Data source: Gina A. Zurlo and Todd M. Johnson, eds., World Christian Database (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2024).
| Glossary item | Definition |
|---|---|
| Metaphysical | Term for movements dating back from the 19th-century New Thought movement in the USA, including spiritualism, Theosophy, Religious Science, et alia. |
| Metaphysical churches | Term describing churches or religious bodies which, dating back to the 19th-century New Thought movement in the USA, includes spiritism, Theosophy, religious science, et alia. |
| Methodists | A Protestant tradition ex Church of England in 1795. Many Methodist denominations are usually called, classified, or coded ‘Wesleyan’, ‘Holiness’, ‘United’, although most belong to the World Methodist Council. In addition to Protestant bodies, many Methodist bodies are here classified as Independents. |
| Métis | A Half-Breed of French and Amerindian ancestry. |
| metrodweller | A person residing in a city with a population greater than 300,000. |
| metropeople | An ethnolinguistic people or sociopeople resident in a metropolis, and forming a distinct homogenous group within it. |
| metropolia | In Eastern Orthodoxy, a metropolitan archdiocese, or diocese. |
| metropolis | The central city of a country or region or area, whether large or small (from the Greek for ‘mother city’). |
| metropolitan | The head of an ecclesiastical province in the Eastern Orthodox Church who has his headquarters in a large city; an Anglican archbishop: a Catholic archbishop with suffragan dioceses. |
| metropolitan | For Catholics, an archbishop with authority over bishops of a church province; for Eastern Orthodox, a bishop ranking just below patriarch. |
| metropolitan archdiocese | (symbol M). The senior diocese in an ecclesiastical province. |
| metropolitan French | French citizens born in France. |
| metropolitan see | A metropolitan archdiocese (qv). |
| metropolitanate | The see or office of a metropolitan bishop. |
| metroscan | A statistical analysis of the world’s metropolises, especially analyzing the presence or absence of Christians and evangelization. |
| Miao-Yao | An Asian ethnolinguistic family. |
| micro segment | A minor population subgrouping which occupies only a minor or secondary place in a global taxonomy of populations, and which is used for local targeting in evangelization. |
| micro-church | A small, very small, miniscule or microcosmic church or fellowship. |
| microevangelistics | The scientific study of the propagation of Christianity at the microscopic level of individuals, then of churches, peoples, countries. |
| microfilm, microfiche, microform | An information-handling process involving photographically reducing documents to very small size on film. |
| micro-missiography | The descriptive analysis in detail of a single or a local missionary situation. |
| Micronesian | A Pacific ethnolinguistic family, with 13 languages. |
| micropeople | A small close-knit homogenous population segment. |
| microreligion | A minuscule organized local religion with under 1,000 adherents. |
| Middle Eastern | One of the 13 ethnic regions of mankind; Afro-Asiatic, Afrasian, Hamito-Semitic. |
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.