The ACCELERATE document·October 2026·5 min read

ACCELERATEWhy & How

why accelerate is in our vision, and how NXT Move is responding

Christianity has flatlined. This is the trajectory we have to turn as a generation.

Start reading Download the PDF The research

Jurie Kriel, NXT Move Global · The short version of ACCELERATE: Breaking the Flat Line, the working paper written for the Next Gen Global Collab

We are growing in number and losing ground. For 125 years the church has grown only as fast as the world, and in our lifetime we have not turned that line at all. Everyone has been making claims about whether the church is growing, and nobody had brought the evidence together. ACCELERATE does that. It names what has turned the line before and what it would take to turn it again in the generation now coming of age.

One core idea

The flat line

4.8×
more Christians than in 1900
5.1×
more people in the world
2×
Islam’s share of the world since 1900

There are 4.8 times more Christians today than in 1900. There are 5.1 times more people.

In 1900 Christians were 34.5% of the world. In 2026 they are 32.2%. In the same years Islam’s share of the world doubled, from 12% to 25%. That came mostly from births, not conversion: Muslims are the world’s youngest major religious group. Our share stood still because what the church gains in births it loses as its young people walk away, and it has gained almost nothing by going to people who do not yet know a Christian. Births are not ours to decide. Reach and retention are. The map has changed and the line has not: Europe and North America are losing their young, while most of the world’s Christians now live in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

AD 1003005001000150018000510152025303540Christians as % of world populationENGINE ONEinside outAD 33–313PATRONAGE AND CHRISTENDOM · 313–1792ENGINE TWOoutside in1792–1910AD 300: ≈3% of the world,≈10% of the Roman EmpireAD 500–1800: figures not yet checked against a primary source34.5%scale changes at 1900Counted (CSGC)Estimated or modelledCSGC projectionCurrent rates held1900195020002050THE FLAT LINE1910–2026Projection34.1 CSGC32.6 flat31.4 Pew
Exhibit 1 of the paper. Christianity’s share of world population, AD 100 to 2050. Solid markers are counted (CSGC). Hollow markers are estimates or models from partial evidence. The dotted extension is CSGC’s projection and the hollow marker at 2050 is Pew’s. Bands mark the two engines and the flat line. The chart changes scale at 1900: the left panel covers 1,800 years, the right 150, and the 1900 point sits on both sides of the break. Section 1.1 of the paper. Open it in the paper.

Counted (Center for the Study of Global Christianity, 2026; Pew Research Center, 2025). Proof in the paper, Section 1.1.

It is not all doom and gloom

It has been turned before

Twice in two thousand years the church grew faster than the world. The first time ordinary believers carried it across every divide. The second time a revived church kept its young and sent its own.

The first was the early church. It grew by about 40% a decade for nearly three centuries, before it owned a single building, carried by households, workplaces and refugees, and it crossed from Jew to Gentile to do it. The second was the century from 1800 to 1900. Most of that rise came from births, in a church that revival had renewed and that kept its own young people. Its missionaries’ harvest came later. Where they handed the faith to local believers, it took root: Africa’s 10 million Christians of 1900 are 754 million today.

It is not all doom and gloom. If we apply those principles again, we can see a great revival.

Two engines, two rises
Engine oneinside out · AD 33 to 313
0% → 10%of the Roman Empire
about 1,000 believers to about 6 million, 40% a decade, in a world that barely grew Modeled
Engine twooutside in · 1792 to 1910
23% → 34.5%of the world
204 million to 558 million Christians, 1800 to 1900, mostly by births, while the world grew by about four-fifths Estimated
Christians as a share of the people the gospel had reached, at the start and the end of each engine: the Roman Empire for the first, the world for the second. The first time, ordinary believers carried it. The second time, births carried most of it, and the believers who crossed planted the next century’s harvest.

Modeled (the early church) and Estimated (the missionary century). Proof in the paper, Section 1.2 · Section 1.6.

Four things

Four things turn the line

Two flows decide the line: reach, the church going to people outside the faith, and retention, the church keeping those already in it. Four things move them. Each is one statement, one finding and one link to the proof.

1
Focus younger · Retention

Where the next generation is, the church is not yet.

41
of 106 countries
where adults under 40 are less likely than their elders to identify with a religion

The handover between generations is where the line bends or breaks. In 41 of 106 countries, adults under 40 are less likely than their elders to identify with a religion. In only two are they more likely. The generation that decides 2050 is not yet 20, and a quarter of it is not yet born. It is in children’s and youth ministry now.

