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A Passion for the Unreached
By David Devenish
Bedford, UK
At Newday last year, some enigmatic words appeared on the badges of each of the 5,000 young people who were participating, as well as their own registration details: words such as ‘Hassaniya (Mauritania)’, ‘Mahratta (India)’, ‘Hazara (Afghanistan)’. Everyone carried the name of one of the unreached people groups in the world. Why was this?
It was for the same reason that we have teams serving in Central Asia, sometimes encountering dangers such as near disaster on a snowy mountain pass. It is why we have teams in the Middle East serving in countries where new converts to Christianity may suffer intense persecution and even death (see the earlier testimonies section). It is why Edward Buria and his teams are not content with reaching the Christianised parts of Kenya but are sending people to work amongst still unreached tribes in Kenya and Uganda. It is why one of our churches is supporting Bible translation training for ‘Jimmy’ who is the only believer in his whole tribe in a particular African nation, an ethnic group who speak one of the many languages in which there is no translation of the Scriptures available. The reason for all of this is that we, as a family of churches on world mission together, have a passion to play our part in reaching the totally unreached peoples of the earth. Some of these 5,000 people groups represent millions of people. The examples given above have 1.7 million, 20.5 million and 1.6 million respectively. Others are much smaller.
Some church leaders might well ask the question, ‘Shouldn’t we evangelise our own nations first before seeking to reach the unreached people groups of the world?’ Not only are there many inner city estates in our own nations still to be reached effectively with the gospel, but we also need to plant many more churches on apostolic and prophetic foundations in nations where we are already working. Further, large numbers of unbelievers need to be reached who are living within a stone’s throw of our church buildings! The answer to this very relevant question is that Scripture gives a very high priority to reaching unreached peoples. Therefore, as Bible-believing and, hopefully, Bible-practising churches, we must see this objective as part of our vision.
Apostolic passion
In writing to the church in Rome, Paul makes it clear that, though he has for many years wanted to visit them, one of his main purposes in coming to them at that time was so that they could assist him in his ongoing mission to Spain, a province of the Roman Empire then totally unreached by the gospel. The word used for ‘assist’ implies prayer, practical involvement and financial support. Paul explains that it had always been his ‘ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known’ (Rom. 15:20). Having preached the gospel around the eastern side of the Mediterranean, Paul remarks that there was no longer any place for him to work within those regions. What does he mean? Are they all Christians now? No, in fact relatively there were still very few believers, but he had planted churches there that could ‘fill in the gaps’ through their own evangelistic endeavours. Paul himself had to move on to the unreached peoples of the then known world. ‘St. Paul’s theory of evangelising a province was not to preach in every place himself but to establish centres of Christian life in two or three important places from which the knowledge might spread into the country around... when he had occupied two or three centres he had really and effectually occupied the province’ (Roland Allen, Missionary Methods, St Pauls or Ours? p.12, Eerdmans, 1962).
Prophetic urgency
The voice of the prophets continually proclaimed that the earth should be filled with the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (eg Num. 14:21, Isa. 11:9, Hab. 2:14). If the earth is to be filled, all those nations where Christ is not yet known must have amongst them worshipping communities of people where the presence of God is evidenced.
The promise to Abraham was that through his descendants every people group (literally every ‘clan’, Gen. 12:3) would be blessed. This promise is to be fulfilled through Christ (Gal. 3:16) and to all of us who are in Christ (Gal. 3:29). There is a prophetic urgency, therefore, about the fulfilment of this promise. True prophetic ministry reflects the prophetic priorities of Scripture and one of these priorities is that it is ‘too small a thing’ simply to see the people of God restored to their full purpose and potential. No, we must also be light to the Gentiles. This word ‘Gentile’ does not only mean non-Jews but also all the nations of the world (see Isa. 49:6, quoted by Paul in Acts 13:47).
