by Luis Bush
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To many believers in Jesus Christ, the year 2000 had great significance. It called us to redeem the time and to seize every opportunity to make disciples of all nations. Since the late 1980's, thousands of Christian leaders and laymen have been praying for God's direction and pursuing various courses of action. In this context, God gave birth to the AD2000 and Beyond Movement (AD2000). First gaining attention at Lausanne II in Manila in 1989, the movement spread rapidly around the globe. It addressed the question found in the Lausanne II Manila Manifesto: "Now the year 2000 has become for many a challenging milestone. Can we commit ourselves to evangelize the world during the last decade of this millennium? There is nothing magical about the date, yet should we not do our best to reach this goal? Christ commands us to take the Gospel to all people. The task is urgent. We are determined to obey Him with joy and hope."
Many of God's people all over the world responded to that call. The AD2000 and Beyond Movement was raised up to encourage existing and new movements to work together across barriers to advance the cause of Jesus Christ and his Great Commission. We were impelled to ask: What can we do to cooperate with the sovereign, supernatural initiative of God, to seek to fulfill the Great Commission Jesus gave to his followers two millennia ago? This became the challenge of AD2000.
Addressing the status of the AD2000 Movement and Great Commission reminds me of the childhood poem my mother loved to tell when I was growing up in Sao Paulo, Brazil. "Pussy cat, pussy cat where have you been? I've been to London to visit the Queen. Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you there? I chased a little mouse under the chair." This nursery rhyme contains the timeless truth that what we see depends significantly on who we are and what we are looking at. This is true with regard to how we look at where we are in relation to the Great Commission.
Church Historians Look at the Great Commission
In his paper for the October 1999 Kyoto, Japan international conference, "The Role of Western Missions in the 21st Century," Ralph Winter wrote:
The long standing and indeed illustrious campaign to take Western Christianity to the world's minority groups is slowing down because fewer and fewer such groups remain untouched. One of the miracles of the 20th century--which forever changes the focus of missions for the 21st--is the fact that the Western missions have been so successful in transforming dark mission fields into bright mission sending forces ... the fact is we are running out of "traditional mission fields." There aren't many left.
Paul E. Pierson, Dean Emeritus of the School of World Mission at Fuller Theological Seminary, observed:
We are now in a post-Western, post-denominational, post-Christendom, post-colonial, post-ideological era in the missionary movement. The missionary movement is no longer a primarily/exclusively Western movement, it is a multi-national and multi-cultural movement. The West would not perceive itself as Christian today; the mission field is everywhere. Colonialism has largely ended. Ideology is dead; economics and technology take precedence over ideology...
The Holistic View of the Great Commission
At the dawn of the new millennium, Christians differ in defining what it means to fulfill the Great Commission differently. Some emphasize the holistic aspect as a primary indicator. In his new book, Rediscovering World Mission--Where Have We Gone Wrong? co-authored by William R. Dyrness, James E. Engel, of Development Associates International, begins with the question "A Clouded Future?" and ends with the question "Will the Clouds Lift?" Jim serves as the coordinator of AD2000 Strategy & Resource Development Task Force and is not enamored by what he sees. He summarizes his book by addressing the question: "What's Gone Wrong With the Harvest?"
The fourfold account of Christ's Great Commission in the Gospels reveals that mission flowing from this new reality is holistic, seeking health of all people in their cultures and communities, in their physical as well as their spiritual lives. Mission brings justice at the same time as it offers mercy. Mission is communal in that it grows out of and issues in the spread of the Body of Christ, the Church, which is both the medium and the message which reveals and interprets the power of God's word for the world. These historical and theological concerns are compounded by the reality at the dawn of the third millennium that God has raised up a mighty body of believers in the younger churches who are eagerly carrying the message of salvation around the world--even back to our Western nations.
The Didactic View of the Great Commission
Over the last 20 years, a heated debate has ensued between sincere Christians with regard to the concept of closure--completing the unfinished task and the fulfillment of the Great Commission. The Great Commission includes the final didactic dimension of Christ's mandate about "... teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you...." (Mat. 28:20) Teaching and discipleship were to be ongoing. You could not ever say you had taught everything Christ commanded to anyone.
