Here’s the latest word from Call2All about reaching the unreached peoples of the world. Incredible things are happening around the world. This summer I will get to be a part of helping put on a Call2All Congress in Kona – it will be an amazing time of worship and intercession, inspiration and planning.
Jesus gave us a number of major “signs” to look for in regard to His second coming. One was the statement that was recorded in Matthew:
“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations and then the end will come.” Matthew 24:14 NIV
The Greek word used for nations in this scripture is “ethnos” which means tribe, race or people groups.
One of the primary goals of the Call2all movement is to help Christian leaders around the world understand and reach the final people groups. The idea of reaching people groups is a fairly new approach to missions that has really emerged over the last generation.
There are ethnic groups that have been separated from the message of Jesus for 2,000 years. They have had no Christian witness, no churches, the bible hasn’t been in their language, and there is not even a known Christian! These have been named “Unengaged, Unreached, People Groups” or simply UUPGs.
Christianity has expanded rapidly around the world, especially over the last 50 years. But it does not easily “jump” across cultural boundaries between peoples. Often there are walls of prejudice, or simply cultural barriers like language.
Many in the world have heard the gospel multiple times, but those in these people groups have not had access of any kind.
To reach them we have to be very intentional.
An initiative called “Finishing The Task” was formed several years ago under the leadership of Paul Eshleman who for years lead the very successful “Jesus film project“. The “task” is of course reaching the UUPGs. Equipped with the latest and best information from various missions groups and denominations, Paul began rallying people to engage 639 UUPGs over 100,000 in size. These groups represent almost 600 million people.
These people became a primary focus in the Call2all movement after it was birthed in 2007.
The original progress in engaging these groups went slow, with very few commitments. Reports were hard to come by and most of the volunteers came from the West who have the hardest time relating to the UUPG cultures. This has changed dramatically over the last few months. The focused effort on UUPGs is beginning to pay off. Denominations, missions agencies, and Christian business leaders are rapidly engaging these groups all around the world!
The Call2All congresses that have been held in 4 different continents have helped accelerate this process.
Here is some information from the report that Paul just gave us:
1. 337 of the 639 UUPGs have now been engaged. Meaning there are full time workers and church planting ministry is happening.
2. There are 1,267 workers that are confirmed operating among the UUPGs.
3. There are 80,917 believers now reported among these UUPGs.
4. There are 39,242 baptisms reported.
5. There are 6,350 new church plants.
Much of this progress has happened just in the last few months! This progress is historic…
All of this information came from a report compiled before the Hong Kong congress. In Hong Kong commitments were made on a whole new level.
Three thousand Christian leaders representing 889 different organizations from more than 100 countries committed to reach the final unengaged people groups. The hundreds of commitments are still being analyzed, but it is clear that there are multiple commitments to every known people group over 100,000 in size.
The Christian leaders assembled in Hong Kong committed their organizations to more than 194,000 specific engagements of UUPGs by 2020.
It is truly a new day in Christian missions…
This is all happening within our lifetime. No one knows exactly when Christ will return, that decision belongs with our heavenly Father, but we can understand the times. There is no doubt that Matthew 24:14 is within reach of being fulfilled. What an extraordinary time to be alive!