Mobilizing the Church in South Asia for cross-cultural mission
Helping believers understand the region, pray with insight, serve whole persons, and help churches prepare and send workers across cultures, in South Asia and beyond.
Many of South Asia’s peoples still have little access to the gospel. Yet the Church here is not only a place mission comes to. It is a people God is sending.
Language and culture
South Asian believers already share languages, customs and ways of life with many neighbouring communities.
Nearness and relationships
Families, work and travel already connect them across borders.
Faith under pressure
Many churches have learned to stay faithful in hard places, a gift to the wider Church.
One in four people on earth live in South Asia
live in South Asia’s eight countries, about one in four people on earth.
distinct people groups, counted country by country.
groups where fewer than 2% of people are evangelical Christians.
Source: Joshua Project, South Asia and Afghanistan country data, accessed October 2026.
Where the unreached live
For decades, mission leaders have focused on the 10/40 Window, the band between 10° and 40° north that Luis Bush introduced at the Lausanne Congress in Manila in 1989. About 95% of the world’s unreached people groups live within it.
Nearly a decade of research
The Circle of Significance grew out of nearly ten years of research by Rev. Dr. John A. Mayer of City Vision into where the world’s people, faiths and unreached peoples live. The findings pointed to one region.
The Circle is not a border. It is a way of seeing, so that we can pray, care and share with understanding.
More than half the world
South Asia is part of it
The Circle does not replace the 10/40 Window. It highlights the eastern part of the Window, where most of its unreached peoples live, and reaches beyond it to Indonesia and the Philippines.
South Asia lies within it: 99% of the world’s Hindus, and three of the four countries with the most Muslims, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. Dr Mayer names India’s churches, with those of China, Indonesia, South Korea and the Philippines, as growing mission forces inside the Circle.
Circle of Significance © City Vision 2022, developed by Rev. Dr. John A. Mayer (City Vision and Deo Volente). Used with permission. Map illustrative.
Eight countries, each with its own story
Choose a country to begin. Learn its story, and pray with understanding.
Afghanistan
Mountains, valleys and ancient trade routes, and a people known for hospitality and poetry.
Sri Lanka
For Sri Lankan churches, Sinhala and Tamil together: that they would grow in unity, love their neighbours well and be known for kindness.
Holistic mission: caring for the whole person
People live as whole persons, within families, churches, communities, cultures and the created world. So we hold together the good news of Jesus and the everyday life of a community.
The SAMI School of Cross-Cultural Ministry
God has blessed South Asia with many Bible schools that ground believers in His Word. Our School is being designed to build on that foundation, preparing those whom God is calling to carry the gospel across cultures, trained in person, here in South Asia.
Live
Share daily life in community
Learn
Scripture, culture and language
Work
Real work alongside others
Serve
Serve neighbours with skill and care
Send
Sent out by their churches
The proposed base is Sri Lanka. The School is not yet open for applications.
There is a place for you in what God is doing
Pray
Pray for South Asia with understanding, one country at a time.
Pray with usServe
Discover how your gifts, skills and work could serve cross-cultural mission.
Ways to serveTrain
Prepare for cross-cultural ministry, and hear first when the School opens.
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Partner with us as a church, organisation or individual.
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