Eschatological necessity
Jesus was very clear about his ‘eschatological’ (ie end time) purposes. ‘This gospel will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, then the end will come’ (Matt. 24:14). Before his ascension to heaven he set out his priorities for his followers. It is not for us to worry about or read speculative books about ‘times and seasons’. Rather, we should be concerned to take the gospel to the ends of the earth and make disciples of every ethnic group. Sadly, this is not always so in the church at large; there can be more interest in speculations about ‘time and seasons’ than about Jesus’ priority to take the gospel to every people group on earth, after which Christ will return and the ‘kingdom of the world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ’ (Rev. 11:15). The result will be that praise is given to Christ from ‘every nation, tribe, people and language’ (Rev. 7:9).
So apostolic passion, prophetic urgency and eschatological necessity combine to put the issue of the unreached people groups of the world high on the agenda of apostolic teams and local church leadership.
What is an unreached people group?
Rightly, such a group is described as any ethnic group without a reproducing church. ‘An unreached people group should be defined as “a people group within which there is no indigenous community of believing Christians able to evangelise this people group without outside (cross-cultural) assistance”. Unreachedness is thus not defined on the basis of whether there are any Christians or not, nor whether there are any missionaries working among them or not. It is defined on the basis of whether or not in that culture there is a viable, culturally relevant, witnessing church movement’ (Ralph D Winter, Unreached People: What, Where and Why? – an article in P. Sookhdeo (ed) New Frontiers in Mission p.146 & 149, Paternoster, 1987).
Many of these people groups are located in what is called the 10-40 window, the regions between latitudes 10 and 40 degrees north, which incorporate most of the Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist nations.
In fact, there are more unreached people groups in India than anywhere else. Furthermore, representatives from some of these people groups can be found in many of our major western cities.
In the definition given above, it is clear that church planting, not just literacy, social action or medical help, is an essential requirement for reaching such people groups. Our missionary emphasis as a family of churches
is that of planting communities of God’s people all over the world who can then reach others within their culture with the gospel and extend the kingdom of God amongst their own people.
What can local elders do to promote this Biblical passion within their churches?
Let’s consider the following ideas as a start:
• Teach in faith about the priority of reaching the unreached, and trust God that some will be raised up in your church who share this passion and are willing to go to such people with the gospel, joining a team which we as Newfrontiers will be training and sending.
• Make sure that those who have a sense of call get involved in one of our cross-cultural training days and as a result become part of our cross-cultural training track. These days are now held regularly in the UK, have started in the USA and will get going in other nations over the next two years. For details please contact my office on ddoffice@swissmail.org.
• Encourage those who have a sense of call to the nations even though they may not all have the potential to become team leaders. If we are to reach these nations with the gospel we need to send in teams, and teams do not consist only of team leaders – that would be a recipe for disaster! Several pastors have said to me, ‘This person would not be the person I would be thinking of for “full-time” ministry in my own church.’ No, but part of your call as a local church is to be involved in our mission to all the nations of the world and, therefore, some people who may not go ‘full-time’ within their own culture need to be released to be part of church planting teams in another culture.
• Ensure that you and those in your church who are sensing a call understand the practices of the Newfrontiers Apostolic Team in terms of world mission, and are preparing people well for the fulfilment of this call. Mike Frisby’s book Reaching the Nations would be very helpful
for you in this respect (Mike Frisby, Reaching the Nations, available from the resources section of www.newfrontierstogether.org, currently priced £2.95).
• Do not be put off by the fact that you may not know whether we are working in a particular nation or not. For reasons of security it is not possible to publish details of all nations in which we are working and, furthermore, there are other places for which we are preparing teams that may not yet be well-known amongst us. Please contact my office, therefore, if people within your church feel a sense of call to any particular nation so that we can advise you whom to speak to.
Church planting in our own culture is now within the DNA of our family of churches. My goal is that in the future church planting amongst unreached people groups and in places that are not at present open to the gospel may similarly be part of that DNA. God has called us to be a family of churches together on a mission, led by apostolic ministry that shares the Biblical passion for all the earth to be filled with the glory of the Lord. Reaching the unreached is an area where quite clearly we can ‘do more together than we can apart’. |
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