Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” Luke 24:44-49
The Ripple Effect
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Jesus’ resurrection unleashed the unstoppable advance of His Kingdom: Luke 24:44-49; Matthew 28:18-20; Revelation 7:9.
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Scripture is clear that the End (really…the Beginning) will not come until God’s sheep from among every people group on earth have been gathered: Revelation 5:9, Mark 13:10, Matthew 24:14.
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For 2,000 years, we have been in the “last days” where God has been pouring out His Spirit upon all nations, building His Church, gathering His scattered sheep purchased by the blood of Jesus from every tribe and tongue: Matthew 16:18, Acts 2:17, Acts 12:24.
The Remaining Task
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In 2008, our breath should be taken away! Evangelical Christianity has more followers than any other religion or society in the history of the world! Since the Resurrection, over 10,000 people groups have been reached with the Gospel! (www.joshuaproject.net) That is, they have Scripture translated into their languages, they have the Gospel preached clearly among them, and they have their own native churches. What started as a small mustard seed has now grown & flourished into the largest tree: Matthew 13:31-32. Wow!
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However, there still remain approximately 6,000 “unreached people groups” in the world: ethno-linguistic groups of people (“nation” in the NT is from the Greek word “ethnos,” lit. “ethnicity”) who do not have Bibles or believers or churches, and in some cases (approx. 1,500 of them) not even any outreaches of any kind.
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Most of these unreached peoples live in what has been termed the “10/40 Window.” North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and especially Central Asia make up the Final Frontier of world history!
The Role of the Local Church
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Pioneer missions is not our only task, but it certainly is a primary and fundamental reason for our existence! Do we burn for this?!
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God will not call every one to actually, physically go overseas; but He does call each of us to actively pursue the finishing of His task!
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Educate & Incubate a pioneer mission heartbeat among the flock: teaching, regular & strategic mission trips, worship atmosphere).
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Send & Support those God has told to go (Acts 13:1-4, Titus 3:14).
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Pray & Ponder with zeal and creativity. E.g., consider the huge, eternal impact one little church could wield by “adopting” one particular unreached people group for long-term focus & outreach!
~~posted by Jack
I came across an interesting article highlighting the European Union’s recent resolution against the persecution of Christians [HT: Kevin Thompson]. It is good that free governments like the EU and the US push against regimes that persecute Christians.
Yet such should not be our only response to persecution. We should seek to apply these verses and remember our brothers and sisters in prayer and in a willingness to suffer with them and help them.
Heb. 10:34
For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.
Heb. 13:3
Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body.
But even more than that, we should be thankful for their suffering, even as Christ’s church is spread through suffering. Take time to read Zioneer’s old post on “The Blood of the Martyrs”, and contemplate his contention that it really martyrdom the “seed of the church”.
Consider laying your life down to reach those who are ignorantly persecuting our fellow-believers. And consider sacrificing and supporting organizations like Voice of the Martyrs, which remind us of the suffering the world wide church is experiencing.
I leave you with these verses to contemplate:
Rom. 8:16-18
The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
~~posted by Bob
Faithfulness in mission can sometimes be threatened by our pragmatic views of success. Mission agencies, local churches — even missionaries themselves — get overly focused on success.
How many converts? How many church plants? How can I go on if I’m not seeing fruit from my work?
This problem only intensifies when one speaks of missions in the hardest corners of the world. Whereas many of the works being started among unreached people groups today, especially in remote regions like Central Asia, or Amazonian type jungles, are pioneering ventures, still these criticisms hound missionaries and mission organizations alike. It’s not worth it to spend time on such unprosperous ventures!
Let me challenge us to think of this difficulty in terms of “the seven year itch”. Here’s what I mean: in the pioneering mission ventures of the early 1800s, it often took 7 years before the first converts were seen.
William Carey, one of the first missionaries to India, often heralded as “the Father of Modern Missions”, arrived in Calcutta in November of 1793. By the end of 1800 (7 years later), he had his first convert.
Robert Morrison, the first protestant missionary to China, arrived in Macau, China in September 1807. He baptized his first convert nearly 7 years later on May 14, 1814.
Adoniram Judson, the first Baptist missionary from America, and one of the pioneer missionaries in Burma, arrived in India in June of 1812, and finally reached Burma in July of 1813. His first convert wasn’t baptized until 1819 (seven years after arriving in Asia, six years after beginning work in Burma).
