Source Mission starts with a recognition that the church of Jesus Christ has changed radically over the past several decades.
Today, there are more Anglicans in Uganda alone than there are in England, and more Mennonites in Africa than in all of North America. While Europe’s population is shrinking and its economy is stagnating, Africa’s population and economy are growing faster than anywhere else in the world. More fundamentally, more people love and follow Jesus in Africa than on any other continent.
Over the past century, the growth of the church in Africa is one of the most remarkable (and under-appreciated) stories of God growing His church that the world has ever seen: at the dawn of the 20th century, two-thirds of world Christians lived in Europe. Over the next 100 years, however, the number of Christians in Africa grew from 10 million to 360 million. Not since the early church has the world seen God at work like that. Today, the tables have flipped: fully two-thirds of all Christians in the world today live in the Global South.
The massive growth of the church in the Global South was, in large measure, sparked by the great missionary movement from Europe and North America of the 19th and early 20th century. When William Carey launched what some call “the great missionary century”, he did so from a poor country called England. He was under-resourced, under educated, and ignored by the powerful state church in England. But his God-given vision launched a great commission movement that changed the face of the earth (and eternity!).
And how the earth has changed! When William Carey left for India, England was a smaller and poorer country than Uganda is today. Today, the church in Uganda is both large and in many ways healthy, standing strong for the authority of scripture against the relativism in parts of the Western church.
Ugandans received the gospel with unprecedented eagerness when the first missionary arrived in 1885. I am currently writing a book about the amazing missionary heritage of Uganda! nm Christians! But much of this amazing history has been forgotten. and today most Ugandan Christians believe that ‘missionaries’ are rich white people – after all, that is what they have experienced! But the faith Uganda has embraced is a giving and going faith, a faith that finds its source in a missionary God who gave us His Son and inspired generations of missionaries to go to distant places like Uganda.
Today, the flow of missionaries from “mother” churches in Europe and North America has declined or is in reverse. And while the need for the gospel in places North – places like North Africa, the Middle East, and post-Christian Europe – has never been greater, it seems that the West has had their God-appointed missions day.
Now, it is Africa’s turn. Uganda is the source of the Nile, which for thousands of years has been a source of life as this mighty river flows north. But these lands also need Living Water as well, the water from which many in Uganda have drunk deeply.
The church in Africa has so much to give, and the West is passing the baton to a generous and resilient people. It’s time to (re)source mission. From Uganda.
That is why we started Source Mission and The Source church. That is why we are building The Source Mission Center. Go ahead. Jump in and join us.