I find the work(research, analysis) of Justin Long, of ‘The Network for Strategic Missions, quite remarkable on this subject. You would think the situation is quite well defined, all the mission agencies should just work on mobilizing more and more people to these un-worked fields. Hmmm? I thought so too.

While looking for material to read on missionary work recently, I came across an old post by David Sherbrooke on The Network for Strategic Missions blog, I think I find in it many key insights to what is happening with regards to our actual progress with taking the Gospel to the remaining Unreached People Groups of the world. The article titled ‘How new missionaries choose their country of service: do we need a change?‘ examines reasons why far less than 10%(actually 2% is quoted) of serving missionaries go to places that are regarded to be unreached, while at least 90% serve and continue to be sent to places where the church is already established.

David Sherbrooke thinks that overt self-consciousness on the part of  prospective missionaries(which he terms “The Zeal for Me”) is a major problem, in his words:

Trying to seek our own self fulfillment, a spin-off of modern psychology, is contrary to the most basic concept Jesus taught His disciples. “He knew that the only path to true fulfillment lay in denying self. The only way to find truly abundant life is to throw your life away for Jesus’ sake.” The vast majority of new missionaries today simply go where they want to serve, and do what they want to do adding to the masses, today still ninety percent, serving in already reached peoples. “The biggest hindrance to the missionary task is self. Self that refuses to die. Self that refuses to sacrifice. Self that refuses to give. Self that refuses to go.” I would add to this: self that refuses to go where few if any missionaries are serving.

Then he went on to give cogent reasons why ‘Most New Missionaries End Up Serving In Well Evangelized Countries Rather than Unreached People Groups?’… And wow that was really enlightening, if I could summarise it here I would have, though it’s a long read but it’s very well worth your time to read the original article.

This beautiful article contains many balanced pointers to positive approaches and the way forward. I also went through the thread of discussion that followed as readers, including serving missionaries and Justin Long himself, shed more light on the existing situation and shared more ideas. One commenter which I find particularly remarkable was Thomas Johnson, a missionary in francophone Africa who brought in another perspective by a related issue to the discussion. I guess another great part of this article, is the wealth of references cited in the endnotes.

Here is the link again. Enjoy! How new missionaries choose their country of service: do we need a change?

The bottom line is that, if the great commission is going to be accomplished, we all need to leave our comfort zones and doing our own thing, and begin to go and cater for those dangerous, indesirable places where the gospel is needed and lacked most. Probably enough analysis to start with has been done, the problem and the solution stare us in the face, but where now are the people who will go!

37% responded in the affirmative that Internet churches are Biblical. The majority of supporters in this group felt they were to complete the Great Commission by any means… and that… if two or more are together in His name, then Jesus is there. 32% were “unsure” about this new way to worship. Those that had heard about it felt, as long as sound doctrine was being preached, Internet churches were Biblical. Many expressed that these new “churches” were not to be a substitute for the physical church unless the worshiper is unable to attend a physical church. Others believed that true fellowship requires physical contact. As one believer stated, “We need to be in fellowship with other believers. These relationships are established at our local churches.”

The remaining 31% answered a firm “No.” They believed the assembling of Christians was to be taken literally and if personal physical contact is removed how can believers develop the proper relationships needed to fulfill the Great Commission. “John 1:14 says ‘the Word became flesh’, and Hebrews says not to forsake assembling together. Physical contact is important,” was one poller’s response. Others wondered how believers could take communion, be baptized or pray and support one another if strictly through the Internet. “You cannot build a proper relationship with someone you don’t know and there is also no accountability,” another commented.

I have come across some online churches, take for instance, Internet Christian Church by Pastor Rick Domaschk, which warmly welcomes new members with the following : Whether you belong to a church or not, we would like to invite you to JOIN OUR WORLD-WIDE ONLINE CONGREGATION and register as a new member today. Many of the tools you need to enhance your spirtual growth in Christ Jesus are available to you right from the church website. The site features links for a web-page translator, video sermons, musical videos and a TV channel for kids.

Another website I visited which is clearly pro Internet Churches is internet-churches.com, This one welcomed visitors with the following message: Internet Church is slightly different than the modern day brick and mortar churches. In these churches, only the Pastor and the Preacher/Teacher can go up to the microphone, which is safely set up on stage… With the advent of the Internet church, now every pew-sitting born-again can access the world via the Internet right in their home. Discovering that there is quite a difference of opinion of the meaning of scriptures among these pew-sitting born-again Christians who have their computers hooked up to the Internet. We can post things about the Bible from our homes, ask questions, give opinions and interact with other Christians all over the world 24/7/365 and not just on Sundays and Wednesdays… Overall, we believe that the LORD God of Israel is DELIGHTED with the Internet Church and with the electronic Bibles. Click here and give it a try.