Counted (Pew Research Center, 2018) and Projected (United Nations, 2024). Proof in the paper, Section 2.1 · Section 5.5.

2
Activate every believer · Reach

From consumer Christianity to contributor Christianity.

1 · 1 · 1
walk with one, invite one, reach one
the early church’s life, lived today

Births have lifted the line. Only ordinary believers have ever bent it. The early church did not grow because a few were extraordinary. It grew because almost everyone was involved. We apply it the way the early church lived, from house to house, in the temple courts and in the marketplace: walk with one person as you disciple them, invite one person into the fellowship of believers, and reach one person by sharing your faith in everyday life.

Estimated. Proof in the paper, Section 1.2 · Section 6.5. What we mean by it: Activate the Church.

3
Reach the least reached · Reach

The church keeps sending itself where it already is.

3 in 100
cross-cultural workers
serve among unreached peoples, who are about 4 in 10 of the world’s people

Four in five people who are not Christian do not personally know a Christian. Activation reaches the people believers know, so it will not reach them unless someone crosses. Every time believers have bent the line, they crossed: from Jew to Gentile in the early church, and from traditional religion in Africa’s last century. The nearest are best placed to go: young believers already inside the 10/40 Window, sent and sustained by the whole church. Where the church sends today will decide the line of the next century.

Estimated (Lausanne Movement, 2024; Center for the Study of Global Christianity, 2026). Proof in the paper, Section 1.8 · Section 3.7.

4
Collaborate · Both

There is no lack of resource and no lack of intent. Duplication is what stops us.

5 million
people a year
what each year of waiting costs by 2050

Duplication is the problem: the same scarce people and money chasing the same young people, while others are reached by no one. Working together fixes it. We see the gaps and go there. And leaders who work together, and answer to each other, earn the trust that keeps a generation. Every year the church waits costs about 5 million people by 2050.

Modeled: a stake, not a prediction. Proof in the paper, Section 5.4 · Section 5.6.

1:1:1Activate the Church: what we mean. Walk with one, invite one, reach one: how it applies the early church’s house-to-house, temple-courts and marketplace life, how it grows out of formation, and where to start.Read it
How will we know?

How we will know

You can count the impact of collaboration, and we intend to.

The Jesus Following Index (JFINDX) asks young people aged 13 to 30 three questions. Do they follow Jesus? Do they participate in His mission? Does their world look different? Each is measured across four stages: exposure, response, formation and multiplication. Twelve blocks show whether a generation, and the society around it, is being changed by the gospel, not only whether people tick a box that says Christian.

Pilots are running now, the first live data are reviewed together in January 2027, and the global launch follows in Buenos Aires in September 2027. The Index does not stop in 2033. The trends it records over the next seven years keep directing the response beyond the goal year. Where believers are at risk, their results are reported on their own, so the least reached are counted without being exposed.

The Index: jfindx.org. Proof in the paper, Section 4.2 · Section 6.4.

  1. NowPilots running
  2. January 2027First live data reviewed together
  3. September 2027Global launch, Buenos Aires
  4. 2033 and beyondThe Index keeps directing the response
EXPOSURE Encountered? RESPONSE Responded? FORMATION Being shaped? MULTIPLICATION Does it spread? Follow Do they follow Jesus? Heard of Jesus Believes in Jesus Being shaped Helps others believe Mission Do they participate in His mission? Aware of the call Convinced it’s theirs Practising witness Mobilising others World Does their world look different? Sees faith should matter Believes faith matters Choices reshaped Changing their spheres Twelve blocks, in the Index’s own words (jfindx.org): whether a generation follows Jesus, joins His mission and changes its world, and how far. EXPOSURE Encountered? RESPONSE Responded? FORMATION Being shaped? MULTIPLICATION Does it spread? Follow · Do they follow Jesus? Heard of Jesus Believes in Jesus Being shaped Helps others believe Mission · Do they participate in His mission? Aware of the call Convinced it’s theirs Practising witness Mobilising others World · Does their world look different? Sees faith should matter Believes faith matters Choices reshaped Changing their spheres Twelve blocks, in the Index’s own words (jfindx.org).
How this shapes what we do

What this means for NXT Move

NXT Move exists to accelerate Jesus-following in the next generation by elevating leaders and multiplying impact.

What we bring is the table: a trusted, community-owned backbone, with the relationships, the facilitation and the platform that let the church’s next-generation efforts act as one. Our regions own the movement. Our calling is to guard leaders into what God has entrusted to them, as a guardian raises an heir (Galatians 4:1–2). Everything we do turns on elevating leaders: leadership cultivation, soul care and spiritual formation, community, and the research that tells us whether it is working.

