For the first time in world history, more people live in cities than anywhere else.[1] Within a span of two hundred years, the world’s urban population has grown from 3 percent to more than 50 percent of the total population.[2] What has taken thousands of years to develop has exploded within the span of only a few centuries. At the current rate of growth, the world’s urban population should grow to 60 percent as early as 2025 and to more than 66 percent by the year 2050.[3] The number of cities with a population of 10 million or more has grown from 2 in 1950 to a projected 22 cities in 2015.[4] This means that the world is becoming increasingly urban and there are few signs of this trend reversing in the near future.
With the increase of global urban dwellers, there is potential for some significant shifts of power in the world. As larger cities become mega-cities, the current economic, cultural, and political centers of the world will begin to fade as new centers emerge. For example, the West has been thoroughly urbanized for quite some time, but only recently has the rest of the world begun to catch up with more developed nations of Europe and North America. According to Philip Jenkins, “80 percent of the world’s largest urban conglomerations are located in either Asia or Latin America”, he adds, “but African cities will become much more significant by mid-century.”[5] What this all means for the church planter is that the booming urbanization of the world will undoubtedly shape the future landscape of missions.
[1] United Nations, “World Urbanization Prospects: The 2003 Revision.”
[2] Hiebert, Anthropological Insights for Missionaries (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1985), 289.
[3] Jenkins, The Next Christendom, 107.
[4] Payne, Discovering Church Planting: An Introduction to the What’s, Why’s, and How’s of Global Church Planting (Colorado Springs: Paternoster, 2009), 345.
[5] Jenkins, The Next Christendom, 108.
