The Congolese of Belgium

The Congolese of Belgium, numbering approximately 15,500 people, are No Longer Unreached. They are described as a diverse collection of peoples native to the Congo Basin, whose cultures reflect centuries of interaction among riverine, forest, savanna, and urban communities. They are characterized by extensive linguistic diversity and strong kinship networks They are an Diaspora people, with Lingala as their ethnic/kinship group and are in the Bantu, Central-Congo people cluster of the Sub-Saharan African Peoples. They mostly adhere to Roman Catholicism and Lingala is their primary language.

Photo by Google. (2025). Image generated by Gemini 3 Flash: Congolese

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: Sub-Saharan African Peoples
Country: Belgium
People Cluster: Bantu, Central-Congo
Primary Language(s): Lingala (lin)
Primary Religion(s): Roman Catholicism
Population: 15,500
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): No Longer Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): 10% or Greater Evangelical
People Group ID: PG000063
View on Joshua Project

Pray for the Congolese of Belgium

Join others around the world in praying for the lost to be saved, the gospel to advance, the global Church to grow, and for laborers to be sent out and sustained in the harvest.

Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Roman Catholicism
Religious Affiliation: Christianity

60%
%
Roman Catholicism Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Lingala
Language Family: Atlantic-Congo

50%
%
Lingala Speakers

Media Resources in Lingala:

Films:
TitleLink
JESUSView Film
MagdalenaView Film

2 films

Bible Resources in Lingala:

Bible Name (Translation)VideoAudioText
1982 Boyokant Ya Sika✓

1 entry

Or check out the Lingala bible at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

SPI: No longer Unreached

The Congolese are No Longer Unreached, which means there are more than 2% evangelical Christian populations and there are churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice. There is still more to be done among them.

Next steps for the Congolese:
Empower local believers to begin praying for their own people
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting
Encourage local leaders to being leading church planting strategy and looking for Unreached and Unengaged groups nearby

Pray specifically for the Congolese of Belgium

During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
readExodus 2:23-24

As the lost among them labor, groan, and cry out under false religions and sin, pray God will have mercy on them and hear their cries, that He will be their Rescuer from the kingdom of darkness and bring them into the kingdom of light.

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
readRomans 1:19-20

Pray that God will use His creation – the “things that have been made” – to spark a fresh and passionate curiosity among them to draw near to the Maker and that, as they seek Him, He will make a way for them to hear the gospel and receive it with joy.

Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
readRomans 5:2

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, they will rejoice in the hope of glory and be in awe of God's mercy that gives them access to Him through faith.

And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven."
readMatthew 16:17

Pray that God who is in heaven will place believers in the lives of people who need to encounter the gospel and that He will reveal to them the truth of what they hear.

Lingala Across Countries (ROP3 - 105785) reported in the following countries:

Strategic Progress Index
All

9 people groups

PhotoPeople Group IDNameCountryPopulation ▼Strategic Progress IndexLanguageReligion
LingalaLingalaCongo, Democratic Republic of the4,300,000No Longer UnreachedLingalaRoman Catholicism
LingalaLingalaAngola200,000Engaged yet UnreachedLingalaEthnoreligion
LingalaLingalaCongo189,000Engaged yet UnreachedLingalaProtestantism
LingalaLingalaSouth Sudan49,000Unengaged and UnreachedLingalaSunni Islam
CongoleseCongoleseUnited States38,000No Longer UnreachedLingalaNeo-Pentecostalism
CongoleseCongoleseUganda27,500No Longer UnreachedLingalaNeo-Pentecostalism
LingalaLingalaCentral African Republic19,000Engaged yet UnreachedLingalaProtestantism
CongoleseCongoleseBelgium15,500No Longer UnreachedLingalaRoman Catholicism
LingalaLingalaCanada3,500No Longer UnreachedLingalaProtestantism

To download a comprehensive people group list in spreadsheet form, visit our Research Data page.

Peoplegroups.org relies on updates from the field and other organizations for much of our data, so if you have any updates, please contact us. We use various international naming standards. For a list of these standards and fields, visit our Data Standards section.

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