The issue of discipleship and the Great Commission was taken up at the First International Consultation on Discipleship, held September 21-24, 1999, in Eastbourne, England at which nearly 400 delegates participated. The Consultation was envisioned and managed by Appianda Arthur (a former Ghana Parliament member) and David Mehlis, President of Cook Communications Ministries in Colorado Springs. John Stott summed up the sentiment of many participants, when he said, "the Christian situation is strange, tragic, and possessing a disturbing paradox. In some places the church is growing strongly, but even there the problem is that of growth without depth. In short, the church lacks proper discipleship." A joint statement crafted during the consultation acknowledges that "our zeal to go wider has not been matched by a commitment to go deeper."
The AD2000 View: "A Church for Every People and the Gospel for Every Person"
The view from the AD2000 and Beyond Movement with regard to the Great Commission is not shared by all associated with the Movement. This is due to the diverse nature of AD2000. Thus, in presenting my view on where we are in the Great Commission, I am only speaking for one stream within the movement.
The watchword of the movement is "A Church for Every People and the Gospel for Every Person." The expected result is the establishment of a mission-minded church planting movement within every unreached and unevangelized people and city by AD 2000, so that all peoples might have a valid opportunity to experience the love, truth and saving power of Jesus Christ in fellowship with other believers.
More than 4,000 Christian leaders representing 186 countries have committed themselves, in writing, to the goal of a church for every people and the Gospel for every person by the year 2000. With that common goal in sight, they gathered in May of 1995 for the Global Consultation on World Evangelization (GCOWE '95) in Seoul, Korea. However, in moving forward by faith toward this goal, AD2000 leaders were aware, as was stated in a keynote address at GCOWE '95, to guard against the following: 1) exaggerating the facts, 2) oversimplifying the remaining task, 3) failing to consider the implications of the Gospel and the kind of church that should be established, 4) relying on human strategies rather than the power of God, 5) failing to co-operate adequately as the Body of Christ, 6) underestimating the human, spiritual and financial cost involved in the task of reaching the remaining unevangelized of this world in the short time ahead, and 7) understanding that the very gates of Hell, Satan with all of his demonic host, are standing against it.
Critics have expressed concern that, in setting goals like a "church for every people," we were discouraging missionaries from looking at the kind of churches which have been planted. They suggest that we were, in effect, settling for superficial congregations which did not match the biblical models. Some have felt that, when the emphasis is on establishing a new congregation, it automatically panders to an un-biblical superficiality and produces an "easy believism." Other critics challenge the virtue of holding to a time-target versus continuity of mission, in that it leads to Gospel reductionism. Even some among those engaging in providing leadership in various tracks at GCOWE '95 had concerns. Jim Engel in a later book called for " no sloganeering to 'complete the task;' no triumphalistic Great Commission countdowns; no strategic plan and timetable..." (Rediscovering World Mission--Where Have We Gone Wrong).
Despite these legitimate concerns, many did pursue the goal of "a church for every people and the Gospel for every person by the year 2000" and encouragement came from a wide variety of God's people, such as John Stott. He expressed the potential for AD2000 because of the new missions initiatives emerging in the Two-Thirds world. In an article in the International Bulletin of Missionary Research in April 1995, he wrote:
The AD2000 and Beyond Movement has set itself the double goal by the end of the millennium of a church for every people, and the Gospel for every person. It has been statistically demonstrated that world evangelization in these terms is attainable, not least because of the proliferation of indigenous missions in Africa, Latin America, and the Pacific Rim of East Asia. These may under God not only take the Gospel to the ends of the earth but also revitalize the tired churches of the West.
The "Gospel for every person" was intended to mean, not the presentation to every person in the world, but rather that every person on earth will have access to the good news of Jesus Christ. This goal has encouraged progress in many ways.
Where Are We in Regard to the Gospel for Every Person?
Jesus said: "Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone, everywhere" (Mark 16:15, NLT). Personal witness and local church outreach are undoubtedly the most effective approaches to presenting the Gospel. However, there is no way to effectively estimate the extent of worldwide availability of the Gospel through these means. However, there are some ways to measure Gospel access, and many of these have been associated in some way with the AD2000 initiative.
