No Heartbeat for the Unreached

This blog doesn’t have much to do with Gap Year or the World Race, but it is nonetheless worth sharing. Recently my squad had the opportunity to tune into something called Secret Church, an outreach run by Pastor David Platt of McLean Bible Church in Washington, D.C. After spending time in Asian house churches in countries where believers risk their lives to study, pray, and worship in basements at night for up to eight hours, he decided to model this type of meeting in the States. His vision was that it would not only serve as a way to put the Western church in the shoes of our persecuted brothers and sisters, but that it would simultaneously bring awareness to the struggles they face. He holds a live stream every April from 7p.m. to 1a.m. EST called Secret Church. This livestream addresses a different topic every year, and this year’s topic was “The Great Imbalance”, which focusing on the relationship between the Western church and unreached people groups around the world. The topic and the information that was shared really opened my eyes and touched my heart, so I thought I would briefly share some of the things that I learned. 

• When Jesus said “Go and make disciples of all nations”, the word He used in the original context more directly means ‘people groups’. When we might today think ‘countries’ when we hear the word “nations”, we should actually be thinking more in terms of ethnic groups. We might look at the (around) 200 countries in the world and think, ‘most of these countries have been evangelized to on some level’, BUT in reality there are often multiple ethnic groups living very separate lives within one country. In fact, there are around 17,000 different ethnic / people groups in the world today, and out of those 17,000 there around around 7,000 that are still considered unreached by the Gospel. 
• The majority of money and missionaries coming out of the Western church are being allocated and sent to countries and regions already reached by the Gospel. Out of the $47 billion annually given towards missions work by the church, a shocking 1% of this money goes to furthering the Gospel in some way, shape, or form in areas that are considered unreached. Similarly, only 3% of missionaries sent out by churches (around 11-13k) go to live or serve among unreached people groups. 
• Out of the (around) 7.75 billion people in the world today, a staggering 3 billion of those have zero access to a church or a Bible. This can be due to any number of things, but put simply: 40% of the world’s population alive today will live and die without ever hearing the name of Jesus. 

If you’re like me, learning all of this is deeply troubling. As someone who is passionate about missions, it alarmed me to see how the Western church, as a whole, is by and large failing when it comes to the Great Commission—we’re going where the Gospel has already been, and largely ignoring the unreached / fallen into complacency when it comes to taking the Gospel where it isn’t. 

This raises the question, what can we all begin to do better?

1. Educate ourselves. On radical.net, you can freely access something called the Stratus Index. It takes data from many different trusted sources (ex. The World Bank, Global Terrorism Index, the Joshua Project, and more) and ranks every country in the world by the level of spiritual and physical need. There are many barriers that hinder/prevent the Gospel from going out: geo-political boundaries, civil war/unrest, government resistance to the Gospel, physical barriers like jungles or mountains, poor infrastructure (no access to people groups by roads/vehicles), no Bibles being translated into their native languages, little to no access to a reliable food/water source, drought, disease, or anything that presents itself as a barrier between the people living there and missionaries/humanitarian workers getting in. The Stratus Index contains information on what kinds of barriers are in place that keep the Gospel from being freely available, and allows churches and individuals to make informed decisions on where there is the greatest imbalance of resources being sent, and where there is the most need.
2. Start seeing reached people groups as mission forces rather than mission fields. Especially in Central and Latin America—find evangelical churches with a strong body of believers that already exist. Partner with and support them in sending their own people out to the nations, including the unreached!
3. Give our resources more intentionally. Find Christian non-profits in countries with the highest percentage of unreached people groups. We HAVE to give more than 1% of our finances to furthering the Gospel among the unreached. 
4. Pray more specifically. It is actually commanded in Scripture to pray for more laborers to go into the harvest (Matthew 9:37-38). Pray for people’s hearts to be burdened for the unreached. That we would feel the weight of the responsibility to get the Gospel to those who haven’t heard it. These are all real people who are being born, living their lives, and dying without the Hope of Jesus. Pray that God would break our hearts for what breaks His. That our hearts would beat in agreement with His. Pray for specific people groups to hear the Gospel! The Joshua Project has an app called “Unreached of the Day” that highlights a different unreached people group every day to be praying for. It also includes information on these people groups such as the overall population, majority religion, percentage that identify as Christian, and ministry obstacles specific to the region. 
5. Take the Great Commission personally. This is probably the biggest mental shift that needs to take place in the minds of those of us in the Western church. All believers are commanded to “Go into all the nations and preach the Gospel to every creature”. It is not a question of whether you are called, but where you are called. Ask the Lord if he wants you to go to the nations instead of going to college. If you work in counseling, consider applying with a organization in South-east Asia that offers Christian counseling to women and children who have been rescued from sex or labor trafficking. Instead of retiring in Florida or Mexico, pray about retiring among an unreached people group and using your valuable commodity of time to serve and love the people there. 

In no way do I mean to bash the church—I had no idea of these problems until last week myself. I recognize that it is simply easier to reach people in places like Panama and Nicaragua than it is to reach people in Afghanistan or Bangladesh. There is a level of taking risks and counting the cost that goes into it that plays a part; it takes an enormous level of faith to risk your freedom or your life for the Gospel, but someone has to do it. Why not us? I also am not saying that missions isn’t needed in already reached places; so many already reached places around the world, including in the United States, are in need of people to serve and do Kingdom work there. I simply want to raise awareness and share ways that we can all do better and strive for the goal mentioned in Revelation 7:9-10 (NLT), “After this I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes and held palm branches in their hands. And they were shouting with a great roar, ‘Salvation comes from our God who sits on the throne, and from the Lamb!’”

If you are interested in learning more about ways to get involved or simply find out more about “the great imbalance” / serving to the unreached, radical.net is a great place to start, and offers resources to check out. As always, if you have questions please send them my way! 

Blessings,

Nicole