The site apparently had some serious campaigning on this new concept. Catchy phrases and article subjects like: Preach Jesus! Not Church; Dismantling The Religious Machine; Escape From Churchianity; Lost in Church? etc. were prominent in the website.

Justin Long

I found this article by Justin Long, in the June 2006 edition of Lausanne World Pulse, and decided to share an abridged version.

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In the 1980s and 1990s, the AD 2000 & Beyond Movement had this slogan: “A church for every people and the gospel for every person by the year 2000 and beyond.” This was a masterful way of both stating the goal while keeping the rallying point somewhat flexible. The problem was that most workers rarely stopped to think deeply about either the goal or what was required to reach it. Similar to how we give a cursory glance at scripture and think we understand it, many just gave a cursory glance at the goal and thought we understood it by our “first impression.”

If we are going to finish the Great Commission, churches will indeed be a natural part of the process. A congregation in which believers fellowship together is a key part of Christian life. At the same time, we also want to be careful that when we say “church” we do not carry our own baggage with us. It might be better to say “a fellowship for every people” or some other phrase that makes us really think about what we mean. However, we are going to need more than just a church for every people if we are to effectively share the gospel with those around the world. Here are seven additional things that are needed:

1. A prayer for every people. Prayer is the foundation for mission. Yet we lack organized prayer for most of the least reached peoples. We have global prayer strategies such as Operation World, Praying through the Window, Ethne’s Global Prayer campaign and so forth, but each people group needs a small, globalized core of consistent intercessors praying that God would raise up workers and resources. Additionally, those who pray for specific people groups are more likely to become involved in specific ways.
2. A strategy coordinator for every people. The term may be somewhat dated, and the role may today be filled more by a network than a single individual person, yet the fact remains that we need to have at least one point person for each unreached people group. This person would be someone who is passionate about the people group and is actively seeking ways to bring the blessing of the good news to this group.
3. A gateway for every people. There is a “route” to every people group: a path that can be walked. Perhaps it is another people group, a city or an industry. Some good work has already been done in the past (i.e. Praying through the Window II: Gateway Cities), but these initiatives focused on larger urban areas. We need to do more to identify specific gateway peoples and cities for each unreached people group.
4. A preacher for every people. Many groups, even to this day, have little or no gospel proclamation amongst them. In the past three issues of Mission Frontiers, different research teams have printed their list of “priority peoples.” Many of these have no one among them proclaiming the good news. This is substantially different from peoples in, say, Latin America or Europe, who have a significant amount of proclamation effort. One thing we need to remember is that although the preacher has to cross cultural boundaries, he or she does not necessarily need to come from the West. More on this in a moment.
5. A mission for every people. The final goal is for each people group, as it is reached, to join in the task. This will open up new resources and spread the remaining task among more workers. At this stage we see new intercessors, researchers, preachers, church planters, business-savvy individuals and teachers for every people.

It is at this point that a “circle” has been completed and the people group joins the rest of the family of God in bringing the good news to those who have not yet heard it. Through this kind of multiplication it is possible to see the Great Commission completed. We must ask ourselves if it is possible that the Great Commission will be fully obeyed if we do not complete this circle. We cannot simply leave the task of missions to one or two parts of the world; we must become family in this task of missions.

[Please see the full article here.]

Justin Long manages strategicnetwork.org and is senior editor for Momentum, a magazine devoted to unreached peoples.

Virtual Communities created by social media

Unlike 2000 years ago, it is now very possible for me to have a much easier access to someone who is continents away than I have to someone else in the same state as I am.

For instance, I have made quite a number of friends on the internet, through my website or theirs, through facebook, yahoo chat rooms etc. Most of this people, I have never or may never physically meet, but we have opportunity for convenient interaction daily, through the various social media, especially if we have some common interest like work, business, fashion, sports or whatever.

One of the implications of this is that, I may have a better chance at befriending and eventually witnessing to an individual overseas, in a religiously or socially isolated position, but which I have the privilege to be connected with through the web, than a professional missionary on the field in his country. I may not be bound by whatever restrictions, be it religious, legal or social, that may make it difficult for another Christian physically closer to him, to witness to him. Yet, this is only a mild scratch at the possibilities.

