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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God is Moving in Vietnamese Evangelicals

The Vietnamese protestant church is more than 100 years old. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Dominicans and Jesuits from Portugal and France came to Vietnam as missionaries, spurring the birth of the Vietnamese church. In the early 1900s, Canadian missionaries sent to Vietnam began the start of Protestant evangelical churches. Today, Vietnam's capital city, Hanoi, is home to over 8 million people. Of those 8 million, only 0.1%, or 8,000 people, are now evangelical. Likewise, the majority group in Vietnam, the Viet Kinh, has more than 75 million people though only 500,000 of them are evangelical believers.&nbsp;
In total, Vietnam is home to approximately 1.7 million evangelicals. According to Joshua Project, the church in Vietnam is growing at 2.6% annually! There is great potential for the Vietnamese church to continue to grow and reach the unbelieving percentage in their country. If only another 0.1% of those in the capital city were to come to know the Lord, the church in Hanoi would double in size and Vietnamese missions efforts could significantly increase! Pray that the Lord of the Harvest would work against barriers in Vietnam and bring about a revival for His name.

Culturally Bridged with 30 UPGs

With an average Median Cultural Distance of 15.2, Vietnam has a very high number of cultural similarities with the 30 UPG nations on our list. Vietnam's closest cultural neighbors are: Senegal (5), Indonesia (6), Nepal (7.5), and 3 more countries less than 10 median points of distance away. Of Vietnam's 6 cultural neighbors, only 1 is in a majority Muslim country or located in the Middle East.

Minimally Reached with Moderate Access

With access to 8,497,000 unreached in-country and 328,763,000 unreached regionally, Vietnam scores high on the Strategic Access Index.&nbsp; The majority of Vietnamese (Vietnam's largest people group with a population over 80 million) are considered only partially reached.

High Government Restrictions

According to Pew Research, of the 25 most populous countries, Vietnam had some of the lowest levels of social hostility regarding religion; however, Vietnam also scored in the top 25 countries for high government restrictions on religion. It was one of only eight countries that made the list in 2015 but not in 2014. [[2]]
Open Doors USA ranks Vietnam as 18th on the World Watch List and lists it as having a ""very high"" persecution level. As one of the few communist countries in the world, much of the persecution is due to both local and national government restrictions. This, combined with the tribal culture already in place and the Communist tensions, have created a hostile environment for Christians. [[3]]
While some restrictions have been lifted since 2005, many unregistered churches and ethnic minority Christians still face harassment, discrimination, and sometimes outright and harsh persecution.

Growing in Prosperity and Economic Potential

Vietnam ranks 73rd on the Legatum Prosperity Index, raising one position from their 2016 ranking. Accompanied by Cambodia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, Vietnam has been rapidly rising in prosperity over the past decade. In 2007, Vietnam boasted the largest prosperity surplus in all of Southeast Asia.
Vietnam's market economy has been the largest contributing factor to its prosperity growth. This has helped Vietnam integrate into global manufacturing flows, even passing China in prosperity.
More than ten million in Vietnam have been lifted from extreme poverty, as the proportion living under $1.90 a day has fallen from 22% to just 3%. While Vietnam is growing economically, the country is struggling to turn the wealth into prosperity. This is primarily due to a failure to invest in structural foundations of prosperity growth. Vietnam also has the lowest combined score for Governance and Personal Freedom sub-indices in Southeast Asia. [[4]]

Great Potential for an Increase in Mobilization

Vietnam is currently sending 800 missionaries in-country and 180 abroad.[1] It is not known how many of Vietnam's 800 missionaries are serving among reached or unreached peoples. With 800 missionaries, only 0.06% of the Vietnamese evangelical church has been mobilized. Our prayer goal is to see that number grow to 0.1%, or 1 in 1,000, which would be 1,600 missionaries!

Low Mobilization with Massive Potential

While Vietnam has access to more than 340,000,000 unreached people in-country and regionally, it has a low level of religious freedom.
As a whole, Vietnam is only 2.23% evangelical. This leaves a great need for evangelism in the country, as well as for cross-cultural missionaries to be sent to Vietnam. While traditional evangelism and cross-cultural missions can be difficult, there is great opportunity to equip the pastors and the evangelical church in Vietnam. For these reasons, Vietnam's mobilization potential is ranked at Moderate.

Obstacles:
<ul>
<li>Due to the lack of religious freedom, Vietnam remains one of the top 20 worst persecutors of Christians. Unregistered church meetings can legally be broken up and the leaders thrown in jail.&nbsp;</li>
<li>Vietnam's high persecution rank could deter evangelicals from going and sending, as well as missionaries from launching to Vietnam.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
Opportunities:&nbsp;
<ul>
<li>Vietnam's economy is well set for globalization. The country is rapidly changing which provides constant opportunities for business, and as a result, increasing prosperity and sending opportunities for missions.</li>
<li>Another opportunity is the evangelical church, which is over 100 years old. The mobilization of this experienced church could see a breakthrough with outreach to the many unreached people groups in the country and throughout the region.</li>
</ul>

Pray:
<ul>
<li>Pray for unity in the evangelical church and its Christian organizations as they seek to share the gospel.</li>
<li>Pray for freedom from religious restriction of unregistered house churches. [[5]]</li>
<li>Pray for creative access opportunities to grow in Vietnam as it continues to change rapidly.</li>
</ul>
Praise:&nbsp;
<ul>
<li>Praise God that in the midst of persecution the church remains steadfast and continues to grow.</li>
<li>Praise God for the access the Vietnamese church has to UPGs!</li>
</ul>

Pew Research on Religious Restrictions 2015

World Watch List Report by Open Doors USA

Official Country Name:Socialist Republic of Vietnam

Population:96,462,000

Region:Southeast Asia

Government:Marxist-Leninist one-party social republic

Official Languages:Vietnamese

Religious Demographics:Buddhist ±52%; Non-religious ±23%; Christian ±9%; Ethnoreligionist ±7%; Other ±5%; Chinese ±1%; Baha'i, Muslim, Hindu <1%

Vietnam