September 17, 2001

IMB report highlights current data
on world's unreached population
___RICHMOND, Va. (BP)--All the resources of the modern mission movement didn't get the news of Jesus to one Asian village soon enough to save the lives of three young boys.
___A Christian worker preached the gospel for the first time in the village earlier this year. The local chief sadly asked him, "Why did you not come here two weeks earlier?"
___The chief explained that a sorcerer had promised him prosperity if he would sacrifice three small children.
___"I was carried away by his words and kidnapped two 5-year-old boys from a neighboring village, and I sacrificed them to the gods," he confessed. "But I failed in all my attempts in kidnapping the third child. Finally, I took my 7-year-old son and sacrificed him also. If you had told me about this Jesus a little earlier, then I would have never killed those innocent children.
___"Why did you come so late?" the chief asked again, weeping bitterly.
___This story is told by International Mission Board staff members to illustrate the urgency and challenge of preaching the Christian gospel everywhere.
___And according to a new IMB report, the gap between the biblical vision of world evangelization and modern reality remains a Grand Canyon-like expanse.
___The report, titled "Closing the Gap," takes a big-picture snapshot of the secular and spiritual state of the world. It also examines the "scope and range of God's resources" among his followers. IMB trustees used the report as the basis for their detailed review of overseas strategy during their July 31-Aug. 2 meeting.
___Among the report's findings:
___ About 600 million people worldwide claim a personal, saving relationship with Jesus Christ.
___ About 1.4 billion people worldwide could be considered "cultural Christians" who associate in some way with Christianity but don't necessarily follow Jesus as Savior and Lord.
___ Another 2.5 billion people are non-Christian but have some access to the gospel message by various means.
___ More than 1.6 billion people have virtually no access to the gospel, a church, Scripture or followers of Christ. More than 2,100 of nearly 13,000 distinct people groups fall into the last category.
___ Forty-one countries have populations that are more than 99 percent non-Christian.
___ The highest concentrations of "lostness" span the so-called "10-40 Window" from North Africa to Southeast Asia.
___ Islam claims more than 1 billion adherents worldwide, Hinduism 800 million and Buddhism 350 million adherents. The third-largest bloc behind Christianity and Islam, however, is the 900 million people who profess no faith at all.
___ Two-thirds of the world's population is functionally illiterate (including millions of adult Americans). That's more than 4 billion people who wouldn't understand the Bible in their own language if they had it.
___ Of more than 6,000 world languages, fewer than 1,000 have a New Testament translation. Most of the globe's languages are purely oral, with no written forms.
___ The world's 6.1 billion people likely will increase to nearly 9 billion by 2050, with nearly 95 percent of the growth projected to come in the developing world.
___ Nearly a third of the world's current population is under age 15.
___ More than 3.5 billion people live in Asia--greater than the rest of the globe combined--and 60 percent of expected population growth will come there. Yet it's the region farthest away from the Christian centers of the West, making it more difficult and expensive to reach.
___ Malnutrition kills 17,000 people a day, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia. Nearly half the global population lives in "water-stressed" nations where wars may be fought in years to come over access to limited water.
___Among questions to ponder presented in the report, IMB strategists note that the SBC's international mission force could grow from 5,000 to 8,000 in the next decade. However, much of this growth will come in the form of two- and three-year workers rather than career missionaries, they predict, with short-term missionaries accounting for two-thirds of the IMB force by decade's end.
___"Are we prepared for this development?" the report asks. "Many of the International Mission Board's programs of personnel selection, support, training and supervision were shaped with long-term missionaries in mind. Are we adapting these programs to match a changing personnel force? Is this a desirable future?"
___The report also raises questions about how to prioritize where missionaries are sent.
___"If we are to reach the world's more than 5 billion lost persons, how many missionaries and resources can we afford to deploy to countries, cities and people groups that already have thriving evangelical populations?" it asks. "Can we afford not to partner with like-minded evangelical brothers and sisters wherever we find them? How can we mobilize these Great Commission co-laborers to take the gospel to a lost and needy world?"

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