Stats: Singapore No. 3 in Missionary-Christian Ratio

Thursday, Apr. 23, 2009 Posted: 8:31:38PM HKT

While Christians form a minority in Singapore, that minority is one of the world's most missionary ones.

Research tabulated by the Global Network of Mission Structures shows that Singapore is third in terms of the ratio of the number of missionaries to that of Protestant believers, with one missionary to every 400 Christians.

The most numerically missionary believers are from Mongolia, with a ratio of 222. Lebanon is second at 295.

Besides Singapore, Thailand is the only other Southeast Asian nation to find itself on the top ten list.

Continent-wise, Asia has the largest representation with five nations including Nepal and Sri Lanka. Two (Niger and Mali) are from Africa, two (Spain and Faeroe Isles) from Europe and one from the Middle East.

In terms of absolute numbers, the American Church is the most missionary church with 34,000 missionaries to its name. South Korea is an impressive second, having sent out 22,000 missionaries, considering the vast difference between the total population of the two nations - U.S. has more than 306 million people as compared with S Korea, which has nearly 50 million people.

According to the Singapore Centre for Evangelism and Missions vice-chairman Dr Christopher Cheah Singapore has sent out between 500 to 1,000 missionaries since the 60s and 70s.

Dr Cheah, who is in the SCEM focus team involved in the work of establishing a missions think-tank part of which has to do with compiling statistics, and other team members will be working toward producing a national history of missions through conducting interviews with missionaries.

According to the 2000 Census, 9.8 percent of Singapore's population is Protestant. The actual figure may be higher, since the Census Bureau calculates the total number of adherents per religion based on the religious belief of the head of the household and multiplies that by the number of members in the family.

This statement is made with the understanding that a great majority among Chinese heads of households are Buddhists, while a significant portion of the Church in Singapore comprises young people and many of them are members of families where the head is not a Christian.

The total population, as of October 2008, is 4.86 million people.

Edmond Chua
edmond@christianpost.com