IMB’s goal is one worker in every unreached people group_122203

Posted: 12/19/03

IMB's goal is one worker in every unreached people group

RICHMOND, Va.--The International Mission Board has a simple goal: One missionary assigned to every unreached people group in the world.

Sounds simple, but the numbers tell a different story.

Researchers have identified nearly 6,500 unreached people groups, with a combined population of about 3.4 billion people.

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Posted: 12/19/03

IMB's goal is one worker in every unreached people group

RICHMOND, Va.–The International Mission Board has a simple goal: One missionary assigned to every unreached people group in the world.

Sounds simple, but the numbers tell a different story.

Researchers have identified nearly 6,500 unreached people groups, with a combined population of about 3.4 billion people.

For the IMB, the foreign missions arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, to touch each people group would require doubling the number of existing full-time personnel. From that perspective, the task may appear overwhelming, IMB administrators acknowledge.

People groups refer to groups of individuals, families and clans who share a common language and ethnic identity.

An unreached people group is a “people group in which the number of evangelical Christians totals less than 2 percent of the population,” explained Scott Holste, director of the IMB's global research department.

Already, about one-third of IMB personnel are engaging unreached people groups with little or no access to the gospel. Expanding that reach will require more resources.

IMB President Jerry Rankin stresses that the point of missions is “to eliminate lostness.” Unfortunately, he said, “many churches are forfeiting the very thing that would result in their growth and vitality by depriving their people of being involved in God's mission. He has called us as the people of God to make him known among all peoples. We must continue to be driven by the question: 'By what criteria should any people be denied the opportunity to hear and respond to the gospel?'”

The challenge of unreached people groups is illustrated by a case study in Sumatra, the largest unevangelized island on earth. Sumatra is part of Indonesia, a nation spanning 17,000 islands of the Indonesian archipelago.

If Sumatra were a nation, only nine other nations would have more unreached peoples. Sumatra is the home of 52 known unreached people groups consisting of 25 million people. Of the 52, 48 have no indigenous churches and 34 have no known gospel workers.

“There was a time when we could mark initial progress in this task of world evangelism by keeping track of and learning about the countries in which we had missionaries,” Holste explained. “We have learned, however, that reality is much more complex than that. Virtually every country in the world contains scores, if not hundreds, of diverse people groups. We can no longer be satisfied that we have made disciples and established the church in one or two people groups in a country.”

Missions agencies have always been about winning people to Christ, but up until the last 20 years, agencies “were content to work only where missionaries were welcomed, while more than a third of the world remained isolated from access to the gospel,” Rankin said.

The motivation behind the IMB's mission statement–“Making Christ known among all peoples”–is anchored in the instructions of Christ to “make disciples of all nations,” he added.

“When Jesus gave us the Great Commission, the terminology he used was 'panta ta ethne,' which literally means all the peoples of the world. Every people group deserves the opportunity to hear, understand and respond to the gospel in their own language and cultural context.

“They should not have to cross barriers of ethnicity and language to know Jesus.”

For this to happen, the church in America must wake up and look beyond itself, Rankin asserted.

“The Great Commission was not given to a mission agency to carry out on behalf of the churches but was given to every church, every believer and every denominational agency,” he stressed. “The role of the IMB is to channel, enable and facilitate all Southern Baptists being obedient to the Great Commission.”

Still, many in the church hold to the view that “there is plenty of work and evangelism for me to do right here in my neighborhood and town.”

The church in America must realize the gravity of a lost world, Rankin declared.

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