.&rdquo; This proverb is not a promise that every child will remain in Christ. But research indicates that adults who follow Jesus most likely made a commitment to him in childhood.
In fact, the first 13 years of life are the most important years for discipleship.
No other time between birth and death provides as many opportunities to shape how an individual perceives themselves, others, and the world. This is by God&rsquo;s design. While we can witness the rapid growth of a child&rsquo;s physical body, what is happening in their mind is even more miraculous and formational. In fact, it is during these first 13 years of life that humans develop cognitive skills, social competencies, and moral commitments at a rate that exceeds any other time of life.
By the time a child reaches adolescence, they will have a cognitive framework&mdash;a mindset&mdash;that organizes their world into clear categories. This framework begins with concrete thinking: understanding the world through senses and direct experiences.&nbsp;
By age 13, they will mature beyond concrete thinking to abstract thought through conceptualizing ideas, critical reasoning, and hypothetical scenarios. During childhood, a child&rsquo;s social world shifts from being self-centered toward being others-centered (and to a desire to be valued by others). By age 13, they can identify right from wrong, describe their basic beliefs, and make decisions based on what they value most.&nbsp;
Many of the choices we make, passions we pursue, and perspectives we articulate as adults can be traced back to what we learned and believed in childhood.&nbsp;
Though the Bible does not provide us with step-by-step instructions in raising children to be disciples, Scripture does provide commands to parents and examples of discipleship that can be helpful and instructive. Though not all children develop biologically, cognitively, socially, and morally in the same way, we can rely on research that helps us understand the stages of childhood development that God designed so we can intentionally disciple our children in age-appropriate ways.
When we are intentional about discipling children, we can start to put into practice some valuable routines that will lead to a deeper, richer relationship with God. We can teach children to become students of the Bible. We can help them build an age-appropriate vocabulary of faith. We can work with them to develop spiritual practices that lead to an identity in Christ and a relationship with God.&nbsp;
A good reminder is that though we can lead, train, encourage, and empower children in their discipleship, God is the one who makes things grow (1 Corinthians 3:6-9). God knows each child and their location along the discipleship map. May we rest in the knowledge that God is at work in our lives as we become more like Christ and in the lives of the children we are raising to follow him.
Let&rsquo;s link arms together to guide the children in our lives along this pathway toward faith and commitment to Christ.

(excerpted and edited by permission from &ldquo;Raising Disciples: Guiding Your Kids into a Faith of Their Own&rdquo; by Teresa Roberts, NavPress, 2024.)c

Via Families

The Discipleship Journey