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

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Custom Mobilization Potential

Number of Evangelicals

Cultural Bridges

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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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I grew up in the youth group culture of the &lsquo;90s and early 2000s. We talked a lot about developing your &ldquo;personal testimony&rdquo; based on Paul&rsquo;s conversion story in Acts 26, where Paul shares with King Agrippa about his life before meeting Jesus, his conversion experience, and his life after that encounter.&nbsp;
The tension I experienced was that I didn&rsquo;t have much to share about my life &ldquo;before Christ.&rdquo; I have the classic church-kid story of praying a prayer in elementary school and continuing to grow in my understanding of the gospel over the course of junior high and high school. I never entered a phase of rebellion or a season of doubt. I came into college seeking Christian community. And I often felt that my story was &ldquo;less powerful&rdquo; than those of my peers who experienced more radical life transformations when they began to walk with Jesus.&nbsp;
I see students with this same struggle today. When we ask them to share their &ldquo;testimony,&rdquo; they immediately begin talking about their conversion experience. They focus on their church involvement growing up, a church camp they went to, or a youth group leader&rsquo;s impact, and they have very little &ldquo;life change&rdquo; communicated within their story.&nbsp;
As I engage deeper with these students, though - those who may have grown up in the church and assume their &ldquo;testimony&rdquo; is their salvation moment, I uncover that their lives are still changing as they continue to learn more about their faith and the impact of the gospel on their daily lives. I see students who have overcome struggles with pornography, or who are surrendering their anxiety to the Lord in new ways. They are developing disciplines of reading their Bibles and loving it! They are making decisions through a new lens of eternal perspective, and they are taking steps of faith to commit to summer mission trips in other parts of the country and the world. God is at work in students&rsquo; lives in a very tangible way, and they often don&rsquo;t realize that this is what their friends need to hear when they think about sharing their testimony.&nbsp;

In Acts 4, Peter and John are taken aside by the religious council and charged to stop speaking to people about Jesus. Peter and John respond by saying, &ldquo;Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard&rdquo; (Acts 4:19-20 ESV). This is the posture I want to see in our students! I want them to be so compelled by the ways they have seen God at work in their lives that they can&rsquo;t help but talk about it with everyone around them! I want them to be able to clearly and effectively communicate how walking with Jesus offers a better hope than anything this world has to offer.&nbsp;

The 15 Second Testimony is one of the best tools I have utilized to help students learn how to communicate their actual testimony, not just their conversion experience or salvation moment. Their spiritual story might include a significant &ldquo;moment of decision,&rdquo; but it&rsquo;s not limited to this. It could be stories of how God has worked through significant circumstances in their life. It could be an example of how God is growing and refining someone. A person&rsquo;s testimony might be a personal example of the power of the gospel to make a difference in his daily life as compared to the way he was previously living before understanding the truth.
Students across campus are facing similar challenges among themselves &ndash; pressure to perform academically, a widespread struggle with anxiety and mental health, loneliness, sexual addictions, and questions of worth and value &ndash; but the ways that a Jesus-follower approaches these challenges should be different from those of their friends. I want to see students who offer their peers a picture of a better way of life, and a 15 Second Testimony is an easy starting point for opening the door for deeper conversation about what God has done in a person&rsquo;s life.&nbsp;
You can find a printable <a href="https://www.viastudents.org/students/resources/15-second-testimony">PDF tool for sharing your 15 Second Testimony&nbsp;here</a>!

Via Students

15 Second Testimony 

15 Second Testimony

Samantha Barnes

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