When were you really born according to global population history?  Check out this fascinating chart and put in your birthdate.

This week I am in Paris working on the creation of what we are calling the 3W Roundtable.  We are entering an era of new fiscal challenges, new legal challenges in the area of transparency for non-profits, and an era in which we need to re-examine the effectiveness of the flow of money from North America to mission-fields around the world.  We need to make sure that our investments are well-thought out, strategic, and do no foster unhealthy dependencies.

In an effort to make sure that we at Three Worlds examine these issues and always operate with high levels of transparency, we are creating the 3W Roundtable which offers an extra layer of transparency for us Regional Coordinators, our 3W crew, and our partners on the field.

The goal of the 3W Roundtable is to create an extra layer of accountability and transparency.

It will:

*Provide a higher level of transparency.

*Serve as advisors and and offer an objective viewpoint.

*Provide an added layer of personal accountability for Jamie and Patrick.

*Strategize and create synergy.

*Help 3W become a portal that churches, districts, and other organizations can tap into for healthy global ministry.

Creating healthy churches and mission-fields is not something that happens automatically.  And churches and Christian organizations can easily fall into the trap of basing decisions on individual, subjective interpretations.  In this region, we are wanting to make sure that our decisions foster health and longevity.  It means making sure that we have equal relationships (not balanced too far toward North America nor too far toward the field), that we share a common missiology, that we share a common vision for the field, and that we share a commitment to health and financial transparency.  If those things are not in place, good intentions can lead to disaster.  We want our partners to know exactly what is going on in the field and over the coming years, we will be increasing the ways that people can be in touch with our region.

Today we begin taking an in-depth look at Philip Jenkins book, The Next Christendom: the Coming of Global Christianity.  This is the book Jamie and I selected as our book of the year for our 3W Staff.  Three Worlds is about helping the church navigate the Three Worlds of Christianity at the dawn of the 21st Century:  1) the Traditional 2) the Post-Christendom and 3) the non-Western.  This book deals with the world that is growing the fastest—Non-Western Christianity.  Consequently, it’s highly relevant to us at Three Worlds and highly relevant to all of you too as you shall see.  As I’ve said previously, I think it is the most important book about Christianity that has come out in the past 10 years.  It should be required reading for anyone in ministry (or for anyone studying history, international relations, religion or political science).

I’ll be taking the book piece by piece, highlighting important sections, offering commentary and raising questions.  Feel free to write to us here if you have any questions or comments that you would like to add.

SOME BACKGROUND

Philip Jenkins is a a professor of history and religious studies at Penn State.  He has written a large number of books and really excels at covering a lot of ground in a very clear and concise way.  He is a perfect popular academic writer.

This particular book deals with the growth of Non-Western Christianity also called “Southern Christianity” by Jenkins or “World Christianity.”  This is the Christianity that is growing rapidly in Brazil, Sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of Asia  including China.  Places that were once thought of as pagan or non-Christian, like Africa, are now predominantly Christian.  Furthermore, while Christianity in the West is in steep decline, it is growing and taking on a local, non-Western flavor in much of the world.

People still think of Christianity as a Western (American) religion.  But the reality is that Christianity has been increasing for quite a long time.  Independent African churches (not tied to Western denominations and Western Christianity) have been growing since the 1930′s and really began a fast growth curve in the 1950′s.  But it wasn’t until the late 1990′s (if then) that even academics took notice of this growth.  Only around 2005 or so, did articles about the 100 million + Christians in China start making it into regular news outlets.  Jenkins book was the first to really take non-Western Christianity public.  Excerpts from his book were highlighted in a cover story article in the Atlantic magazine (formerly the Atlantic Monthly) in 2002.  That put the subject “out there” so-to-speak.

Behind the scenes, scholars like Andrew Walls at Edinburgh and Lamin Sanneh at Yale had already written and discussed non-Western Christianity at length.  Sanneh was a professor of mine and a great inspiration to Philip Jenkins.  Mark Noll, Jehu Hanciles, Paul Freston and other scholars who are now writing books about this subject.  Sanneh, however, can’t write for a mass audience the way Jenkins can.  And that’s why “The Next Christendom” has become the book on this subject for now.

