This is an article from the January-February 2018 issue: ARE YOU IN?

24:14, The Best Hope for Reaching All Peoples. Are You In?

24:14, The Best Hope for Reaching All Peoples. Are You In?

In 1974 at the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, Dr. Ralph Winter pointed out the uncomfortable reality that we would never complete world evangelization at the rate the global church was going because the Church was sending the vast majority of its mission resources to the areas and peoples of the world where there was already an existing church, i.e. they were reached. Thanks to the efforts of Ralph Winter and many others, the missions picture today is more hopeful than it was 44 years ago. Thousands of unreached peoples have been engaged with new mission efforts for the very first time. There is much to be thankful for. But as Justin Long points out in his article, “The Brutal Facts” starting on page 14, we are facing a similarly uncomfortable reality in our day as we did in 1974—missions and church planting as usual will not get us to the goal of reaching all peoples and providing access to every person.

First, like 44 years ago, the vast majority of our mission efforts are still focused on the reached areas of the world. Certainly, we have made progress, but still only 3 percent of cross-cultural missionaries serve among the unreached. Remarkably, one of the top receiving countries for mission outreach is the United States. The sad reality is that the vast majority of funds collected by the Church stays within the Church to bless the people of the church. Only a tiny fraction of Church funds and personnel go to those peoples with the least access to the gospel.

Secondly, according to Steve Smith and Stan Parks, in most cases where we have sent out missionaries to engage unreached peoples, our efforts have not kept up with population growth. In order to provide access to the gospel to every person within each people, we need to make disciples and plant churches that multiply faster than the overall growth in population.  Unfortunately, the most commonly used methods of church planting are not able to keep up with the growing population within unreached peoples.

We Need a New Paradigm—Multiplying Movements

 If our current efforts are not adequate to reach all peoples in our lifetimes, then what can we do to turn things around? God has not left us without recourse and that is what this issue of MF is all about. It is all about HOPE. The hope that we can make great progress in brining the gospel to every person, tribe and tongue because God is already doing so in hundreds of places around the world. In over 600 areas and peoples, disciples are making disciples and churches are planting churches faster than the growth in population. Starting on page 17 you can read story after story of Disciple-Making and Church-Planting Movements that are transforming whole peoples and regions.  It is a return to the simple, biblical and reproducible methods of ministry modeled by the early apostles in the book of Acts as they made disciples and planted churches throughout the Roman Empire.

Yes, it is possible to grow God’s kingdom faster than the growth in population and to expand God’s kingdom to every people group on earth. The news gets even better. Not only can disciples and churches multiply rapidly, so also can movements. The stories starting on page 32 demonstrate the power of these movements to spawn new movements in a viral expansion of the gospel. The leaders raised up in one movement can train leaders to start movements in peoples both near and far.

We have re-discovered the powerful, book of Acts like methods of discipleship and church planting that have proven effective in fostering movements in unreached peoples all over the world. Now it’s time to take this understanding of how to grow God’s kingdom to all peoples. 

24:14, Taking Movements to Every People by 2025

For years now we have been telling you about the various efforts to launch Church-Planting Movements. Last year we told you about The Zume Project. The year before we featured the “No Place Left” coalition. All of these efforts represent different streams among those people who are committed to fostering CPMs/DMMs in every people. Now these leaders who have catalyzed over 600 Church-Planting Movements worldwide are coming together under the umbrella of 24:14.  This new coalition does not replace what each group is already doing. It simply adds the strengths of each organization to every other one who share the common commitments and goals of the 24:14 coalition.

 The goal of 24:14 is to foster movements of discipleship and church planting in every unreached people group by 2025.  If successful, 24:14 could be the fulfillment of Ralph Winter’s vision expressed almost 44 years ago—to see every people experience a movement of discipleship and church planting where no people group is forgotten or “hidden” from the good news of the gospel.

Will 24:14 Succeed?

With the global Church being still so far from our desired goal of providing access to the gospel to every people regardless of its language, culture or location, can 24:14 succeed in accomplishing its very ambitious goals by 2025— just eight years from now?

Obviously, there are no guarantees, but there are many things that bode well for the success of 24:14 (See the article, “Why Is This Plan Different?” starting on page 38.) Because of the book of Acts-like power of the hundreds of movements that 24:14 practitioners are fostering worldwide, I believe 24:14 has the potential to accomplish its biblical goals of reaching all peoples with surprising speed and effectiveness. But they will need all the help they can get for this to happen. They cannot do it alone. See how you can help starting on page 13.

Are You In?

This is the key question each of us must answer for ourselves. Are the goals of the 24:14 coalition worth sacrificing our time, energy, money, even our health and safety in order to see them accomplished by 2025?  Each of us is given a limited amount of time here on earth to do God’s will and fulfill His purposes.  24:14 may be the last best hope any of us will have to fulfill God’s plan for all of history, that Jesus would be worshipped and given the glory He deserves from all peoples.

The goals of 24:14 are the same goals that the frontier mission movement were founded upon—reaching all peoples and doing so through movements.  We finally have an effective vehicle to help carry us forward toward these goals. If these goals are yours, then I ask you, “Are You In?”

Become a Mission Frontiers Vision Caster

Mission Frontiers is not just a magazine, but also a ministry to cast vision for what is possible in world evangelization. As such, we need the support and prayers of those who want to join us in this vision casting. We want you to be an active participant in this ministry. Here are some ways you can be involved.

Pray: We are in a spiritual battle to mobilize the global church to reach the unreached peoples and we need people to stand with us in prayer. Contact me at [email protected] for more on how to pray.

Donate: In order to move forward we need people to stand with us financially. We would like to have each issue of MF translated into the top 10 languages of the world, but we simply do not have the resources to do this. We need your help! We have some generous people who give monthly. One gives $200 a month. Just last month we received a gift for $1,000. We need your gifts, both large and small—whatever the Lord puts on your heart to give. 

Share: We want the information and vision contained in MF to be spread far and wide, but we need your help to do it. Download the pdf version of any article or issue of MF and share them with your friends. Visit http://www.missionfrontiers.org Print. off as many copies of these pdfs as you like. We give free permission for people to reprint material from MF as long as they let people know it came from us. One mission agency contacted us recently and asked permission to reprint 20 MF articles to train new missionaries. Wonderful! Order extra copies for conferences or your missions committee for just the cost of shipping. Supplies are limited but we will send what we have. Join us as we cast vision through Mission Frontiers.

 

 

Comments

Could you let me know if this valuable edition of Mission Frontiers is available in Spanish?

Im in!  So appreciate you guys and all you are doing to promote the unreached and Dmms.  I love linking to articles you guys produce on my blog. This week I blogged about how I got “on board” to the dream of starting DMMs. https://dmmsfrontiermissions.wordpress.com/2018/02/11/why-disciple-making-movements/

Dear Friend prayer for All Nations Mission North India we are working very remote villages church planing ministry with 20 local church planter full time we have 50 more co-leaders those working with Pastors please any one love become part of Utter Pradesh mission work most welcome join us reach the unreached community
Thank you
blessing

The best hope for reaching all people. I’m in!
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