The global broadcast of Billy Graham's 1996 World Television Special on April 14 exposed more people to the Gospel than in all of his combined audiences in 45 years of ministry! Never before in history have so many people heard the Gospel message in a single day.
By the end of the year 2000, eight out of every ten people will have access to the entire Bible in their own language. Nine out of ten will have access to a New Testament. Today, the acceleration is so remarkable, in that more than eighteen different language portions per year are being translated, compared to just over three per year in 1900.
At its triennial conference, in June 1999, Wycliffe/SIL approved a resolution that by the year 2025, a Bible translation project will be in progress for every people group that needs it.
Dramatic efforts have taken place over the decade to systematically distribute Christian literature to every home through AD2000 God's Word and Literature Network.
Audio communication has also been an effective way of communicating the Gospel, especially among the rising number of illiterate people. This includes radio, recorded Gospel messages, as well as other media that do not require reading skills for the hearer.
In less than ten years, the number of languages in which evangelistic broadcasting is done has increased from 170 to 249. On January 7, 2000 Ron Cline, chairman of the World by 2000 coalition of radio networks, reported that only seven of the more than 300 languages originally targeted as needing Gospel broadcasting are still lacking one. He expects the final languages will done by the end of this year. By December 31, 2000, Gospel radio broadcasts are expected to cover 99 percent of the world's population.
The AD2000 Audio Communications Network, involving more than twenty agencies, seeks, through its Target 4000 plan, to recruit at least 70 recording teams to finish the cassette recording work that began in 1940. By the end of year 2000, audio Gospel recordings will be available to 96 percent of the world's population.
| One of the most effective means of presenting the Gospel in visual and audio form has been the Jesus Film. As of January 1, 2000, over 3.3 billion people in 217 countries of the world have reportedly seen the film, with 108 million known decisions for Christ. With 445 churches and mission agencies involved, a new translation is being completed every ten days. | ||
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According to Paul Eshleman, Jesus Film Project Director, the Jesus Film will be available in languages known by 99 percent of the world's population by the end of the year 2000.
The Gospel for every person is no longer a case of one means or another, but one means and others. By the end of this year, more than 95 percent of the world's population will have access, not only to some portion of Scripture in their own language, but also to Christian radio broadcasts ... and audio recordings ... and the Jesus Film!
This is not to say that all have heard or had access to the Gospel. There is still a long way to go. The goal for the Jesus Film, for instance, is not availability or access to the film for the maximum number of different people groups, but sheer numbers of film viewers.
According to David Barrett and Patrick Johnstone, the total estimated population of those who have not heard the Gospel is about 1.2 to 1.4 billion. This means that 4.6 to 4.8 billion or 77 to 80 percent of the world will have heard the Gospel by the end of the year 2000.
Barrett bases his conclusion on a series of exposure indicators that he associates together in a calculation to come up with what he calls the "e" or evangelization factor. Over the past ten years, he has reduced the indicators from more than 100 to a smaller number, without significantly changing the results. One of the most dramatic improvements in world evangelization, as measured by David Barrett and the Global Evangelization Movement team, is the reduction in the unevangelized as a percentage of world population by about half over the past 100 years--from 50.2 to 25.7 percent (International Bulletin of Missionary Research, January 1999, David B. Barrett & Todd M. Johnson).
Johnstone gives perspective on the concept, acknowledging:
[there is a] gray area because there is "no magical moment" when we can statistically say that a person moves from being unevangelized to evangelized! That gray area could be extended to a much higher percentage if we defined the amount of exposure more narrowly! Please do not take these figures as anything more than "order of magnitude." David and I worked on these because we wanted to prove years ago that you cannot say that all the world's population is unreached if not written in the Lamb's Book of Life! I think the point has now been generally accepted that many are exposed--and thus accountable to God for hearing but not necessarily converted. All we are measuring with this figure is a likelihood of exposure with known outreach efforts, so therefore much depends on our criteria. However as long as either I or David apply consistently those criteria, we can compare relative degrees of evangelization, and therefore this is valuable (e-mail, January 31, 2000).
Where Are We in Regard to a Church for Every People?
Jesus said, "If you love me, you will obey what I command" (John 14:15, NIV). When Jesus gave the Great Commission to His followers, He commanded them, "Go and make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28:19). The word He used for "nations" was ethne, which can be translated "ethno-linguistic peoples" instead of "nations" (countries with politically drawn boundaries). In reaching the world for Christ, believers should take the good news of Jesus Christ to unreached ethno-linguistic peoples.