I would hope we would all clamor for faithfulness before success. In the eyes of many in their day, the efforts of Carey, Morrison and Judson were futile. Converts were slow to come and much money was “wasted” in a vain effort to convert the savages. Today we would laugh at that assessment, yet we turn around and frown on the pioneering efforts of our own day. Let’s remember the “seven year itch”, and purpose to wholeheartedly support, and even to jump out in faith and attempt, bold pioneering ventures marked by faithfulness to Christ and his commission!
~~posted by Bob
continued from part 1
3. Redeem the time by educating yourself about the world.
William Carey was a humble shoemaker before he launched the modern missions movement. While his hands were engaged in constructing footware, his mind was engaged as a student of geography, peoples and movements. He kept a large map in his shop, with information pieced together from his readings. He poured over accounts of Captain Cook’s sea voyages, learning about the globe and dreaming of days when the Kingdom of God would follow the same routes. In the course of the day, he talked often with customers and friends about the world. Today, there are a wide variety of tools available for gaining knowledge about the continents and the movements of God upon them. Patrick Johnstone’s Operation World, and the Global Prayer Digest put out by the U.S. Center for World Mission are two such examples, as well as a growing number of online tools such as the Joshua Project. Utilize idle moments of the work day to pray, think, read and meditate about the work of the Great Commission. Employ and befriend internationals to gain their perspectives on the world.
4. With your professional skills, create platforms for the spread of the gospel.
A huge percentage of the remaining unreached peoples live in areas of the world that cannot be accessed through traditional means. In many of these same parts of the world, doctors, teachers, computer programmers, etc., are in high demand. There is a need for creative thinking about new ways to get Kingdom workers where the harvest is ripe. Christian professionals can train field workers in viable skills. In a globalizing economy, they may be able to use their travels around the world to forge relationships and open up connections for Christian workers. They can make short term trips to places where churches are being established to offer job training or provide credibility. They can be an important part of the Great Commandment which rightly accompanies the Great Commission, seeking to love God and others by meeting the needs of the poor, establishing justice, and improving life in Jesus’ name wherever disciples are being made.
5. Engage in business soberly, with a view to eternity.
Let there be a flavor about the way you do your work which makes it apparent that the stuff of the world which you are dealing with, while good and God-ordained, is fading, and unlike the souls of the unreached, will not last forever. Knowledge of this should create a marked difference between you and the unbelieving. It should not cause you to be insincere or half-hearted, but should give you reason to demonstrate with your speech and action that you are not defined by the temporal things of this world. Hear Paul: “This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let… those who buy [live] as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away” (I Cor. 7:29-31).
6. Be an advocate for missionaries in your church.
Adopt one or more missionaries so that they are not just faces on a bulletin board in the foyer. Write to them. Make their needs known before the assembly. Care for them while they are home through debriefing counseling, resources and hospitality. Show that the brothers and sisters who sent them out for the sake of the Name have a vested interest as co-laborers in their work, because insomuch as they are laboring to see Christ’s name established where He is not known, they are doing the business of the whole Church.
7. Pray, Pray, Pray!
Hold the ropes of those who go and fight against the devil’s schemes by daily, earnest intercession. Pray over world maps for the gospel to run in places where it has never been and land upon receptive hearts, quickened by the Holy Spirit. This may be the most significant work in which senders and goers alike engage: Praying the Lord of the Harvest, the God of the nations, to establish His sovereign Kingdom in every place where Christ is not yet named, for the realization of the inheritance of the nations which has been given to Jesus Christ. May He finish His glorious work and quickly come!
~~posted by Ambassador
I believe it is Christ’s intention for the task of the Great Commission to be the task of His entire body. There are no exemptions to the call to “make disciples of every nation.” Every true follower of Christ is to follow Him in His mission to gather worship for the Father out of all of the peoples over which He has dominion. But it is also a sensible and biblical expectation that the majority will live out their callings in the normal spheres of business and community, redeeming their various sectors by doing their work to the glory of Christ. The normal Christian life, is, for Paul, to “aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you” (1 Thess. 4:11).
I by no means wish to suggest that what is commonly called “secular” work, when engaged in as to the Lord, is unworthy or second-class, or that it is only valuable insofar as it contributes to world missions. Instead, all arenas of occupation are under the Lordship of Christ and are worthwhile and honoring to Him. But I believe that every Christian workman should have a consciousness of the effect of his specific vocation on the work of God to call out a people from every tribe and tongue, this being so central to the mission of the church and the final command with which Christ left us. I also don’t think it is adequate for believers to find fulfillment of Great Commission living solely in the important work of evangelism in their own neighborhoods. The pervasive idea that everyone is a missionary is misleading and confusing. For the purpose of clarity in the church’s understanding of its mission, I think it’s important to draw some distinctions between evangelism within a reached people group, and the apostolic spread of the gospel to places where it has never been. I want to say that Christian believers should see themselves as having a level of involvement in both. The suggestion that the church is comprised of “senders” and “goers” in Great Commission living is more helpful, having no category for uninvolvement, but still leaves the need for an unpacking of what it means to meaningfully participate as a sender. So how can Christian business men, grocers, mechanics and housewives do their work in the name of Christ, to the glory of God, and for the sake of the least reached around the world? Each member of Christ’s body will have to work that out, in sensitivity to the Spirit, in his or her own sphere, but what follows are some beginning ideas:
