Operating Regions

OC’s region of Asia is home to nearly 55% of the world’s population, or 3.6 billion people.³ China is the world’s most populous nation, accounting for 1.3 billion of this number. The Asian region is home to many religions, including most of the world’s Hindus, hundreds of millions of Buddhists and more than half of the world’s Muslims. Protestants in Asia number 55-60 million with the largest concentrations in India, the Philippines, Indonesia and South Korea.⁴ Statistics vary widely, but it appears that estimates of an additional 80-100 million Christians in China may be realistic as well. Christianity is experiencing strong growth throughout the Asian region. There are hundreds of established leadership training centers in the region, some with more than 100 years of history. Yet the need for new paradigms of leadership training is great. OC’s partners in Asia are at the forefront of preparing leaders for the Asian Church in the 21^st century.

³ All population data is drawn from the CIA Worldfactbook with population estimations for July 2005. Projected population growth is drawn from the US Census Bureau’s International Data Base. Data on evangelicals from Patrick Johnstone, Operation World: 21st Century Edition (2001).

⁴ Johnstone.

ASIA PARTNER SCHOOL LIST (as of February 2009)