I mentioned this briefly on my own blog recently. The article I quoted seemed to be a bit of bragging on the part of a few Christians. I wasn't impressed.

Unfortunately, my local paper (the Dallas Morning News) charges for articles older than today, so I can't actually read your source, but it sounds like a bit better take on the whole thing.

What is very intersting to me is the effect the shift in Christian demographics is having within the denominations. Churches that have traditionally had a large missionary presence are now predominantly non-white. American churches that have sometimes in the past had a "little brown brother" attitude to missions are now having to cope with the fact that "national organizations" are larger and often more devout than their mother organizations. Why should a denomination's headquarters be located in Nashville, Los Angeles, or Urbana when the demographic center of the organization is in Rio?

For now the wealth and political stability of the U.S. will dictate that headquarters stay where they are. But the phenomena of African-sent missionaries laboring in the wilds of South-Central Los Angeles pegs my irony meter.

P, You should be able to follow the link above without charge - it seems to be like the NY Times, where if you have the actual address, and don't go to the site and do a search for it, you can get to it indefinitely.

Very interesting comments Beryl, thanks. It seems the Catholics and evangelicals are the most aggressive missionaries, which is why the Third World Christians trend conservative.

Ah, you're probably right. That link still asks me to register, and I remember back when I used to be able to browse the site without registering, so that threw me. I'm loathe to register, but maybe I'll break down and do it one of these days.

As far as the meat of the story (and Beryl's comments), I attend an independent ("non-denominational") evangelical church that has a strong missionary emphasis. The "mother" church is in Carrollton, TX, and has somewhere in the neighborhood of 12,000 members, I think. There are a variety of "sister" churches scattered around the country, deemed so basically because they like us and we like them. There is no formal relationship. There is one formal "daughter" church here in the state, a short ways up the road in Frisco, TX.

There is also a Spanish-language church outreach that uses the same facilities as the "mother" church, and the same people who run that also oversee a church in Nicaragua, our "adopted country." In addition to supporting that organization, we also provide full-time support for groups and individuals in India, as well as about a dozen or more other countries around the world.

So how does this all work out demographically? I haven't seen the numbers on all of the overseas groups, though I suspect the first Texas location is still the largest. But the demographics of that church alone are unusual, and one of the primary reasons I attend it. I estimate by eyeball that caucasians make up 60% or so of the members of the church. The "early" service trends slightly more caucasian, others trend less so.

This is not a situation like those I've learned to recognize on television broadcasts, where the camera crew focuses on the four white people in a 6000-seat auditorium surrounded by people of color. This is a genuine mix that roughly approximates the cultural and racial mix of the area in which the church is located. Actually, if anything, it probably under-represents caucasians slightly, despite having a white senior pastor.

Why is this? I wish I knew. I just sit back and enjoy the ride. It's interesting, though, to consider Beryl's comments about missionary emphasis and demographic shift, even on a micro scale.

On a different angle, I used to attend a church in California (San Diego) that was planted by a white man from South Africa. He got a lot of laughs from his mostly white congregation by referring to himself as "the original African-American". Funny, though, his church stayed mostly white.