The Bible tells us that people from every ethno-linguistic group will be in heaven. John wrote in Revelation 7:9:
After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb.
Progress Over the Past 200 years
A "church for every people" vision statement became a procedural goal of establishing a church planting movement among every people by the year 2000. The aim was that there would, at minimum, be a church of at least 100 people in a reproducing fellowship, or fellowships, for every ethno-linguistic people by the end of the year 2000. Johnstone writes: "Planting 'a church for every people' is a task that is already well underway and entirely within reach. Because of God's power and faithfulness, His many servants have prepared the way for this great moment in history."
Per the reckoning of David Barrett, the ratio of Christians has not changed over the past 100 years and is about one third of the population of the world. However, as Patrick Johnstone points out, while the Roman Catholics are growing more slowly than the world population, evangelicals are growing at over three times the population growth rate. The number of evangelicals doubled over the last ten years, growing to 400 million in the year 2000 (The Church is Bigger Than You Think, pp. 110-112).
Joshua Project 2000 and National Initiatives Implement "A Church for Every People"
As the decade has unfolded, two rather distinct phases of AD2000 emerged, with GCOWE '95 serving as the dividing line between the two phases. The first phase was the vision-sharing phase, the second the mobilization or implementation phase. As a follow-up to GCOWE '95 the implementation phase was initiated six months later at what became known as "The Launch." It was the conviction of participants that through Joshua Project 2000, the almost 2000 least evangelized/larger peoples of the world would have a church planting movement initiated by the year 2000. The hope was that through the AD2000 national initiatives, both the Joshua Project 2000 peoples and the unreached peoples less than 10,000 in number would have a church by the year 2000.
Joshua Project 2000 is a global cooperative strategy, focused on the least evangelized peoples of the world, that seeks to engage every church, agency, denomination and Christian from every country in the world in an effort to implement the goal of "A church for every people and the Gospel for every person by AD2000." The goal of Joshua Project 2000 is to make a priority of establishing, as a minimum, a pioneer church planting movement within every ethno-linguistic people of over 10,000 individuals within every country of the world by December 31, 2000. Criteria for listing peoples on the Joshua Project 2000 list are: ethnolinguistically distinct, country distinct, greater than 10,000 population in given country, less than 2 percent Evangelical and less than 5 percent Christian adherents. Hundreds of churches, mission agencies, denominations and theological institutions from around the world have become involved.
"The Joshua Project ... is the largest strategic mobilization of Christians in history to disciple the peoples of the world. Support and enthusiasm has come from across a wide spectrum of denominations, agencies and countries. In the latter, the involvement has been predominantly non-Western" (Patrick Johnstone, The Church is Bigger Than You Think, p. 107).
A national initiative seeks to mobilize local and expatriate Christians toward the goal of a church for every people and the Gospel for every person by the year 2000. It recognizes what God is already doing in a nation and does not mean launching a massive new movement or building a huge structure. Rather, it affirms existing structures and looking for God's hand at work among the peoples in the nation. This leads to the process of identifying the resources He is bringing to bear in completing the task.
For example, Stephen Kabachia of Kenya noted: "When the Kenya delegation were confronted by lists of unreached peoples in South Africa at GCOWE '97, they determined that never again would a Kenyan delegation attend a global consultation to be embarrassed by such lists." He went on to say, "Before the next consultation in the year 2000, every people group in Kenya will be penetrated." Multiple-nation East African and regional consultations have taken place in Kenya, including an open-air meeting in Nairobi at which a large number consecrated themselves to prepare and go as missionaries. Since then, every region of Kenya has been visited.
The Status of a Church for Every People
The original, integrated list of 1739 Joshua Project 2000 people groups represented 2.2 billion people in 1995.The editorial committee, made up of researchers who had responsibility over various global databases, published a monthly progress report.
According to Dan Scribner, Information Manager of AD2000, the list has decreased to 1,594. During that time almost 3,900 changes or edits have been made to the Joshua Project list. This includes updates to people name, population figures, percent evangelical and adherents, and Bible translation status. Thus over 47,000 new pieces of work-among-related information has come from over 100 countries.
