This is an article from the November-December 1993 issue: Will We Fail Again?

Operation World: Introduction

Operation World: Introduction

This is the introduction to the special 100,000 edition mentioned on page 11

If Zondervan offered to print a special edition of 100,000 copies for you, what kind of an introduction would you devise for such an incredible book as this one? Well, here is what was finally printed:

Greetings!

This is probably the most amazing book you have ever held in your hands--beyond the Bible itself!

Would you like to go "behind the scenes" for a minute and glimpse a few of the unusual events surrounding the publication of this book?

We felt very privileged when Zondervan invited us to sponsor a special edition (identical in size and quality to the bookstore edition). We then contacted the hundreds of organizations listed on the back cover and on the other side of this sheet. The response was overwhelming and the book you hold is part of our order for 100,000! Add in the British version and a couple dozen other special editions and the entire print run is over 300,000 just in the first printing! (For the record: our low cost per copy was passed on right to the penny to those who participated in our 100,000 pre-print order.)

We hope you will be willing to encourage others to go down to the local bookstore and get a copy. It will cost a lot more--just as a vaccination at a doctors office needs to cost more than one given in an assembly-line mass vaccination. We hope everyone who gets a copy in our mass distribution attracts two people to buy through the normal bookstore channels!

What is so unusual about this book?

Things you will never hear on television or read in your newspaper are faithfully recorded here--namely, the earth-shaking impact of the Gospel in nearly every area of this globe.

This book sums it all up. It gathers together in one picture what all Christians know in part--their part of the picture, whether it be their missionary, or their denomination's efforts. But only Patrick Johnstone has ever put this all together in a small, economical book! Stop and pray for him--he has just lost his life companion, Jill, who herself had just finished putting together the children's edition of this book before cancer took her life. As you pray for him, pray for the hundreds of thousands of people all over the globe, in many languages, who will be consulting this incredible picture of the work of God in every part of the world.

What is left to be done?

In view of that movement don't quit now! Enormous strides have taken place. Christian resources are now greater than ever. One out of every ten human beings is a Bible believing Christian. Consequently the remaining task is--relative to those major resources--easy!

Easy--if even ten percent of Christendom, even ten percent of the evangelical forces of Christendom, put aside trivialities and get busy to finish the task, and existing agencies get the help they need.

But, while easy, the task is not small. This book makes an enormous stride forward in listing not just the country-level status quo but, roughly, the situation with the actual "nations, tribes, and tongues" within the various countries--a staggeringly larger research task. In the next edition, we can hope, one more major step will be possible, to attempt to list or estimate the number of smaller units within the larger "ethnolinguistic" peoples to which this book refers.

How many groups to "reach"?

Perhaps a little summary would be helpful. The total number of distinct "peoples" in the world (many of them evidently clusters of smaller peoples) is listed in this book as only 11,874. This includes only 432 for India, for example, some of which are larger than ten million. We must remember that many of these have sub-groups (other scholars list anywhere from 1,262 to 2,795 groups for India).

Not surprisingly the Lausanne Statistics Task Force, has wisely suggested that there are likely 24,000 (of the smaller, mission- significant) peoples in the world, and--here is the key point--about half of these 24 thousand 1) still lack a church movement of their own, and 2) are sufficiently different to require separate missionary penetration in the early stages.

Mission agencies in particular, therefore, are concerned about any still-unpenetrated units, no matter how small, since it is their business to plant the Gospel in every "nation, tribe, and tongue"-- something the Bible commands us to do. Most mission leaders agree that only when there is a genuine response to the Gospel--in the form of a church movement--can we be sure other members of a group have had a fully valid opportunity to hear the Gospel. Thus, response is the best (and perhaps the only Biblical) measure of adequate exposure.

The key to mission strategy

The Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization gathered a large group of mission leaders and missiologists in March 1982 and clearly resolved the question of the most important measurement of mission achievement--namely the planting of a church movement within every people. Only when this is done can the Gospel reach every person.

Ever since that meeting in 1982 the majority of mission leaders has shared the view that "reaching a people" must consist of planting an adequate church movement. Note that in this book the definition of "Reached/Unreached" on page 654, may be read as principally an objection to the use of the words reached and unreached rather than a rejection of the concept assigned to those words at the meeting in 1982.

It remains all-important that in any group the individuals we all wish to win must be given the opportunity to join a fellowship not just hear a message. Thus far, the kinds of statistics which are used to judge "percent evangelized," or "%E," in this book do not directly define such a goal. It is worth noting also that political boundaries enter into the statistics in this book, but political boundaries are not always relevant to a church movement. The Gospel hops over borders more easily than it penetrates language and cultural barriers!

We are exceedingly thankful and indebted to Patrick Johnstone for the years of careful research that produced so unusual and valuable a book that it may have one of the highest initial print runs in the history of Christian literature. And--it unmistakably focuses on the completing of the Great Commission!

He has made it possible for all of us to revel in the grandeur of the work of God throughout the world. This book reveals a vital reality totally unknown to the secular media of our time. Both global problems and global faith are galloping to the end of history. Don't miss out! This book is your day by day key to the reality of God.

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