Are the peoples of Europe reached by the gospel, so that Jesus can come back?

On All Saint´s Day, I passed a tent in central part of Gothenburg, where Muslims had set up an exhibition stand for Islam. The cat-sized letters communicated: Islam is the most growing religion in the world. Passers-by were told about the goodness of Islam, leaflets were handed out and assured that Muslims are peace-loving, happy, adherents of the true religion – join us!

Unfortunately, during my walk around the city, I did not encounter any evangelical Christians, sharing the gospel to the people, even though the entire population of half a million seemed to be on the move. How could this be possible? I believe – honestly – that as Nordic Christians we have forgotten that Europe is the most unreached continent in the world for the gospel and that some indigenous ethnic groups are the least evangelized peoples on our continent!

According to recent statistics from Operation World, the percentage of evangelical Christians in Africa, Australia, and South and North America is about 17-21%. In Asia, their rate is only 3.5 %, while in Europe it is as low as 2.5 %! How can we respond to this great mission challenge of our time?

Migrants and unreached peoples

In 2023, Europe had a population of 450 million, of which 43 million, or 9%, were born outside the EU. The number of people seeking political asylum was highest for those from Syria, Afghanistan and Turkey. When you consider that people from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Morocco, Egypt and Iraq also fit into the top 10 refugee groups, I understand that the majority are Muslims. How can we save them for Christ, or do we see them only as a burden, or as dangerous strangers?

There are countries in Europe where national churches are nothing more than museum items. In Balkans and especially in Bosnia, there is thought to have been a growing pre-Protestant movement in the 1100s, which flourished as so-called Bogomils. The faith was spread out to the region through Serbia. Today, there are less than 2,000 Evangelicals among the 4 million Bosnians. In recent years, missionaries from Belarus, Serbia and Ukraine have worked in neighbouring Montenegro. Their estimate is that the number of national Evangelicals is less than 250.

There are also unreached people groups in Spain and behind the new Iron Curtain in Russia, where ethnic people groups like Mordvinians and Mari people live, who are related to Finns, Estonians and Hungarians. According to Jesus4Eurasia, there are even fewer evangelical believers among them than among the Basques, Catalans or Galicians in Spain, i.e. less than 0.06%.

Nordic prayer campain

At the turn of the year, Key Media in Finland and Pentecostal churches in Sweden and Norway will launch a prayer campaign for the unreached peoples of Eurasia. The time has come when we should finish the task, which was given by Jesus to the apostels and also reach our own continent with the gospel. Let us remember that ”the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working”—even in Europe (James 5:16)!

Rauli Lehtonen, Jesus4Eurasia

(Translated from Finnish by Google translate)

IF YOUR CONGREGATION WANTS TO PRAY FOR AN UNREACHED PEOPLE GROUP, YOU CAN GET MORE INFORMATION FROM rauli.lehtonen@gmail.com