LOOKING AT CHAPTER ONE (pages 1-3)

Jenkins writes:  ”We are currently living through one of the transforming moments in the history of religion worldwide.  Over the past five centuries or so, the story of Christianity has been inextricably bound up with that of Europe and European-derived civilizations overseas, above all in North America…Over the past century however, the center of gravity in the Christian world has shifted inexorably southward to Africa, Asia and Latin America.”

If we want to visualize a “typical” contemporary Christian, we should think of a woman living in a village in Nigeria, or in a Brazilian favela…

Many of the fastest growing countries in the world are either predominantly Christian or else have very sizable Christian minorities.  Even if Christians just maintain their present chare of the populatin in countries like Nigeria and Kenya, Mexico and Ethiopia, Brazil and the Philippines, there are soon going to be several hundred million more Christians from those nations alone.

Some 2 billion Christians are alive today, about one-third of the planetary total…..by 2050 only about one-fifth of the world’s 3 billion Christians will be non-Hispanic Whites.  Soon the phrase “a White Christian” may sound like a curious oxymoron, as mildly surpirsing as a Swedish Buddhist.”

****PATRICK’S COMMENTS

He’s a good writer isn’t he?  The beginning of the book sets the stage and challenges the current conceptions of who Christians are, what they look like, and where they live.  It’s amazing that all of this has gone so unnoticed for so long.  To this day, we frequently meet Christians actively involved in missions who assume that Christianity is primarily Western and that there are very few Christians in places like Africa.

There can be several reasons for this–perhaps you can add more.  One is just ignorance about life outside of our own country or environment.  It’s easy to latch on to an image and have that be your permanent reality.  ”Most missionaries are white,” “Africans primarily live in tribes and in small villages where they have never been exposed to Christianity,” “everyone in Latin America is Catholic” etc.  I remember my father used to include slides of Nairobi, Kenya’s skyline in his presentations just because most people hearing his presentations had no idea that Africa had cities and even tall modern looking buildings.  This was in the 1970′s and 1980′s.

But there’s also the fact that Christianity has been so defined by American Christian media, American denominations, and American preachers.  As the Christian nation with the most money and p.r. possibilities, “what does a Christian look like” very much gets defined by North America–particularly the U.S.A.

Another reason is probably that Evangelical (mission) efforts have often come with very little analysis on the ground.  Decisions are made and fast-tracked and as the reality on the ground changed–missionary efforts did not.  The Evangelism push if often almost manic as opposed to being strategic.  A numbers-obssessed approach hasn’t helped matters. It created the paradox that this extreme Evangelism efforts yielded results and then went unnoticed.  That would be fine if it weren’t for the fact that some of this new Christianity is filled with errant thought–which will be talked about later.

Then there’s the secular press, which prior to 9/11 never really took religious stories seriously.  Religious stories are common place now and the rise of the New Atheists brings even more attention to the positive and negative role played by religion.  But all of this was largely absent prior to 9/11.  The change has been dramatic. A shift this dramatic could easily go unnoticed in the secular press.

Same with universities which often remained completely oblivious to major religious shifts happening in the world.

So the ground has shifted as far as Christianity is concerned and people are just beginning to notice.  But this change has effects both positive and negative–and we’ll continue to look at that as we make our way through the book.

A new church in Italy has just been formed.  This is the 2nd new church in Northern Italy in the last 18 months.  Like our new church in Arco, the Treviso church is in Northern Italy.  On a map, it is just a bit north of beautiful Venice.  For now, the Lovaglio family continue to lead both churches.  The Arco church meets on Sunday morning and the new Treviso church meets at 6:30pm and is starting with about 30 people.  This is really great.

Three Worlds is already committed to offering strategic support to efforts in Italy.  We look forward to meeting with the people of Treviso in the coming months to begin working together.

In the coming weeks at Three Worlds, we are going to be taking a close look at Philip Jenkins book, “The Next Christendom: the Coming of Global Christianity.”  It is our 3W staff book for this year and I think it is one of the most important books of the last 10 years–not just in regard to Christianity, but period.  Christianity’s explosive growth will have massive geo-political implications.

If you are interested in following the discussion on a deeper level than just reading the summary and analysis on the diary, order the book at amazon.com.