1. Don’t stockpile. Be a channel for flowing funds to Great Commission causes.
Jesus spoke some hard words to the capitalistic farmer who wanted to build bigger barns for more grain so that he could cushion himself in godless self-dependence and consume on his own lusts. “Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:20-21). When a nation is at war, its citizens tighten the belt and streamline in order to free up dollars for the cause. Where the church is engaged in the mission of Christ, everyone contributes. Right now, a pitifully small amount of money goes toward the spread of the gospel among those who have never heard (only about 5% of Christian giving goes to overseas missions, and of these funds, less than two percent is focused on planting churches among the unreached). Oh, for more business savvy Christian men and women who are more shrewd than the money-handlers of this world, because they do their buying and selling with a view toward increasing the flow of dollars into sending preachers to the unreached! I’ve heard recently of two small enterprises which have been started by Christian believers, the proceeds of which are going entirely to world missions. Could that be a worthy personal or family project for you to establish by faith? In your occupations, labor not to be rich. Labor to be rich toward God by making Christ your treasure and storing up riches in heaven in part by releasing funds for the advance of His Kingdom among the unreached.
2. Make it easy for believing employees to go.
How many Christian business and parents have, even inadvertently, prevented those whom God has called from going because they challenge them toward climbing up company ranks, but never to consider leaving it all behind for the sake of the gospel? Or how many employers have made it too difficult for employees to take vision trips, reduce hours for pre-field work, etc? Have an atmosphere around your office, store or workshop which says to believing employees and prospective employees: “If the call of God is upon you, it would be a joy to see some of you go to work among the least reached. It is a noble calling which I would support and facilitate in whatever ways I can.”
To be continued in tomorrow’s post.
~~posted by Ambassador
Let the Nations be Glad! is the book which we here at Kingdom Surge believe encompasses a truly Biblical view of missions. John Piper shows how our desire for God to be glorified and treasured is what should fuel all efforts to take the gospel to the lost.
If you have not heard of this book, please consider the following endorsements:
The most important book on missions for this generation. John Piper places missions where it belongs: at the heart of God’s desire to be glorified among the nations. — R. Albert Mohler Jr. (president, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary)
If I had to choose only one book on missions, Let the Nations be Glad! would be it. — Duane Litfin (president, Wheaton College)
This book has glorified God and helped to bring missions from the periphery to the center of the worldview of many Christians, and it is faithful to the Scriptures. — Patrick Johnstone (author of Operation World)
An invaluable resource. Missionaries, pastors, teachers, and laypeople with a thirst for God’s passion for himself and the peoples of the world will be challenged and encouraged. I offer it my highest recommendation. — A. Scott Moreau (editor, Evangelical Missions Quarterly)
The best biblical study there is on the nature of missions — Ajith Fernando (national director, Youth for Christ/Sri Lanka)
Densely packed, richly theological, faithfully biblical, thrillingly courageous, impressively thorough—Let the Nations be Glad! is the best book on missions I have ever read. — Raymond C. Ortlund Jr. (First Presbyterian Church, Augusta, GA)
I give the above recommendations to spur you toward getting and reading this book. And I want you to please go read an excellent review of the book just published by Alex Chediak. His review covers the entire book and walks through each part of it. It is an excellent summary which should whet your appetite for more. Oh, and you can read the table of contents and first chapter online for free.
