Who the Turk are
Antioch, Ephesus, Galatia, Colossae, Cappadocia — the geography of the New Testament is largely modern Türkiye, and this was Christian heartland for a thousand years. The Turkish believing community today is generally reckoned at around ten thousand people among roughly sixty million Turks.
Turkish identity and Muslim identity are tightly fused in public life, and leaving Islam is widely read as leaving the nation. Foreign workers have been deported in significant numbers since 2019. But the church that exists is Turkish-led, has good Scripture and worship in Turkish, and is growing — slowly, from a very small base, but genuinely.
Signs of hope
A Turkish-led church with the full Bible, worship and media in Turkish, growing without foreign personnel.
The honest difficulty
Roughly ten thousand believers among sixty million people, deportation of foreign workers, and faith fused to national identity.
What "Frontier" means
Fewer than 1 in 1,000 follow Jesus, and there is no indigenous movement large enough to grow on its own. Most people in this group will never meet a Christian.
This describes access to the Gospel, not the worth of a people or the sincerity of anyone's faith.
How to pray for the Turk
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 much of the New Testament was written.
- Ask God to raise Turkish pastors faster than foreign workers are deported.
- Pray for Kurdish communities in the south-east with almost no witness.
- Pray for the millions of refugees inside Türkiye, many hearing the Gospel there for the first time.
Where the Turk live
Each nation profile carries church size, unreached peoples, what is going well, what is hard, and four prayer points.
Questions people ask about the Turk
Who are the Turk people?
The Turk (also called Anatolian Turk) are a people group of roughly 60 million, living mainly in Türkiye. They speak Turkish and are predominantly Islam (Sunni). The land of the seven churches of Revelation now holds perhaps ten thousand Turkish believers. Population figures for people groups vary considerably by source and by how a group is defined.
Are the Turk an unreached people group?
The Turk are classified as frontier. Fewer than 1 in 1,000 follow Jesus, and there is no indigenous movement large enough to grow on its own. Most people in this group will never meet a Christian. Scripture status: Full Bible in Turkish.
How can I pray for the Turk?
Pray for the small Turkish church in the land where much of the New Testament was written. Ask God to raise Turkish pastors faster than foreign workers are deported. Take one of these for a week rather than all of them for a day.