Many believe that from the Sahara Desert down to the southern tip of South Africa, there are more Christians concentrated there than any other place in the world. There has been rapid growth in Christianity in Africa that has outstripped that of the Islamic faith and technically, it makes it the most religious place on earth, if only due to the massive number of Christians living there. For example, in Soweto, they started with a handful of people in a very small church in 1993 but now this same church has more than 15,000 members and 11 satellite churches across South Africa. Today, almost one in four Christians live in Africa and the rate of increase was about 35% in the last ten years. Nigeria, the Democratic of Congo, Ethiopia, is among the top ten nations with the most Christian population.

About a century ago, 2/3rds of the Christians in the world lived in the Europe. In Europe today it is closer to 1 in 4 are Christians but this doesn’t mean the decline and fall of Christianity because if you count Nepal and China, these are the two most rapidly growing in Christian population than any place on earth. Nepal leads the way with an annual growth rate of almost 11% while in China, it is growing at nearly the same rate (10.86%). [1] For China, which is the largest nation on earth that accounts for the fastest growth rate in the world for Christianity but of course, most of that is underground. Could you imagine if it were embraced by the Chinese government and not made illegal? Already, 7 in 10 Christians live outside of the West which may be why the more the church is persecuted, the more it spreads, as indeed, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

Read the article “3 Surprising Places Christianity is Exploding in the World Today” on patheos.com.