A backbone has to be held to account, so we hold ourselves to a standard: just enough structure. We add structure only where a movement’s growth needs it. We ask no more of partners than one shared goal, one shared measure and a few shared commitments. We connect without owning. We move decisions, money and roles toward local leaders, young leaders and women. And we build so that we can step back. We keep every room accountable to Scripture and to what it measures, so that no agenda, ours included, takes the place of the gospel. We invite our partners to hold us to it.

It also changes where we go. If we keep growing by opportunity, our footprint will mirror the church’s footprint, and that is not a balanced footprint of the world. So we have made a deliberate choice: to run toward the least reached rather than grow where it is easiest to grow.

Elevatingleaders
  • Leadership cultivation
  • Soul care and spiritual formation
  • Community
  • Research
Everything we do turns on elevating leaders.

First steps for 2027

  1. Focus younger. Put the next generation at the center of every regional table, starting with the Nairobi Model City as the place we show what that looks like.
  2. Activate every believer. Equip leaders through Leadership Cultivation to carry the early church’s pattern, walk with one, invite one, reach one, into their churches and campuses: believers discipling one another, inviting others into the fellowship and sharing their faith in everyday life.
  3. Reach the least reached. Serve the 10/40 Window collective, so that young believers already inside the Window are equipped and sustained to reach their own.
  4. Collaborate. Serve the Next Gen Global Collab as its backbone, and take the Jesus Following Index from pilots to a shared baseline with its members.
A cause, not an organization

An invitation

This is not an invitation to join an organization. It is an invitation to a cause, and it is the same wherever you are.

  1. Talk about the flat line with the people you work alongside, and ask what it would take in your city for the church to grow faster than the world again.
  2. Find the others working toward the same generation where you are, and act together: one calendar, one table, one map of who does what, and of where no one is.
  3. Measure together, and read the results together. Young people should be co-researchers, not respondents.
  4. Make room. Share the table with young leaders in real decisions, and stay long enough to be trusted.
  5. Activate one. Live as the early church did, at home, in the gathered fellowship and in everyday life: walk with one person, invite one person, reach one person, nearest first to the people who know no Christian. Start here.

We are 4.8 times more than we were in 1900, and still losing ground. May that not be our legacy.

The proof

Go deeper

Every statement here is proven in the working paper, ACCELERATE: Breaking the Flat Line, where each figure is sourced and labeled Counted, Estimated, Modeled or Projected. The paper is a working draft, open for comment, and goes to invited academic readers in November.

StatementLabelThe proof
4.8 times more Christians, 5.1 times more peopleCounted1.1 The line in one chart
Islam’s share of the world doubled since 1900, mostly through birthsCounted1.1 The line in one chart
The church has grown faster than the world twice, the second time mostly by birthsEstimated1.2 Engine one · 1.6 Engine two
Young adults are less religious than their elders in 41 of 106 countriesCounted2.1 The age gap
The generation that decides 2050 is not yet 20Projected5.5 The generation that decides 2050
Births have lifted the line; only ordinary believers have bent it, where they crossedEstimated1.2 Engine one · 1.8 The church is now everywhere
The church keeps sending itself where it already is: four in five people who are not Christian do not personally know a ChristianEstimated1.8 The church is now everywhere
About 3 in 100 cross-cultural workers serve among unreached peoplesEstimated3.7 What travels, and where the money is
Walk with one, invite one, reach one: the early church’s house, temple courts and marketplace, applied todayA practice we propose6.5 Activation · Activate the Church
Each year of waiting costs about 5 million people, if working together holds the next generationModeled5.4 The cost of waiting · 5.6 Together from below
NXT Move holds itself to just enough structureOur commitmentE.1 Where the thinking comes from
  • Countedcensus or survey data
  • Estimatedscholarly reconstruction from partial evidence
  • Modeledderived mainly from assumptions: a stake, not a prediction
  • Projecteda future scenario
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To quote it: as part of the Next Gen Global Collab, this is what we found. Kriel, J. (2026). ACCELERATE: Breaking the Flat Line. Working paper, NXT Move Global for the Next Gen Global Collab. nxtmove.global/accelerate.

© NXT Move Global, October 2026. The ACCELERATE document, based on Draft 6 of the paper. The paper has been shared with invited readers; it has not been through a formal peer-review process and does not claim to have been.