Such a perfect day

feed animals in the zoo”

-Lou Reed

Last Friday, we went on a family outing to the zoo.  It was Marco’s fall break from school, and we tried to do some fun things throughout the week.  People love the Berlin zoo.  Everyone says it is so good.  We love zoos, so we were wondering what the hype was about.  The zoo is right in the middle of the city, so it’s not really a scenic area like in Sydney or San Diego.  What could make the zoo so special?

Well, I’m still not sure, but we loved it.  I don’t know if we were just lucky, or if it is the way the simple zoo is designed.  The animals were EXTREMELY active.  Instead of Lions that just sleep or bears hidden off behind some rock, the animals were always visible and always moving around.  It was a stark contrast to most zoo experiences.

For instance:  the Elephants were fed just a few feet from us.  It was amazing watching them eat up close and using their trunks in such a flexible fashion.

The Mountain goat display was a large rock hill that you could walk around.  The goats (one pictured above) climbed the steep sides–and the proximity made us see how skilled the goats are at climbing. It was a stunning thing to behold.  And then a number of the rams actually started locking horns over and over.  They were only a few feet away from from us.  We actually were able to look down on one of the fights–about 8 feet below us, the Rams locked horns with amazing power.

The monkeys were all very visible and doing amusing things.  Same with the Apes.  One hit another ape for no reason and then went on his merry way.  We could have watched the monkeys for ages–especially since there were so many of them.  Between all of them, they were always doing amazing things.

Then there were the Lions and Tigers.  They were walking back and forth and would stare right at you from 5 feet away.  It was actually quite terrifying.  I had a Tiger look me right in the eye and was really freaky.  Once again, the proximity made it come to life.

Unfortunately, sometimes the views were a bit too good.  When we got to the Organgutangs, (I have no idea how to spell that…I didn’t know that)……they put on quite a show.  Unfortunately there were lots of innocent children around including ours, because they put on a show of a sexual nature that was so risque, it was like something out of 1920′s Wiemer Republic Berlin.  It was way too close and personal if you know what I mean.  There are images in my head now that will never go away.  A whole group of kids and parents were traumatized by the absolutely saucy display put on by these shameless simians.  And yes, I have filed a lawsuit agains said offending monkeys.

“You’re going to reap, just what you sow.”–Lou Reed

So other than the shocking display of vulgarity put on by the orange apes, the rest of the zoo was really great.

Marco is still struggling at his new school, which is a concern.  We intentionally pulled our schedule way back in October to make sure we are spending enough time as a family and helping create a sense of stability.  I spent 5 weeks without leaving Germany which is a new record. In fact, I’ve spent more time at home this past month than in about 4 years.  It’s been great.  It was much needed for all of us.  It all comes to an end this Saturday when things pick up again and get pretty crazy until just before Christmas.  But overall, now that we are in year 2 of Three Worlds, we are going to try and schedule things more and more lightly as we go if at all possible.

One thing we promised Marco is that he would not have to make more than one trip out of the country this semester.  We will be going to Lebanon over Thanksgiving and Marco will need to join us for that.  Overall, he’s doing great and enjoying Germany.  School, not so much.

While at home, we have been drawing up a lot more of our expectations for Three Worlds in a document that is getting quite lengthy. We have been preparing four our establishment of a 3W Roundtable which I will talk about more later.  And focusing a lot on preparations for the upcoming trips.  Up next is Paris, then London, then Athens (first visit to the CHOG there), Lebanon, Liverpool, and Paris again for a follow-up 3W  Seminar with guest star Josh Wieger.

I will also be discussing Philip Jenkins book: The Next Christendom on this diary in the upcoming weeks.  It is the book that we assigned to our 3W Team at our recent staff meeting.  I think it’s the most important Christian book of the last 10 years.  So we’ll go through that chapter by chapter.

PS–you think that zoo photo is bad above, you should see the rest.  I need to hire a full-time photographer.

So thanks for all your support.  ”You just keep me hanging on.”

