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England
Country Facts
Population: 61,113,205 (2009)
Median Age: 40.2 years
GDP per capita: $35,400 (2009 est.)
Major Religion: Christianity (74%)
People Groups: 104 Unreached: 28
Largest Unreached People Group: Punjabi (555,000)
Government Type: Constitutional Monarchy
Official Language: English
Geography
Located in Western Europe, the United Kingdom is composed of islands including the northern one-sixth of the island of Ireland between the North Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea, northwest of France.
People
The English are a Germanic people who entered Great Britain over 1500 years ago from Central Europe. Due to repeated conquests (Vikings, Norman French), mixing with the Celtic inhabitants of Britain, and the expansion of the empire in the 17th-20th centuries, the English are ethnically quite diverse. England was a major power that created the most widely-spread colonial empire on the globe, which is now relinquished. England, as part of the U.K., maintains a great cultural influence throughout the world. In recent decades, the Muslim population has grown significantly in England, with many who are native born, posing a threat to British culture and laws as it increasingly demands to be recognized.
Millions of English live in large cities (London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, etc.) but also in small towns and country villages. Most live at a "First World" level in comfortable homes with sufficient employment, entertainment and access to all aspects of modern life.
History
Early English history is marked by immigration. Although not the first,
the Celts began arriving around 2,500 to 3,000 years ago. England became
part of the Roman Empire in
A.D.
43. After the Roman withdrawal in
A.D.
410, waves of Jutes, Angles, and Saxons arrived and established
control.
Under Queen Elizabeth I,
England became a major naval power and its colonies and trade expanded.
Culture
The United Kingdom is a crowded country. People cope with this situation
by being reserved and diffident in public, politely ignoring strangers,
quietly minding their own business, and marking out and defending their
private spaces, homes, and gardens. They expect others to do the same.
The idea of social class is much more powerful than that of ethnicity.
People frequently characterize themselves as working class or middle
class. Although few admit to being upper class, in principle there are
three classes, with the highest one reserved for the aristocratic
inheritors of old, landed wealth. People frequently characterize themselves as working class or middle
class, perceiving themselves to
have respectable but unprivileged origins, and typically are born into a
family supported by wages from industrial or agricultural labor paid in
cash at the end of the week.
England is known for its bland cuisine.Traditional meals have ancient origins, such as bread and cheese, roasted and stewed meats, meat and game pies, and freshwater and saltwater fish, usually eaten at midday. Tea and beer are typical and rather iconic drinks in England. Roast beef is a food traditionally associated with the English.
There are many sports which have been codified by the English, and then spread worldwide, including badminton, cricket, croquet, football, field hockey, lawn tennis, rugby, table tennis and thoroughbred horse racing.
Spiritual Climate
The spiritual climate in England has changed dramatically in the past centuries. Once sending out Christian
missionaries to all parts of the earth, and shaped by successive
Evangelical revivals in the 18th and 19th century, present day England is nominally Chris tian and secularized. England is a post-Christian culture,
though the Church is stronger there than in much of Europe. Since the 1950s, church adherence has fallen dramatically, and the
British are generally uninterested in formal religious practice. Sixty
percent of adults do not believe in God, and one-third have no religious
affiliation. The English
are susceptible, like other secularized populations, to a wide range of
beliefs from astrology to Buddhism, though in the main, they are likely
materialistic, practical atheists.
With its wide ethnic diversity, England's growing Muslim population (due to a large influx of Muslims from former colonial areas since 1960) is having increasing influence, posing a threat to the British way of life and making it also a great mission field to reach the Muslim world for Christ. More people in England attend mosque than church.
NMSI Involvement
NMSI became involved in England in 2007. Current NMSI ministry includes:
• Church planting
• Ministering in local schools through curriculum development and teaching Religious Education courses
• Ministry to moms with small children (MOPS)
• Incarnational ministry is at the heart of all their relationships, within the existing church and to non-believers.
Prayer Points
• Pray that God would raise up workers for the harvest field in the East Midlands.
• Pray for Kingdom fruit with students and staff through the Christian coursework.
• Pray that opportunities for the Gospel to penetrate the hearts and minds of the lost.
• For relevancy of the church and revival to spread in post-modern England.
• For the English to recapture the spirit and resources they once
used to evangelize much of the world and to send out missionaries again.
Ministry Opportunities
Short-term: Join a 2010 summer internship to England
Long-term: If you feel called to work or are currently working in a country in this region, please contact our People and Organizational Development (POD) Team to explore how NMSI might partner with you.
England Photo Gallery
Sources: Joshua Project, CIA World Factbook, Campus Crusade for Christ, Wikipedia
NMSI missionaries serving in England:
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