When the Center Shifts: Lessons from a Global Church
There I was, sitting in one of my favorite coffee haunts, dark roast in hand, chatting with Dr. Phillip Wandawa.
Phillip is a pastor, a theologian, and the Principal of Kampala Evangelical School of Theology (KEST). A few years earlier, I’d visited KEST as my church explored the possibility of partnering with a Ugandan institution. We didn’t have a specific plan in mind—just the desire for something deeper than the usual “we’ll send a check and call it a partnership” model. We wanted something mutual, something relational. Something where both sides gave—and both sides grew.
Phillip hadn’t been in Uganda at the time of my first visit, so this was our first real conversation. We talked briefly about how my church might support KEST. Then I asked a question that shifted the tone:
“What do you think my church could learn from this partnership?”
Not what we could do for them, but what they could teach us.
There was a pause. Not long, but long enough to suggest Phillip wasn’t used to hearing that question—especially from a Westerner. The unspoken reality was clear: most of the American churches and leaders who had come before me brought their financial support—and their assumptions. They assumed that they not only had the resources, but also the superior theology, strategy, and spiritual maturity. The idea that an American church might learn from a Ugandan one? Rare.
But it shouldn’t be.
The Shift in Global Christianity
Phillip knows his stuff. He shared deeply insightful thoughts about African spirituality, the contextual growth of the church in Uganda, and the role of African theologians in shaping global theology. What struck me most was the clarity with which he described something I’ve since come to see firsthand:
Christianity isn’t dying. It’s shifting.
While the headlines in the West often focus on church decline and rising secularism, the reality is that Christianity is thriving—just not always where we’re used to seeing it.
Back in 2013, the Center for the Study of Global Christianity (CSGC) at Gordon-Conwell Seminary described what they called “a great shift of Christianity to the Global South.” At the beginning of the 1970s, 40% of Christians lived in Europe, 17% in North America, and just 11% in Africa. By 2020, Africa was projected to hold nearly 25% of the world’s Christians. In fact, by 2018, 66% of Christians lived in the Global South.
Let that sink in. The majority of Christians in the world today do not live in the West.
Counting Christians
Now, let’s be honest—different sources define “Christian” differently. The World Christian Database (which supplies much of the data for the CSGC) casts a wide net, including Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox believers, and even Mormons. Other studies, like Operation World, narrow the scope to focus on Evangelical or practicing Christians.
But no matter how you slice it, the trend remains: the Global South—Africa, Asia, Latin America—is home to more Christians than the Global North. And the gap is growing.
This reality is not just a geographic shift. It’s a paradigm shift—one that challenges how we think about theology, leadership, and mission.
A Shifting Church at Home, Too
Even within the United States, the story is changing.
A Pew Research study from several years ago reported that while overall attendance in mainline Protestant churches dropped by 5 million between 2007 and 2014, the percentage of non-white attendees actually rose—from 9% to 14%. Evangelical churches saw a similar trend: non-Anglo representation grew from 19% to nearly 25% during the same period.
Among the oldest generation of Americans (65+), nearly two-thirds identify as white Catholics, Protestants, or Evangelicals. Among 18- to 21-year-olds? Just 28%.
In short: the American church is becoming more global, more diverse, and less Anglo.
Philip Jenkins, an expert in global Christianity, predicts that by 2050 only one in five Christians worldwide will be white. This isn’t the future of the church—it’s already happening. And while many American churches remain unaware or unprepared, the rest of the world is not waiting for us to catch up.
Reverse Mission
One of the most fascinating trends in recent years is the rise of missionaries from the Global South.
In 2010, the United States sent more missionaries than any other country—about 127,000. But when you look at missionaries per capita, the U.S. dropped to ninth place. Countries like Singapore, South Korea, and Palestine sent far more missionaries per church member.
Even more surprising? The United States also received more missionaries than any other nation—over 32,000. Many of these missionaries come to serve diaspora communities or to plant churches in cities with high immigrant populations. Others come simply because they feel called to bring the gospel to America.
Imagine that: African and Asian missionaries bringing the gospel back to the land that once sent missionaries to them.
It’s humbling. And it’s powerful.
Migrants, Culture, and Faith
Migration is a huge part of this story.
In 2017, Pew estimated that nearly 50 million people living in the U.S. were born in another country. Other research suggests that about half of global migrants identify as Christians. That means around 25 million Christians living in the U.S. were born somewhere else.
These believers bring their faith with them—but they also bring their culture, their perspective, and their theology. They are not empty vessels waiting to be filled with Western ideas. They are already shaped by their own walk with God—and they have much to teach us.
Challenging the Western Lens
For centuries, Christian theology has been shaped primarily through a Western lens—philosophically rooted in Greek logic and Roman law. Those frameworks gave us incredible depth, but they also formed a kind of theological tunnel vision.
Andrew Walls, the renowned Christian historian, put it this way:
“The most striking feature of Christianity at the beginning of the third millennium is that it is predominantly a non-Western religion. … We have long been used to a Christian theology that was shaped by the interaction of Christian faith with Greek philosophy and Roman law. … These forms have become so familiar and established that we have come to think of them as normal and characteristic forms of Christianity.”
We’ve become so accustomed to our own way of thinking that any deviation can feel “unorthodox”—when in reality, it may simply be unfamiliar.
Western Christianity tends to emphasize individualism over community and the rational over the spiritual. But those values aren’t universal. In much of the Global South, community and spirituality take center stage in ways that challenge and enrich the faith.
Wesley Granberg-Michaelson writes:
“The truth is that the glasses of the Western Enlightenment that have framed our view of the world now obscure reality more than reveal it.”
It’s time we considered trying on a new pair of lenses.
Moving Beyond Western Theology
The vast majority of Christian books, seminaries, and theological frameworks still come from older, white, Western men (and yes, I’m aware of the irony of that sentence coming from someone who fits that description). But that is starting to change—slowly.
Voices from Africa, Asia, and Latin America are rising. Some of them are in the academy, publishing books and writing curricula. Others are pastors, missionaries, and local leaders doing profound theology from the ground up.
But if you’re waiting for those voices to be handed to you, you may be waiting a long time. We have to seek them out. We have to ask questions, read unfamiliar authors, build relationships across cultures, and listen—really listen—with humility.
So What Now?
What does all of this mean for the church in the West?
It means that we’re no longer the center.
It means that we have as much to learn as we have to teach.
It means that partnerships—real partnerships—are the way forward.
Back in that coffee shop with Dr. Wandawa, I was reminded that humility isn’t just a personal virtue—it’s a missional strategy. We grow stronger when we learn from others. And the church grows deeper when we embrace what God is doing in places we never expected.
If we want to stay in step with the Spirit, we must be willing to learn from the global church.
We have brothers and sisters all over the world with wisdom, faith, and courage that we need.
So let’s stop assuming we have all the answers.
Let’s stop thinking mission only flows in one direction.
Let’s stop talking at the global church—and start listening to it.
There’s a lot to learn. And the conversation has only just begun.