I’m scheduled to visit Greece in a few weeks.  My guess is that this trip could coincide with a total meltdown in Greece.  If not, we will be dodging the inevitable bullet.  Things are going to get a whole lot more chaotic in Europe (and thus the rest of the world), before they get better. This is a pretty great summary of the situation as it stands.  Europe needs between 2 trillion and 6 trillion Euros to avoid some kind of major disaster.  That kind of money is just too much to pull out of thin air.  Who knows what awaits us. 

Interesting article on the growth of Evangelicalism in Britain.  Interestingly, the article goes beyond immigrant Christianity. Money quote:

“Evangelical Christianity might be heavily African-influenced but it’s also spreading among the natives as well. Yesterday I attended an Evangelical service for a friend’s baby’s naming ceremony (not a baptism, as we papists call it – this group don’t believe in infant baptisms).

The happy clappy thing is not my scene – I’d need at least four Stellas before I could get up and dance in a church without dying of a cringe-related stroke – but it’s easy to see why Evangelical Christianity is rapidly spreading in the UK. The median age of this church was about 20; in most Catholic parishes in London you’re considered an energetic young go-getter if you’re under 75; the Evangelicals have many working-class members, while very, very few

The Evangelicals also aggressively court people of other faiths, including Muslims – while the Catholics would rather meet other religious leaders at (preferably tax-payer funded) interfaith meetings where they can spout platitudes about faith communities, as if religious identity is fixed, not a choice.

And in three decades of living in London I have also never seen so many people of different racial backgrounds united in a feeling of brotherhood – Londoners generally tolerate each other, and muddle on, but whether it’s the NHS surgery or the Notting Hill Carnival, the theme is begrudging tolerance, not affection. A small church can do far more for race relations than all the state-subsidised quangos and anti-racism campaigners in Christendom.

Many Catholic and Anglican churches are packed on Sunday mornings with young parents trying to get their kids into the best schools, and it shows – the air is thick with hypocrisy. In contrast the Evangelicals, whether anyone likes it or not, believe, and it shows. Doubt and scepticism are fine things but a religious community that does not believe in its own message will wither and die, and be replaced by others. I’m not remotely surprised Evangelical Christianity is on the march in England.”

MTV is retooling for the millennials:

“Life amplified,” is MTV’s current slogan. The network is in pursuit of stories that reveal and explore characters’ vulnerabilities. Authenticity, Shore and others say, is a critical component.

“About the biggest put-down in the millennial world is to call someone fake,” said Carol Phillips, president of Brand Amplitude, a Michigan consulting firm. “They want to see experiences that feel real.”

Snarkiness, the currency of Generation X, doesn’t carry the same appeal, partly, the researchers said, because millennials experienced a less hierarchical upbringing than did Gen Xers. Parents of millennials assumed the role of life coach or friend, a phenomenon called “peerenting.”

“Millennials come from families that are more democratic and worlds spin around the kids,” Shore said. “This has created kids who have a sense of power, a sense of voice and kids who need to be listened to.”

MTV already was overhauling its programming in 2009 when Shore came on board. That summer it had launched “16 and Pregnant” and in December it added “Teen Mom” and “Jersey Shore,” two gritty reality shows that were a dramatic pivot from the sun-drenched escapism of “The Hills.” The series reversed MTV’s ratings slide and landed the network back on the cultural map.

“Jersey Shore,” with its over-the-top partying and fighting, is partly a story about the search for love and acceptance — eternal themes for youth. And the show even gives an occasional shout-out to the unit most important to millennials: their families.

“The characters themselves have become something of a family, and their moms and dads have been part of the show,” said Van Toffler, president of the MTV Networks Music and Logo Group. “Before our evolution you would not have seen parents on MTV.”

Now MTV is rolling out a new slate of shows, both scripted and reality, that hopes to speak to millennials in their own language. While it fell short with “Skins” and “The Hard Times of R.J. Berger,” MTV scored with “Awkward,” which debuted in July. MTV’s millennial mantra that “smart and funny is the new rock and roll” applies to the irreverent comedy. “Awkward” centers on 15-year-old Jenna Hamilton (Ashley Rickards), a witty nerd who is invisible at school until a freak accident, which everyone assumes is a suicide attempt (it wasn’t), makes her suddenly notorious.

