February 01, 1979 by Bob Coleman

How to Reach...

Imagine a map of the world, beautifully enameled on ceramic. Let's paint a green dot wherever n the world there is already a church or at least a mission station: there are green dots in almost every country in the world. Now lift the ceramic map high above your head..and SHATTER it onto the floor. Fragments fly everywhere but not many of them have green dots (indicating existing churches or missions).

God shattered the world that way back in Gen.11,where it is recorded "the Lord confused the language of the whole earth..and scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth."

Suddenly, we see a more realistic picture of world evangelization. Although almost every country has a church, every society certainly does not have a church or missionary yet.

Notice, for example, India is in over 3000 scattered fragments and only a few fragments have churches.

And, look! The fragments of India are scattered so far and wide, that those with a church in them have little chance of easily reaching those without a church. In many cases, because of caste prejudices,the "national Christians" in India are the least likely to be able to reach other Indians.

The same is true of the Muslim world, and the Chinese. There is an underground national church among the Chinese, for example, but it is not present in all 2000 fragments.. and somehow must be planted there.

The list goes on. In fact, worldwide there are about 16,750 such separated cultures with no church or mission effort. These cultures make up half of mankind.

So there's the challenge for the evangelical movement: What will it take to focus our attention on the remaining 16,750 cultures with no effective church or mission work yet?

Here at USCWM important steps are being taken:

1. Mobilize evangelical students the church leaders of tomor row to commit their lives now in giving or going to the last frontiers (see pp. 3 4).
2. Mobilize the churches to look beyond their doors and catch the vision of penetrating the last frontiers (see pp.5 6).

And that's what this issue is all about Our hopes at USCWM for mobilizing students (p.3 4) and for mobilizing churches (p.5 6) for each of their parts in planting churches in the last frontiers. Both these steps involve you in spreading the vision to all your friends. Read on