This concept is not about finding an alternative to going to where the unsaved are physically to reach them, but about taking optimum advantage of all the opportunities available for reaching them. Especially the ones who are more easily located or approachable via this media. It is also about making the gospel easier to be found by those who are already searching, by being present in every location, virtual or otherwise, where they would definitely be searching.

Cultural Influences infused by media

Discerning cultural distances

Most people who grew up in the more developed cities of developing or underdeveloped countries, in maybe Africa or Asia, with exposure to satelite TV and the Internet, actually have more in common with their peers in the western world or other develpoed communities in Europe than their own relatives who grew up and live in the villages, due to media influence. This will affect the way they communicate and their life style – the way they dress, the kind of music they enjoy etc. If you aim at this parallel set of locals as a single target, you would most definitely miss one of them or both.

So now you find cultural distances between people who are in geographic and ethnic proximity, as well as, cultural proximity between people who are at different ends of the globe geographically.

Application of media tools

We must take advantage of ways to reach the part of the world that has already been brought culturally close to us via media influence – using the same media and culture that they are already comfortable with, whilst not neglecting those we need to actually, physically and perhaps culturally go out to meet.

In the later case, a lot of ministries are bridging the gap with translation work on materials for christian evangelism, including bibles, multilingual multimedia projects for audio, video and of course internet. Today anybody can get ministry material in almost all languages of the world and use as a tool to reach someone or a group who probably don’t speak their primary language.

International migration

Migrant missionaries

Every Christian missionary is a migrant in some sense, but even more so because every Christian migrant is a potential missionary.

As at the 1980s, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia had become net exporters of millions of people to Western countries, initially as labor migrants, subsequently as asylum seekers, but increasingly and predominantly as economic migrants. Not surprisingly, The demography of active (as opposed to formal) missionary force today, coincidentally turns out to be primarily immigrants from the more vitally Christianized developing countries of Africa (e.g Nigeria), Asia (e.g China) and South America.

This reverse trend, as against what prevailed centuries ago, when missionaries came from the west to the southern continents, is worthy of note. Hopefully we may rely on this current migration phenomenon to savage the alarming decline of Christianity in Western Society.

These migrant population are characterized by spiritual vitality and a strong commitment to evangelism, partly because they hail from countries where the Christian experience is dynamic, and partly due to the hardships and travail of the immigrant experience.  Many exhibit a strong missionary vision—one engendered in no small measure by the fact that they confront societies in which Christianity is experiencing marked decline.

Migrant targets

However, unlike the US, where the majority of new immigrants are Christian, the majority of post-1960s immigrants in Europe are Muslim. Islam represents Europe’s fastest growing religion and its second largest faith. This represents another instance of the world coming to us.

Without restraining from our traditional missionary efforts at reaching the predominantly Islamic nations, are we equally realizing that the Islamic community growing in Europe, now in free societies where there will be none of the religious and legal restrictions against proselytizing, encountered in their homeland, is an increasing harvest waiting for discerning laborers? The way I see it, there are better chances for non-christian immigrant student or worker overseas in a more Christianized society, to be reached with the gospel than when he is back home in a predominantly non-christian community. Therefore, we equally need to make a major target of un-envangelized immigrants as a strategy.

Ethnic churches

Ethnic churches or International churches having a make up of a predominant foreign ethnic group may actually be serving this purpose of reaching un-envangelized immigrants well.

According to Jehu J. Hanciles, director of the Global Research Institute at Fuller Theological Seminary, about ethnic churches: Although some of them may be ingloriously labelled as veritable ethnic enclaves given to self-maintenance and insulated from the wider society by indigenous language usage in their worship and fellowship. Yet, even if all they did was evangelize other immigrants—many of whom were not Christians before they migrated, they will still be making a significant contribution to the growth of Christianity in their community.

These congregations also represent the face of Christianity to a disadvantaged and marginalized migrant population, where effective missionary function depends upon sustained daily interaction with others who belong to the same neighborhood and deal with similar daily challenges.

Undeniably, racial divisions, cultural rejection, and social demarcations represent significant missionary challenges; however, the missionary-mindedness of immigrant Christians and congregations is well attested. There is also strong evidence to suggest that their outreach capacity increases over time with critical adaptation to the cultural environment; which in turn indicates that the next generation may hold the key to greater missionary effectiveness in the host communities at large.

