Data source: Gina A. Zurlo and Todd M. Johnson, eds., World Christian Database (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2024).
| Glossary item | Definition |
|---|---|
| minor religions | Peripheral, marginal, or hidden groupings on the periphery of this survey’s definition of a religion. |
| minor seminary | In Catholic usage, a school at secondary level for young men intending to enter the priesthood; junior seminary, preparatory seminary. |
| minority | An ethnic or linguistic group who live in a country but exhibit notable differences from the majority of the population. |
| missio Dei | (Latin, the mission of God). A theological term for God’s purposes in the world. |
| missiography | The descriptive analysis of the Christian world mission. |
| missiological breakthrough | A term employed as a synonym to minimum mission achievement, which in turn rests on the basic, essential need for a people movement to Christ in a given culture. |
| missiology | The science of missions, missionary history, missionary thought and missionary methods. |
| missiology | Academic discipline or professional study of the church’s task of spreading the Christian faith among nations of the world. |
| missiometrics | The science of mission with special reference to measurement, statistics, and analysis. |
| mission | The essence of mission is: Christian servants crossing the various boundaries which empirically separate men from one another, declaring to them that in Christ all the walls that divide men from each other are already broken down. |
| mission | (sui juris). In Catholic missionary usage, a small territory or station independent of any other jurisdiction or diocese. |
| mission | The task, obligation, or commission adopted by the church to share and spread the Christian faith and all its benefits to all peoples throughout the world. |
| mission board | A denominational board implementing a denomination’s policy with regard to missionary action. |
| mission church | (I) Adenomination in a missionary area or land. (2) A church not locally self-supported. (3) A daughter church of a parish church or mother church. |
| mission field | The geographical region, country, or area in which foreign mission is undertaken |
| mission station | A place of missionary residence in or from which local missionary activity is carried on. |
| missionaries on furlough | Foreign missionaries on leave in their home countries. Since, on average, missionaries serve for 4 years abroad and then proceed on 12 months’ furlough, at any given time about 20% of the entire missionary force throughout the world (or 25% of the totals on the field) are at home. |
| missionary | A Christian worker sent to propagate the faith among non-believers usually of a different culture or nation to his own; also used of a non-Christian propagating another religion. |
| missionary congregation | In Catholic usage, a religious institute or congregation whose main purpose is foreign missions. |
| missionary density | See missionary occupation. |
| missionary diocese | In Anglican usage, a diocese not fully self-supporting or autonomous, hence usually directed by a province or by the archbishop of Canterbury. |
| missionary district | An area presided over by an Episcopalian missionary bishop. |
| missionary institutes | Catholic religious institutes (qv) which exist to further foreign missionary work. |
| missionary occupation | An older term meaning the density with which foreign missionaries had occupied a particular area; measured as missionaries per million population. |
| missionary proclamation | The preaching of the gospel with the clear intent to definitively notify people of the gospel and to win converts; first proclamation, first evangelization. |
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.