A Letter of Numbers

We don’t know for sure until our official church statistics are released this year, but some estimate that there will be about 24 million Adventists around the world in 2025. For a movement that started in 1844 and an organization that formed in 1863, that’s not bad.

Twenty-four million is a long way from the handful of Advent believers more than 160 years ago. But in 2025 that’s also a little more than the populations of the islands of Taiwan and Sri Lanka individually.1 Or just one city: Dhaka, Bangladesh.2 Though we may be pleased with the number of 24 million, the Office of Archives, Statistics, and Research has recently revealed that since 1965 we have baptized 45 million Adventists! Since then, 19.3 million have unfortunately chosen to leave the church.3 A sober statistic and missed opportunities indeed!

What of Christians in general? Christianity, with its various denominations, is claimed by 2.38 billion people.4 With the global population at 8.2 billion in 2025, Christians comprise about 29 percent of the world, while Adventists are at .29 percent. Add to these numbers the fact that the world’s population is expanding by 83 million people each year.5 At these rates, how can Christians reach the remaining 5.82 billion souls? How can Adventists share the Advent message to the remaining 8.176 billion souls?

Without a doubt, the supernatural intervention of the Holy Spirit will finish the work at an exponential rate. Should we merely sit on the sidelines and indifferently watch billions of perishing souls, or shall we co-labor with the One who can save trillions?

Ellen White warns, “A strange indifference in reference to the salvation of souls seems to have taken possession of many professed Christians. Sinners may be perishing all around them, and they have no particular burden in the matter. Will Christ say to these indifferent ones, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord’? The joy of Christ consists in seeing souls redeemed through the sacrifice He has made for them.”6

Let’s pray. Not for 8 billion, 19 million, 7,000, or 50 converts. Let’s pray for the one-on-one experience with Jesus for ourselves, and then for the particular burden to reach out to one soul at a time.

1 Worldometer, “Countries of the World by Population (2025),” https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/, accessed Feb. 18, 2025.

2 World Population Review, “Largest Cities by Population 2024,” https://worldpopulationreview.com/cities, accessed Feb. 18, 2025.

3 Tor Tjeransen, “Adventist Church Welcomes 1.4 Million New Members in 2023,” Nov. 6, 2024, https://adventistreview.org/news/adventist-church-welcomes-1-4-million-new-members-in-2023/, accessed Feb. 18, 2025.

4 World Population Review, “Most Christian Countries 2024,” https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-christian-countries, accessed Feb.18, 2025.

5 World Economic Forum, “11 facts About the World’s Changing Population,” July 4, 2017, https://www.weforum.org/stories/2017/07/11-facts-about-world-population/, accessed Feb. 18, 2025.

6 Ellen G. White, Fundaments of Christian Education (Nashville: Southern Pub. Assn., 1923), p. 51.