~~posted by Bob
- Twice the population of Australia; more people than Argentina, or Canada, or Spain
- With population estimate of 40-45 million, the patriarchal Pashtun people of Afghanistan and Pakistan constitute the largest segmentary tribal society in the world
- Almost evenly distributed between southeast Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan, the Pashtun are largest people group in Afghanistan (‘Afghan’ being a Persian term for ‘Pashtun’), and the second largest among the 386 people groups of Pakistan
- Main ethnicity of which the Taliban is comprised; Taliban ‘fiqh’ (jurisprudence) deriving from ‘Pashtunwali’ (pre-Islamic Pashtun tribal code of ethics) as much as from medieval applications of ‘sharia’ (Islamic law). [The Taliban came into existence in the mid-90’s as a reformist reaction to the immoral and corrupt post-Soviet warlords; they enjoyed initial popularity with the majority of the Afghan population as well as surprising military success; the Taliban national stronghold was toppled in 2001 by Coalition forces following 9/11, yet they remain a strident and noteworthy revolutionary force in present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan]
- Sunni Muslims, adamantly and violently opposed to any other religious expression
- July 2007 est. of 100-200 mostly ‘secret’ believers among all 40-45 million Pashtun
- No known indigenous fellowship (church) of Pashtun believers exists in all the world
- Only a handful of church planting efforts exist among the Pashtun; more churches and ministers and Gospel resources exist in northeast Ohio (where I live) than in all of Afghanistan and Pakistan combined (200 million people/400+ distinct people groups)
- Despite intense political and geographical isolation, there remain ample opportunities and platforms for outreach among the Pashtun: both in Afghanistan and in Pakistan (various kinds of relief work and infrastructure development: well digging, water management, solar energy, computer training, road construction, English education, agricultural and livestock development, medical, dental, physical therapy, etc.; business enterprises: micro-loan management, economics training, transportation, mountain climbing, photography/journalism, tourism; etc., etc.)
- Like usual, the problem isn’t any lack of opportunity or ‘open door’; the problem is our tunnel vision, our ignorance, our apathy, and our enslavement to comfort
- May God help us and move us and cause us to love the Pashtun! And He will…
(Resources: Wikipedia, Joshua Project, and the Pashtun Advocacy Network. Photo borrowed from this article.)
~~posted by Jack
I want to introduce you to a helpful little resource for keeping the nations on your mind and in your prayers every day. It is the Global Prayer Digest, available through the U.S. Center for World Mission (www.global-prayer-digest.org). It is a monthly periodical which focuses on a new unreached people group every day of the month. Each day’s entry includes a memorable anecdote or statistic about the people group, a prayer focus and a devotional word. My family has been using this resource for a couple of years now, and find it to be a great way of breaking out of our little spheres of familiarity and being prompted to pray big prayers for things only the Lord of the Harvest can do. In the pages of this digest, you’ll be introduced to people groups you didn’t learn about in your freshman World History class, such as the Buriats of Mongolia, today’s people focus.
The Buriats are a traditionally nomadic subgroup, related to the larger Khalka Mongols, supposed descendants of Ghangis Khan. Economic troubles have forced many to move to the capital city of Mongolia, Ulaan Baatar. They speak an unwritten language and practice Shamanism and Tibetan Buddhism.
Lord, may many Buriat people worship at your feet! Send gospel messengers to live and work among them. Let the transitions they face drive them not deeper into idolatry, but toward the cross! May the few believers among them not rest until the gospel roars like a wildfire throughout this people group, consuming unbelief, fear and hopelessness. You have purchased Buriats from out of the nations… realize your reward!
I encourage you to consider this affordable resource ($12/year) which can be easily incorporated into personal or family devotions, small groups, dinner time prayers or whatever. Let’s not presume that God will accomplish the great ingathering apart from the means of blood-earnest, daily prayer!
~~posted by Ambassador
Twenty-five for 25 million! Among the 25 million Kurds in Central Asia, there are only 25 known mission workers of any evangelical denomination or nationality. (If you think I’m exaggerating, then read it for yourself on IMB’s stellar website.)
How many individuals are on staff at your church? How many Gospel-preaching pastors and laypersons are there in your particular community? Surely, the ratio is better than 1:1,000,000!
Now the stinging question: Why? After nearly two millennia of Gospel expansion and Church growth, why is there so little being done to reach the Kurds? Is it just me, or does there seem to be an ocean of saints around the rest of world sleeping in happy oblivion?
No, I’m not naive about the difficulties involved in reaching the Kurds. They are an Islamic people marked by intense political and geographical isolation. Their homeland encompasses more than one war-zone. And for the most part they don’t want you to come! Loving Kurds is no cake-walk.
Thankfully, no one is more serious about reaching the Kurds than God Himself! He has already purchased Kurdish worshipers at Calvary (see Revelation 5:9), and in His time He will send forth more laborers into “Kurdistan” (eastern Turkey, northern Iraq & Syria, northwest Iran, and western Armenia) and flood the people’s hearts with the knowledge of the glory of Christ (Mark 13:10, Romans 10:14-15, Habakkuk 2:14). The Kurdish Harvest will happen! The question is not “if,” but “when”.
Therefore, I wonder…are you number 26?
~~posted by Jack
For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the LORD of hosts.
(Malachi 1:11)