Social welfare

There is a recurring observation that places most unreached by the gospel is usually also characterized by intense poverty, sickness, political instability, war and all forms of suffering in general. Intense suffering usually makes people more open to the gospel. Besides their needs also provide opportunity to minister to them materially and to show love. Social welfare missions is becoming a huge and popular phenomenon, as it is providing an effective open door in war torn areas of the middle east for instance. Other instances are in Africa, the Americas and Asia, were social relief in terms of disaster relief, health care, provision of food and clothing is enabling missionaries to more quickly penetrate otherwise difficult fields, where dense secularism, Islam, Hinduism or other idolatrous religions are paramount.

Invisible Missions and Missionaries

Another missionary force is also at work today, although it does not appear in the records of missionary activity or the databanks of specialists. It is the transcultural witnessing for Christ that takes place as people move around as migrants or refugees, just as in New Testament days…. Samuel Escobar

Meaningful assessment of the emerging non-Western, as well as, non-traditional missionary movement calls for new forms of analysis. We need to radically revise our understanding of missions and who a missionary is in the contemporary, globalized world.

Along the line, Good books also played a part in my exposure  to a world outside mine, that needed Jesus just as much. I remember my fascination one time, with books about Islam and the religious perspectives of Muslims, mostly written by former Muslims who had received Jesus, in my quest to be able to more effectively witness to my Muslim friends.

I think many Christians and churches assume about and underestimate their lack of adequate knowledge about the world and missions, and invariably of the moves of God in our generation and amongst the nations, including the evil in such lack of awareness.

I came to be of the opinion that making missiological information as accessible as possible (physically and contextually) to local churches and the common Christian may be necessary, if not vital, in committing and involving every church and believer in the commission of taking the gospel to every people of our communities and the World at Large.

Our Mandate; The Mandate of evangelism has always had a world scope

Unfortunately, today it is very common for believers to imagine that missions or global evangelism is another person’s responsibility; or to feel even if they wanted to do something that there was hardly anything tangible they could personally do. Most of our local church boards or leadership are also made up of men who feel the same way, and so we have a chain reaction – or say, chain inaction.

In Acts 1:8, Luke records Jesus’ instruction to his disciples:

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

It didn’t seem to matter to Jesus that most of this men he was going to commission as international emissaries, had never traveled; knew no geography; were uneducated, unsophisticated and very poor, all that seemed to matter was that they received The Power first. It’s the baptism of the Holy Spirit that authorizes or authenticates us to be witnesses. And we all had to be baptized in that one spirit, not just the Apostles. Also, the Apostles couldn’t possibly have gone to the uttermost part of the earth, in their life time. It’s hardly 200 years since the gospel got to a major part of Africa. So the point I’m trying to make here should be apparent now: the mandate was giving to the church for all ages, it must remain our priority now, or clearly something is misplaced.

As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women committed them to prison. Therefore they that were scattered abroad went every where preaching the word. Acts 8:3-4

There’s another point here, Most of the spreading of the gospel outside Jerusalem, was not done by the apostles themselves, or by formally ordained ministers, but by believers scattered from Jerusalem, following survival instincts, from the perils of persecution and other necessities. But ordained, institutionalized or not, they were fulfilling the mandate. It makes me wonder where believers and many of our local churches today get the idea that evangelism of a global scope, has to or must be accomplished by or credited only to formally trained or sponsored personnel,  specially appointed, gifted and commissioned to travel, like Paul, Barnabas etc.

The mandate to go into all the world is clearly for every believer to identify with, for most of us it may not be about going out, as already several factors bring the world, even the uttermost part of the earth, closer than ever to us. The problem is usually in our lack of information or orientation about ways in which we can effectively participate. I have already shared links about a wealth of resources available online which helped me in my own exposure, they may be good places for you to start as well. This older article should be of help too: World Evangelism: Expanding opportunities for the everyday Christian to get involved. You never can tell what ideas will occur to you about what you can do.

Intelligent participation

Expanding our scope as Christians or as a local church will let us know the urgency, the great need and the numerous opportunities that we thought were too far away, or we were altogether oblivious to, and how we can make a world of difference and make well informed and intelligent channeling of our prayers, time and resources.

Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. Joh 4:35

Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few. Mt 9:37

I have compiled some analysis and even more helpful details for my next post make sure you don’t miss it.

The Mission is possible!