OC Research

The following story demonstrates the power of the right information placed in the right hands at the right time and therefore also illustrates why OC places so much emphasis on research.

What does it take to trigger an effective church-planting movement? Sometimes all it takes is a single piece of paper and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit! Ask the church planters in Brasov county in Romania, and they'll tell you how one piece of paper launched their vision.

Two years ago, the Mongolia Evangelical Alliance (MEA) approached One Challenge and proposed a combined research project to discover the number of churches in Mongolia as well as the health of these churches and how to best reach nomadic tribes or those who live outside cities. In this video report, Project Leader Eric Smith shares about the training of local field researchers and a general overview of the project.

The MEA has set ambitious goals for the future of the church in Mongolia: 3,400 healthy churches, 300,000 believers and 600 missionaries sent by the year 2020. Russ Mitchell, an OC researcher working on the project, writes: “The church in Mongolia has seen spectacular growth in the last two decades. In 1990, when the country transitioned from Communism to a democratic form of government, it is reported that there were just four believers. The Census in 2010 recorded 40,000 Christians. Today there are about 600 churches: 300 in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar and 300 in the provinces. During the Communist years, Buddhism lost a great deal of its following as people embraced atheism. This seems to have created a spiritual vacuum that has resulted in great responsiveness since 1990.”

At the heart of Christian ministry are the goals of announcing the coming of the kingdom of God in the person of Jesus (making the gospel understandable) and manifesting aspects of the kingdom here and now (being the church in the world). This is what it means to witness to Christ in word and deed. That’s our nutshell definition of mission, but it’s anything but simplistic. All kinds of activities go into accomplishing the above in and for every country and people group on the globe. There’s Bible translation, preaching, teaching, discipling, serving, counseling, reconciling, reading, cooking, writing, transporting, healing, praying, and others.

Larry, Director of OC Research, shares how managing information is critical to spreading the Good News of Jesus to everyone everywhere. Are you thinking, what kinds of information? …Geographical information in maps, cultural and linguistic information in ethnographies, contact information in directories and catalogs… facts, opinions, and preferences in databases of all sorts and sizes. And OC is not alone is doing research work…