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To Bless AllPeoplesJon Forth, Reuben Wilson - May 2008

Algeria is a Muslim country with few Christians. Those from a Muslim background are fewerstill. Most of the country is effectively unreached by the gospel. How can the people have anopportunity to hear of the Saviour?

Just by chance a Muslim in the country called Hussein heard a Christian programme on theradio. He was interested to nd out more and so he wrote to the station asking for somemore information. After a while he enquired if it was possible to meet a Christian. The radiostation put Hussein in contact with an English teacher from the West and they startedmeeting and studying the Bible together. Hussein understood, but still didnt feel able tocommit himself to Christ.

One day, an Algerian follower of Jesus came to join their Bible study and then invitedHussein back to meet some other national believers. Hussein saw that these people werejust like him only they were full of joy. When they met they prayed and worshipped Jesustogether, read the Bible and thanked God; there was no evangelistic sermon. Hussein wasso touched he committed his life to Christ that day. Afterwards, he said he would have doneso sooner had he met Algerian believers before!

Why did Hussein not become a believer during his Bible studies with the Westerner? He didnt believe, because theWesterner seemed to have a foreign religion and a foreign god. The model was not only alien, but difcult to com -

prehend. Our Algerian brother thought he needed to become a Westerner to become a Christian! The believers fromwithin the culture modelled what Christianity meant for Algerians in terms of modes of worship and fellowship, anddemonstrated how the Scripture applied directly to their everyday lives.

What do we learn from this story? A strong indigenous fellowship is the best witness to the gospel in an unreachedcommunity. So, to see the gospel spread our focus should be on learning language and culture to share the messageeffectively, and with relevance, in order to establish self-led and self-supported reproducing indigenous fellowships.

What does the Bible say?God loves everyone on earth. Revelation emphasises that there is a trans-cultural dimension to the church. John sawa picture of the church before the throne of God and it was made up from every nation, tribe, people and language(Rev 7:9). Furthermore, Jesus commands us to make disciples of all nations(Matthew 28:19).

In this passage from Mathew, the word nations in our translation comes from the Greek word ethnewhich is moreaccurately translated as people group. Mathew could have used the word basileiato imply a political state or king-dom, but he didnt, because Jesus was referring to the many different tribes and cultures (people groups) that makeup nation states.

This understanding is also found at the heart of the Old Testament. The Tower of Babel, where God confuses thepeoples speech and creates many different ethnic groups, is immediately followed by Gods promise to Abraham: allpeoples will be blessed through you(Gen 11, 12:1-3). This promise is repeated ve times, showing that it is signi-cant (Genesis 18:18, 22:18, 26:4, 28:14, Psalms 72:17, Acts 3:25, Gal 3.8).

So what is God saying through the Scripture? The message is simple: do not ignore anyone. Gods honour is at stakehere; His promise must be fullled.

There is still much work to do! Looking at Indonesia as an example, there are lots of fellowships, but they are mostlyamong three people groups, the Javanese, the Batak and the Dayak. There are many hundreds of people groups inIndonesia with few or no fellowships. Each people group has a different culture and language and few Indonesianbelievers have gone to learn the culture of another people group to take them the Good News.

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What do we know about people groups around the world?Over 30 per cent of the worlds population would describe themselves asfollowers of Jesus. Last century saw tremendous growth in the Bible-be-lieving church worldwide 11 per cent of the worlds population could bedescribed as evangelical in their attitude to the Scriptures.

This hides a complex picture: about 40 per cent of the worlds populationlive in cultures and ethno-linguistic groups where the church is not strongenough to evangelise the rest of the culture effectively without outside

help. We call these cultures and ethno-linguistic groupings unreached orleast reached people groups. Many of these groups have no fellowshipswhatsoever. Nearly 75 per cent of the unreached people groups live in N

Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, SE Asia and western China. In termsof population, 86 per cent of individuals who belong to unreached peopleslive in these regions (see joshuaproject.net).

If this was not bad enough, there are approximately 250 Muslim peoplegroups over 100,000 strong that have NO cross-cultural workers sharingthe gospel in a culturally relevant way and with the intention of establish-ing fellowships amongst the group. Some of these groups are over 10 mil-lion strong! This is a challenge for the church today. If God is challenging

you, get in contact with us and we can discuss how you can get involved with this task.

Out of a cross-cultural protestant workforce of approximately 150,000, only a small minority (around 10,000) workamongst the unreached/least reached people groups to establish fellowships. Thats a ratio of about four workersper million people! With so many people groups with no one working among them a new generation of apostles areneeded to complete the task God has given us. (US Center for World Mission stats, www.uscwm.org).

The biblical imperative, combined with these statistics, makes it clear that we as a church need to focus on un-reached people groups. This does not mean that the worldwide church should cease to care about reached regionsand cultures. There is always a need to share the gospel and disciple believers in each new generation amongst these

reached cultures. But we cannot ignore our obligation, which is born out of love. We have been entrusted to takethe Message to unreached groups who have little chance of hearing it.

Involvement of your church or CU how about developing a special interest to pray for an unreached group?Some churches have sent workers to unreached peoples already. If your church is in that position are you pray-

ing for the people group they are working amongst? Furthermore, interest can go much widerthan a prayer meeting. A team could visit the unreached group or you could help sup-

port a worker there nancially. The worker could even visit if they were in theUK! Perhaps in the future a member of the church or CU will be called

to work amongst the unreached group! It is a spiritual princi-ple that those who give get even more to give away

(Matt 25:29). Take a step of faith, andreach out so that Gods promise

to bless all peoples willbe fullled.

There are 12-24,000 people groups,depending on how they are counted,of which over 40 per cent are un-reached/least reached, i.e. there isno indigenous church that can evan-gelise the rest of the people groupwithout outside help. These groups:

vary in size (211 of them are overmillion strong 123 of these areMuslim, one of which is 160 millionstrong (World Evangelization Re-search Centre gures)), total over two and a half billionpeople, often follow the religions of Islam,Hinduism, Buddhism or Animism.

(www.Joshuaproject.net)

Do you have a vision for Muslims to

know Christs love? Do you want totell your friends about Gods desire tobless them? Is God stirring somethingin your heart, perhaps even to start anew work with those who are totallyunengaged? Nows the time to get intouch.

Tel: 01442 254540

Email: info@frontiers.org.ukWeb: www.frontiers.org.ukPO Box 600, Hemel Hempstead, HP3 9UG

WITH LOVE AND RESPECT, INVITING ALLMUSLIM PEOPLES TO FOLLOW JESUS