Data source: Gina A. Zurlo and Todd M. Johnson, eds., World Christian Database (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2024).
| Glossary item | Definition |
|---|---|
| mass media | The media of communication designed to reach the masses and to set their ideals, standards and aims: newspapers, radio, motion pictures, television. |
| mass movement | A vast surge of non-Christians into the churches, both by group decision in people movements (qv) and also by individuals, for a variety of motives good and bad. |
| matching up or matching | The process of linking or linking up a particular unreached people or unevangelized population segment with a specific ministry or mission agency or missionary; in particular, with a nonresidential missionary whose vocation it would be to see that the segment becomes evangelized. |
| materialism | Preoccupation with material things rather than intellectual or spiritual things. |
| maternal mortality rate | The annual number of deaths of women from pregnancy-related causes per 100,000 live births. |
| Matthew succession churches | Autonomous Catholic churches under bishops-at-large (qv) whose disputed episcopal orders pass through A.H. Mathew Archbishop of London (died 1919). |
| measure | Extent, size, capacity, or dimensions as determined by a standard; any attempt to compare anything with a standard. |
| media | Channels, methods or systems of communication, information or entertainment. |
| median | That value of an element which divides a set of observations into 2 halves. |
| mediated training package | An instructional package based on the concept of teaching Christians how to disciple others, consisting of 16mm film, color slides, cassette tape, student manuals, and an instructor. |
| medical centers | Church- or Christian-sponsored hospitals, leprosaria, sanatoria, clinics, dispensaries, maternity centers, et alia, have long been widespread until superseded by government services. |
| medical missions | Foreign missionary societies whose primary purpose is medical mission, number some 400. |
| medicine | In the field of medicine and healing, Christian organizations significant at the national or wider levels number over 400. |
| medium | In spiritism, an individual through whom other persons seek to communicate with the spirits of the dead. |
| mediumistic | Having the qualities of a spiritualistic medium; postulated on the activities of mediums. |
| medium-religionists | Followers of medium-religions, low or high spiritism or spiritualism. |
| medium-wave broadcasting | Term used in Europe for (USA equivalents) AM or standard broadcasting, i.e. utilizing from 540-1600 kcs. |
| megabloc | One of 6 major ecclesiastico-cultural subdivisions of affiliated Christians and their churches. |
| megacensus | Used here to refer to the totality of the churches’ and their agencies’ annual censuses of their adherents, activities, personnel, finances, ministries, and all aspects of their mission in the world; these 50,000 or so separate and distinct annual censuses are not centrally coordinated but are nevertheless reported and analyzed here as a single megaphenomenon. |
| megachurch | A very large local congregation or church, with membership in the range 1,000 to 1 million. |
| megacity | A metropolis or other city with a population of over one million persons. |
| megacommunion | A worldwide communion, world confessional family, or family of megatraditions, usually with over 10 million adherents. |
| megadenomination | A Christian denomination whose affiliated members in a country number one million or more. |
| megametrodwellers | Persons residing in cities with populations greater than a million. |
| megaministry | A specific global or other large-scale ministry reaching or evangelizing over one million persons a day, or (in earlier years) over 1% of the world’s population every year. |
Data on 18 categories of religion, including non-religious, by country, province, and people.
Data on all religions, Christian activities, and trends.
Membership data, year begun, and rates of change.
Population and religion data on all major cities & provinces.
Detailed information covering religion, culture, and geography.
A repository of historical data, including a chronology of Christianity from the 1st to 21st centuries.