January 01, 1993 by Ralph D. Winter

Centerfold Poster!

I encourage you to look at our Managing Editor's column to the right. There he explains the reasons for our new look to Mission Frontiers.

He does not mention the fact that we now have a poster in the middle of every issue--on white paper--big enough to go up in a corridor at your church. Is that worth 2.5¢?

A Global Wind Toward Unreached Peoples

The theme of this issue is the growing movement toward the adoption of specific "Unreached People" groups. New events prompt this emphasis.

What kind of congregations are doing the adopting?

One very large and very well-known church (too well-known to allow us to mention its name).

One small congregation which is happy for us to use their name.

More important (actually all-important) is the steady trend of the mission agencies to give special assistance to congregations that want to be highly specific in their giving and praying for missions.

The April "Consultation II"

Both pastors and mission executives will be present at the Adopt-A- People Consultation II, which will meet April 25-27 in Colorado Springs. One of the highlights of this event is the number of different agencies sponsoring the meeting. See the two-page announcement about this Consultation on pages 44-45.

There is a whole article about this consultation and other associated developments on pages 15-17. Note the fascinating diagram on page 17! The details including the impressive list of cooperating agencies are on pages 18-19. I offer two pages of review and comment on pages 20- 21.

You can also see the wind blowing south of the border. The most remarkable strategy session for any continent thus far was the Latin American Consultation on Unreached People adoptions which is described on pages 22-24. I was there. So was Phil Bogosian who expertly describes what happened at this amazing meeting. Here you see a tangible follow-through to the great meeting called COMIBAM in Sao Paulo a few years ago. We can only hope that Asia and Africa will follow this marvelously efficient network in Latin America.

The New "List of 6,000 peoples!"

This is one of the four decisive steps forward mentioned in the article on page 15-17. By our next issue we will be able to announce this material in the form of a book to be entitled, "A Church for Every People by the Year 2000."

You may recognize that phrase. It was first popularized in 1980 at the World Consultation on Frontier Missions, held in Edinburgh, Scotland. A brief linking of that key event and the remarkable AD2000 Movement is on p 20.

Unprecedented Networks?

There are certain events looming up which we cannot comment on yet in detail. At a meeting of the U.S. Lausanne Committee two weeks ago Paul Cedar (who wears so many hats there is no use starting to list them) counted up 17 "networks" of different evangelistic and mission agencies working together with a sense of oneness that is truly remarkable. Stay tuned on this one. But this leads me to a related thought:

No Organizational Goals?

A few years ago I launched the thought that Christian global ministries ought not to make up goals for themselves. They ought to take their orders from meetings where a whole cluster of ministries are in a position to work together almost as one team.

I feel that the day of Lone Ranger efforts is almost totally out of date. We acknowledge One Master, One Lord, One Faith, One Scripture. Why not work together? Why can't individual organizations decide what they can do in concert with others? It is happening right now!

Biggest Tiger by the Tail

We have had big challenges before, but the development of a curriculum over ten times as extensive as the Perspectives course is our biggest tiger by the tail! See page 37 for details.

Mission Frontiers

The renovation of vision in America today depends upon the seeding of vision in the lives of a large number of local people. They are the ones who make this nation go.

We cannot assume that our present circulation of Mission Frontiers is all God wants.

Three things are happening simultaneously:

1. Our new white paper cover--see column to left. We hope more will read and save and pass on this bulletin
2. Growth of our Vision Network, see pages 38 and 39. This is refining our address list and encountering many who are willing to help mobilize America for Frontier Vision.
3. Launching of our Million Person Campaign, see page 32. This will gradually swell our contacts to a million people. By that time we will go broke if we do not find a way to fund this bulletin!

We face various alternatives.

1. Go for advertisements. We have long considered this. Some pastors would not want their people exposed to whatever organizations had enough money to run an ad. And, we would rather not print things because someone paid us to do it.
2. Go for subscriptions. This is very reasonable until you stop to think just what kind of bulletin this is. Ours in an "evangelistic" bulletin. It grows on people in the same way as those who go to church a few years before helping with the budget. Usually a few people pay for everyone else. They know that if the church "charged" people to come, quite a few would stay away--people who need to hear.

Also, take note of the figures in the table below. The use of a subscription service would more than double the cost. Just imagine what would happen if we received 80,000 letters containing $1.95-- that is, the cost of one copy sent six times a year! Well, we figure it would cost just about $100,000, minimum, for the human effort in opening 80,000 letters, recording the amount and person, making up a deposit entry, and getting it into the bank.

The professional subscription services pay people who do not have missionary vision to process subscriptions. Our people have enough vision to do other things. Why use supported missionary staff (whose time would cost supporters $100,000) to do that kind of work? The best and most economical commercial service to handle subscriptions would charge $200,000 for the 80,000 addresses we presently have, and would charge $400,000 if we doubled our list.

3. Seek local support.

If the most interested people within each group of 70 households on our list talks together, maybe they can figure out how to pay the $136.50 annual cost of 70 issues being delivered to people in their immediate area. Perhaps individual churches or families could take turns paying the annual cost of Mission Frontiers to those 70 addresses. If every group of 70 can handle its own expense, then it does not matter how many new people we get on the list!

And note, we only need to deal with 1,000 letters a year instead of 80,000. Actually 1/70th.

Most important: it saves a great deal of the Lord's money. The annual cost is $156,000 instead of $392,000 if we were to count subscription costs.

Do you think it is worth a try? Do you think there is one person out of every 70 who once a year would pay for the rest? One person in every 70 giving $136.50 per year will do it. Shall we try? Write and tell us what you think.