Where the church stands in Türkiye
Antioch, Ephesus, Galatia, Colossae, Cappadocia — the geography of the New Testament is largely modern Türkiye. It was Christian heartland for a thousand years. Today the Turkish believing community is thought to number around ten thousand people in a nation of eighty-six million.
Turkish Protestant churches are small and often meet with difficulty; foreign workers have been deported in significant numbers since 2019. But the church is Turkish-led, growing slowly, and rooted in a language that now has good Scripture and worship of its own.
Signs of hope
A Turkish-led church with Scripture and worship in Turkish, growing slowly but genuinely.
The honest difficulty
Around ten thousand believers among eighty-six million people, with foreign workers steadily deported.
What "Frontier" means
The least-reached category: fewer than 1 in 1,000 follow Jesus and there is no indigenous Gospel movement large enough to grow on its own. Most people here will never meet a Christian.
In Türkiye the majority religious context is Islam (~99%). The largest population still considered without meaningful Gospel access is the Turkish (~60 million) and Kurdish peoples.
How to pray for Türkiye
Prayer is not a substitute for going; it is how going begins. Take one of these for a week rather than all of them for a day.
- Pray for the small Turkish church in the land where the New Testament was written.
- Ask God to raise Turkish pastors as foreign workers are deported.
- Pray for Kurdish communities in the south-east with almost no witness.
- Pray for millions of refugees in Türkiye, many hearing the Gospel there.
Questions people ask about Türkiye
Is Türkiye an unreached nation?
Türkiye is classified as frontier. The least-reached category: fewer than 1 in 1,000 follow Jesus and there is no indigenous Gospel movement large enough to grow on its own. Most people here will never meet a Christian. Roughly 0.2% of the population identifies as Christian and about 0.02% as evangelical, with an estimated 61 of its 69 people groups still considered unreached. Figures are rounded estimates and vary by source and year.
How many Christians are there in Türkiye?
About 0.2% of Türkiye's roughly 86 million people identify as Christian — approximately 172,000 people. Around 0.02% are evangelical. The largest group still without meaningful Gospel access is the Turkish (~60 million) and Kurdish peoples.
How can I pray for Türkiye?
Pray for the small Turkish church in the land where the New Testament was written. Ask God to raise Turkish pastors as foreign workers are deported. Pick one of these, pray it for two minutes a day for a week, and ask one other person to pray it with you.