This is an article from the July-August 1979 issue: Founder’s Reference Issue

The Ebbing of the Tide

The Ebbing of the Tide

For 50 years mission work has consisted more and more of taking care of earlier converts, and the care and the feeding of new churches emerging from earlier beachheads. That was O.K. until it began to be clear in the early 70's that 5 out of 6 nonChristians lived still beyond those specific social groupings within which the gospel had been planted. E.g., India consists of 3,000 sub-nations, only 21 of which were effectively reached. But already major forces were in motion to reduce mission work, often with the excuse that nothing more was needed. A new theology of the "national church," valuable and right, allowed some people to justify the decline, say, of Presbyterian missionaries from 2000 to 400. At this moment, denominations within the National Council of Churches account for less than 8% of the U.S. mission force. And yet it is also true that 90% of all American missionaries are absorbed by the needs of overseas churches. There are not enough missionaries attempting to penetrate the last frontiers represented by 16,750 remaining human societies within which there is no church. That kind of mission work is in drastic decline proportionately. But there are a number of evidences that the tide is now turning.

THE TURNING OF THE TIDE

In this thimble-full of space! cannot give details about the "distant past" - the 1966 Berlin Congress on Evangelism, the series of regional Evangelism Congresses, the 1972 proposal for another 1910-type mission representative conference in 1980, the 1974 Lausanne Congress, the 1976 IFMA-EFMA Executives Retreat, where I was asked to give the opening address (stressing a new thrust to pioneer missions), etc. But more recently:

Last November the young African leader, Osei-Mensah, Executive Secretary of the Lausanne Committee on World Evangelization, in a bold proposal asked for every 1000 Evangelicals to set apart one couple to go to the unreached peoples of the Hidden category. Recapitulating in the May '79 bulletin of the LCWE, he speaks specifically of the 16,750 Hidden Peoples and asks that the new people chosen go "as pioneer missionaries to (these) subgroups." In the same issue David Howard reports that the January meeting of the program committee of the 1980 LCWE Consultation in Thailand proposed that the Consultation "focus upon 'Hidden' Unreached People . . . those who live in areas where there is no established local church in their cultural setting."

Also in January the TEAM Horizon magazine devoted two pages to an analysis of TEAM's excellent record of penetration of new (Hidden People) fields in the last 25 years, and reprinted the key diagram from the U.S. Center's poster, "Penetrating the Last Frontiers." (Write to us for a copy.) By February we had word of at least 5 mission agencies which had set up new departments or appointed special people for attention to new field development.
In February, ten major mission agencies agreed to sponsor jointly the Center's mission study "semester out" which gives college credit for courses on worldwide Christian perspective. (See our page in CT, April 20.) These agencies get 5000 requests per month from college students asking guidance.

¥ In February one result of a major consultation last fall on Muslim evangelism, the Samuel Zwemer Institute, moved onto our campus and is already literally taking off in a cloud of excitement regarding the thousands of hidden peoples in their focus.

In April, in Seoul, Korea I asked 300 Korean pastors at the "First Worldwide Korean Missions Conference," representing all the major groups in Korea, if Koreans would commit themselves to reaching 1,000 of the 16,750 remaining Hidden Peoples. Every arm was enthusiastically raised!

In May the IFMA-EFMA China Consultation, meeting at the U.S. Center displayed amazing new concern regarding the new opportunities in China, long considered a hopelessly, inaccessible bloc of people.

July 19-22, 1979. While the Association of Church Missions Committees (ACMC), a new, powerful force for missions, gave 1/3 of their conference last fall to the Hidden Peoples, this year! have been invited to give the opening address. They know my emphasis. The meeting is at Gordon College near Boston. (Write for details.)
August 15-23, Athens: The First Athens Congress on World Missions has asked the U.S. Center to design their entire program content. Our stress, as already mentioned, is specifically on the Pauline concern for the frontiers. (Write for details. Your pastor can go free if five of his people go.) We hope this will be a significant event in the turning of the tide to the frontiers.

Sept. 24-27, the Annual Executive Retreat of the Evangelical Foreign Mission Association has taken as its general theme "the Unreached Peoples," and knowing full well my special focus on the Hidden Peoples, they have asked me to give the keynote speech. It was only three years ago that I spoke to the same group, and the U.S. Center then was only a dream.

Dec. 27-31, the Urbana Convention. While I cannot claim that this convention is focused exclusively on the frontiers, nevertheless my 1976 IFMA-EFMA address is printed in the advance study booklet, and the December issue of Moody Monthly is to carry an article I will contribute on the challenge of the unfinished task.

We have received 284 more gifts since last issue (3 weeks back), but it is obvious that at 95 per week, we'll be short about 5,000 of these $15.95 gifts by our June 15th $100,000 payment.

Here's the answer: Note that even if all of you who read this page were to send in $15.95, it would still not do the job. Too few read this page. That's right! However, what if those of you who are following us, pastors especially (but also you on whom pastors rely) - what if you were to phone us and ask us to put enough one-time special gift brochures in the mail for your whole church? Our one-time small gift plan is precisely designed to allow many hands to make light work. It is designed to avoid any suspicion that we are diverting funds from mission giving or enlisting on-going givers on a list of our own. At least phone me and ask the questions you have. Call (213) 791-1324 and reverse the charges. I'll be in.

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