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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A Predominantly Christian nation, with 25% Evangelicals

Papua New Guinea is home to 1,800,000 evangelical believers! Though the nation is approximately 95% Christian, only 25% of those are evangelical believers.&nbsp;
The Papua New Guinea evangelical church grew out of the work of German missionaries in the mid 1800s. Over the past few centuries, the church has often become entangled in ethnic religion, as they function in a society steeped in rich tribal traditions and spiritual superstitions. The majority of evangelical churches in Papua New Guinea are Lutheran, the second largest denomination next to Catholicism. Because of this, if a school, church, work place, or youth program is evangelical, it will most often be Lutheran as well.

No Data, but Cultural Bridges Regardless

Data for Papua New Guinea has yet to be added to the Geert Hofstede Cultural Values index. Because of this, we can only estimate very general ideas of what values their cultural might hold and cannot speak with precision as to how that relates directly to the unreached; however, one can imagine that coming from a largely tribal culture, believers from Papua New Guinea would relate well with unreached tribal people groups.

Little Access to Unreached Within Borders

With access to about 1,000 unreached in-country and 1,883,000 regionally, Papua New Guinea scores Low on the Strategic Access index.
Though the country does not receive many migrants, Papua New Guinea does share a border with the Indonesian West Papua which is home to several million unreached peoples.
Pray that the Papua New Guinea evangelical church would not see this as a hindrance, but rather grow in excitement for the unreached outside of their borders and willingness to travel to spread the good news!

Religiously Free, but Persecution from Ethnic Witchcraft

According to Pew Research, Papua New Guinea has a low level of religious restrictions and hostilities with a score of 2.0. [[1]]&nbsp;
The Papua New Guinea constitution states that all citizens have the freedom to practice religion and worship as they see fit, so long as it does not infringe on the rights of others. Though the state has no official religion, the constitution mentions ""Christian values"" in its writing, and legal meetings often begin and end with Christian prayer.&nbsp;
Though the nation is predominantly Christian, there are still ethnic religions that often practice witchcraft and ceremonial acts that tend to end in persecution of other religions. 2020 saw reports of many women and children being persecuted through ceremonial torturings by these ethnic religious groups. The church in Papua New Guinea is aware and actively praying against these hateful acts, as local law enforcements seem to have turned a blind eye, as to avoid any dark spiritual repercussions. [[2]]&nbsp;
These instances of persecution are, thankfully, few and far between. Overall, Papua New Guinea is a very safe place for evangelicals to raise up, send, and mobilize believers to go to the unreached. Praise God for providing the church with such a safe and free environment to do His work!

Low Overall Prosperity

With a Legatum Prosperity Index ranking of 129, Papua New Guinea scores very low in terms of overall prosperity. [[3]]
Papua New Guinea scores highest in ranks for Personal Freedom and Natural Environment, and lowest in its score for Living Conditions and Education.&nbsp; These low rankings and overall poor economic status could serve as a barrier to those considering launching to or from Papua New Guinea.

Small Sending, but Great Opportunity to Support

Current estimates for sending to the unreached for Papua New Guinea are nearly 60 abroad and 800 in-country. This puts the country at a low ranking for sending, compared to other countries on the Mobilization Index.&nbsp;
One prayer goal of the Mobilization Index is to see 0.1%, or 1 in a 1,000, of a nation&rsquo;s evangelical church mobilized to the unreached. With 60 missionaries sent to the unreached, Papua New Guinea sends about .002% of their evangelical church. Were the country to reach that 0.1% prayer goal, Papua New Guinea would see 1,800 missionaries sent out, which is an increase of 1,740 people!&nbsp; Pray that the Lord would turn the hearts of the Papua New Guinea evangelical church to the unreached and raise up a wave of senders and goers, so that every tribe, tongue, and nation can know His name!

Moderate Mobilization Potential

Though Papua New Guinea has low religious restrictions and a high percentage of Christians, its low on the Legatum Prosperity Index and low access to unreached create a Moderate mobilization potential score. &nbsp;
Ask the Lord to use the church in Papua New Guinea to take His name to the unreached, no matter the distance!

Obstacles:&nbsp;
<ul>
<li>There are very few unreached peoples within the borders Papua New Guinea; however, they share a border with Indonesia and are close to Southeast Asia. This could be an inconvenience, as the Papua New Guinea evangelical church will to leave their country to access the unreached, rather than simply evangelizing in their hometown.&nbsp;</li>
<li>The Papua New Guinea as a whole has a low prosperity ranking, meaning that supporting and sending missionaries could be practically more difficult.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
Opportunities:
<ul>
<li>With 95% of their population professing Christianity, the Papua New Guinea church will not have to look far to find a large Christ centered community to help support and send missionaries out to the nations!</li>
<li>As a religiously free nation, evangelicals can practice their faith, promote sending and mobilize their church without much fear of any persecution.</li>
</ul>

Prayer:
<ul>
<li>Pray for the tensions and persecution in the country between the ethnic witchcraft and the church.&nbsp;</li>
<li>Pray for believers to find their most strategic role in seeing Christ proclaimed among the nations.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
Praises: &nbsp;
<ul>
<li>Praise God for the growth of the church in Papua New Guinea!</li>
<li>Praise God for the provision of the church through constitutional religious freedom.</li>
</ul>

PEW religious restriction numbers Myanmar

Official Country Name:The Independent State of Papua New Guinea

Population:8,776,000

Region:Australia and Pacific

Government:Constitutional Monarchy

Official Languages:English

Religious Demographics:Christian ±95%, Evangelicals ±25%, Ethnic religious ±5%, Unevangelized <1%

Papua New Guinea