While writing the show, “Awkward” creator Lauren Iungerich, a member of Generation X, put together her own focus group at her former high school in Palos Verdes. She and her writing staff spent a day interviewing students.

“We asked them everything, about sex and relationships, and we picked up their slang,” Iungerich said. “What fascinated me was the kids spent an hour-and-a-half talking about their mothers. They often feel they are competing with them. Their mothers are trying to stay youthful and even wear the same size of clothes.”

In the show, two mean girls snap a cellphone photo of Jenna getting undressed in the locker room. They text a shot of Jenna and her exposed breast to the entire school. Her youthful mother tries to help by suggesting Jenna get a boob job, which she doesn’t want.

“I wanted the show to be true to the kids and what they are going through,” Iungerich said.

The quest for genuine voices is seeping into new reality offerings too. On Oct. 11, MTV launches a documentary-styled program, “Chelsea Settles.” The show’s 23-year-old heroine, Chelsea Settles, struggles with a tough decision: stay in small-town Pennsylvania with her seriously ill mother or move to Los Angeles to work in the fashion industry.

Unlike the rail-thin blonds who populated MTV three years ago, Settles is black and weighs 324 pounds.

Two scripted shows scheduled for next year revolve around millennial themes. The Doug Liman-produced “I Just Want My Pants Back” is about a group of 20-somethings in Brooklyn navigating relationships, based on a novel by David J. Rosen. And MTV will introduce “Underemployed,” a comedic stab at one of the biggest challenges facing young adults: overcoming the weak economy.

Along with helping MTV find a new pop-cultural relevancy, the focus on what Shore calls “radical audience intimacy” is paying dividends. The network just ended its seventh consecutive quarter of year-to-year ratings growth. According to the Nielsen Co., nearly 1.2-million people on average watched MTV during prime time in 2011. “Awkward” has had an average of 1.9 million viewers its first season, and the network says it is watched online (in full or clips) 1.4 million times a week.

“We want the audience to be our muse,” said Shore. “When we get that right and become a reflection of our audience, then that’s when MTV is at its best.”

Good summary from Ezra Klein in the Washington Post:

Europe is caught in a long bout of something that we’re very used to seeing after financial crises: extend and pretend. The underlying reality of their dilemma is that there are hundreds of billions — or maybe more — in losses for someone to take. If Greece and Ireland and Portugal take them, that means default and likely exit from the Euro. If they default, that means defaulting, in large part, on loans owed to German and French banks, which could cause a banking crisis in those countries. For them not to default, however, means that taxpayers in other European countries have to take those losses.

The solutions to this crisis that are economically plausible are not politically plausible, and vice-versa. As economist Carmen Reinhart told me, “If the policymakers were to be proactive, they would restructure Greek debt alongside bank recapitalization and at the same time, restructure both Portugal and Ireland as well.” That is to say, they would do it all at once. But the sticker shock to that strategy would be enormous.

What is proving politically plausible is to do just enough to survive the week, and do it in the nick of time. We’ve seen that over and over again in this crisis. But the irony of this strategy is that it’s likely making a resolution harder. The longer Europe spends under this cloud, the harder it is for them to grow. The harder it is for them to grow, the worse these debts become. And the worse these debts become, the harder they are to pay off. The cost of denying the problem is to make the problem worse. But for Europe’s leaders, that is, at least for now, an easier price to pay. Actually fixing the problem might ultimately be cheaper, but it requires a wealth of political capital and continental unity that they simply don’t have.

Thank you to Park Place Church of God for contributing $1,500 to send us their very talented youth pastor Josh Wieger.  Josh will be joining me in doing two 3W Seminars:  Liverpool and Paris in December.  The goal of these seminars is to discuss ways for reaching young people and the challenges that most churches face in this area.  Josh is an emerging leader who is doing a great job at Park Place and has a lot to teach all of us.

The rest of the costs for the Seminars will be picked up by our Next Gen Fund which helps train and prepare the next generation, as well as give emerging young leaders a global platform to share their gifts.  This will be a great experience for the churches, for the youth, and for Josh himself.  We try as much as possible to create these kind of synergistic win-win moments at 3W.  We’re grateful to Park Place for supporting us as we try to engage the younger generation.