“A Giant Step is Needed!”

An Introduction to the Mission Frontiers Vision Network

"Christian Mission, World Evangelization, must take a new and significant step if God's will is to be done." So wrote Dr.Donald McGavran, who according to Dr. Ralph Winter is considered by many to have been the foremost mission strategist of the modern mission era.

What Has Been Done?

Dr. McGavran explained, in "A Giant Step in Christian Mission,"that much has been done in the past in the way of missions and said, "We praise God for all the victories of the cross."He also gave credit to such organizations as the U.S. Center for World Mission, Fuller's School of World Mission, World Vision's MARC, and other organizations who "have done valiant work in calling on Christians to reach the unreached peoples."He also stated, "A new awareness of the huge undone task of world mission is already in the process of being aroused. This is good."

What Needs to Be Done?

But he then continued by saying, "A giant step forward needs to be taken." He proposed that we need to "let the Holy Spirit lead earnest groups of Christians to meet regularly, to study one or more of the very numerous unreached pieces of the mosaic of mankind, and to give and pray to the end that within each group to be reached a beachhead of saving faith might be established.

"Let all monies raised by these local groups be given solely to frontier mission enterprises---through existing missionary fellowships which promise to spend the money exclusively on new evangelistic efforts among unreached ethne, or through new organizations specifically founded to evangelize the Unreached People Groups---those that are clearly out beyond the actual reach of any congregation, denomination or mission agency in any of the six continents.

"All such new local missionary societies will focus on the unfinished task of world evangelization! These new, local societies will pray for the effective evangelization of specific unreached segments of society (emphasis mine)." Explaining further he said, "Unless here in America literally thousands of new frontier missionary fellowships are founded....the 'unreached peoples' will not be reached.... Thus in order to do our fair share of this global task, we must soon found thousands of new groups of Christians dedicated to multiplying congregations of biblical Christians in every unreached ethnos in the world.

"Unless this GIANT STEP is taken, all those earnest Christians scattered out across this country who would want to work for, pray for and give to the evangelization of the unreached will remain essentially unhopeful, if not hopeless, and will simply continue to give modestly to existing mission efforts."

What Can You Do?

This is where you and I come in, because as Dr. McGavran said, "We must act on our belief that there are at least one million individuals who would pray for and give to frontier missions and we must encourage them to organize themselves into local missionary societies, singlemindedly devoted to finding, fostering and founding new outreach to unchurched segments of mankind.

"The task is urgent and enormous. Today 2.2 billion are still closed off in unreached groups. They have yet to believe on Christ. They are lost sheep. The Great Shepherd wants them found... Each (local society) must not stop giving to existing efforts, yet they must be allowed to add strength to those efforts designed exclusively to reach the unreached."

He mentioned that these groups would meet together for study, prayer, praise and giving, all focused on some part of the unreached thousands of millions. "The members of the band must be acutely conscious that they are doing a task for each unreached group which to date no one has ever done....these groups must number in the thousands, but as the vision spreads there will be tens of thousands of them."

Finally he said that "an aroused Christian conscience on the world level is all it will take for the peoples and nations that are already 'blessed' to fulfill the biblical mandate 'to be a blessing to all the peoples of the earth' (Gen.12:2,3)."

I have given many quotations from Dr. McGavran but he has so clearly said what needs to be done today and what he has stated is exactly what the MISSION FRONTIERS VISION NETWORK is all about!

Do you want to be part of this "Giant Step"? Are you willing to call people in your area, who also have a vision for missions and specifically a vision to see the "unreached"reached, to see if they are willing to form these "Companies of Seventy"(as Dr. Ralph Winter calls them) who would come together to praise, pray, give and mobilize others for missions? These groups could be the "shot heard round the world."They could be the means that the Lord would use so that ALL THE CHURCH could be mobilized for missions.

This networking program is part of the overall ministry here at the U.S. Center for World Mission. One of our main goals is to make available resource material from such ministries as the Global Prayer Digest, Adopt-A-People, the Perspectives Course, ACMC and others.

If your heart is touched by what is in the Lord's heart today, will you please write in for your own local zip code block of names so you can start calling these persons in your area?

If only 20 people were to meet together and contribute approximately one dollar each once a month it would be sufficient to pay for the production and distribution of the Mission Frontiers magazine, for the persons in that "zip code block."(See Mission Frontiers magazine April-May '91 for the amount to send in for your "zip code block,"or write and ask us.) This simple involvement would allow this informative mission magazine to continue to be sent out as a missions mobilizing tool.

As Bill and Amy Stearns say in their new book, Catch The Vision 2000, "God's historic Great Commission given to Abraham 4,000 years ago does include you, your life, your place in history. God can use every believer."And I say,