Three milestones are tracked for each people group on the active Joshua Project 2000 list:
1) Targeting. Is there a specific commitment to begin church planting among this group by Dec 31, 2000? There are still 265 untargeted peoples totaling 45 million people.
2) Church Planting Team. Is there an on-site church planting team among this people? There are 539 peoples without a church planting team, totaling 81 million people.
3) Fellowship of 100 believers. Is there a fellowship of at least 100 indigenous believers among this people? There are still 1,117 peoples without a fellowship of 100.
One of the most significant advancements in the Joshua Project 2000 list can be seen when comparing the percentages for these three milestones from 1997 with 2000 (see chart below).
Another encouraging picture emerges when we look at the new levels of cooperation and integration of the global and national databases. For the past four years, in more than 50 countries with a significant number of unreached peoples, there has been an interchange between national researchers and international researchers to seek to get on "the same page" in regards to the peoples in any given country.
Indonesia is a case in point. There has been an repeated process in many countries, resulting in a comprehensive integrated list of the peoples of the world with a population of more than 10,000 with the greatest need of a church planting movement. That is the updated Joshua Project 2000 List (JPL).
However, the goal being pursued by the new Harvest Information System Services (HIS) is to have a list of all people groups, of all sizes, including those under 10,000 and states of reachedness. The HIS database has merged information from the Wycliffe/SIL Ethnologue with data from the Joshua Project, the Indian Mission Association (IMA), the Integrated Strategic Planning Database (ISPD) of the Southern Baptists and Patrick Johnstone's information. Codes were standardized using the Ethnologue, JPL, IMA and ISPD data to allow cross-referencing between lists and further validation. The HIS Peoples listing now represents an integration of at least five major sets of people group information. The plan is to have this information ready for distribution on CD to the interested global community of Great Commission leaders by the end of the year 2000.
There are still 1,117 distinct ethno-linguistic peoples of over 10,000 individuals reportedly without a fellowship of 100 believers. There are many more ethno-linguistic peoples less than 10,000, and there is not enough information to assess how many peoples do not have a fellowship of 100 believers.
However, the picture can be estimated by population. Supposing that none of the approximately 7,400 peoples under 10,000 in population had a fellowship of 100 believers. The total population represented, in this worst-case scenario, would be 30 million people or one-half of one percent of the total global population. Of the remaining population 2.28 billion or 38 percent would be represented by the Joshua Project 2000 peoples and 61.5 percent of the global population would represent the peoples over 10,000 with a fellowship of over 100 believers.
Of the six billion people in the world, those ethno-linguistic peoples with no churches of 100 believers or more would total an estimated 380 million or 6.3 percent of the population.
These numbers can also be reversed for greater understanding of just how much the Gospel has progressed. Almost 99 percent of the world lives among ethno-linguistic peoples which have already been targeted for church planting ministry.
Admittedly, this does not measure the health of the church. The Great Commission Manifesto called for the establishment of a mission-minded church planting movement within every unreached people group so that the Gospel is accessible to all people. It called for the establishment of a Christian community of worship, instruction in the word, healing, fellowship, prayer, disciple making, evangelism, and missionary concern in every human community. The quality of the churches called for in the Manifesto would be difficult to assess, but the criteria are being created in the developing Harvest Information System.
The progress in church planting during the last 100 years has been encouraging to others as well. The studies done by Patrick Johnstone reflect a dramatic change in this century. Of the approximately 13,000 people groups, the number of reached groups has increased from 4,000 at the beginning of the century, to nearly 12,000 at the end (The Church is Bigger than You Think, p. 105). This is quite remarkable!
Conclusion
The millennial turn marks an assessment opportunity for God's people. Two thousand years ago, prior to ascending into heaven, Jesus left his follows a mandate that has been called the Great Commission. Where are we in regard to the Great Commission? Not all of God's people agree about how to assess where we are or even whether it is for us to be evaluating progress. Not all agree on what constitutes real progress. But, in the midst of these varied perspectives, it is comforting to know that Jesus is Lord, and that He is moving among his peoples for His eternal purposes! Praise God.
Luis Bush is the International Director of the AD200 and Beyond Movement based in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
