Which is nice and all.
But it's not what Christ told us to do...a small problem.
Kyrie Eleison. Irhamna ya Rrab. Miserere nobis. Have mercy, O Lord.
Read it and weap, then repent and fast and ask God how you can be part of the church's mission to the unreached:
Despite Christ’s command to evangelize, 67% of all humans from AD 30 to the present day have never even heard His name.
• 648 million Christians today (called Great Commission Christians) are active in Christ’s world mission; 1,352 million Christians seem to ignore this mission.
• Non-Christian countries have been found to have 227 million Bibles in place in their midst, (more than needed to serve all Christians), but they are poorly distributed.
• 124 million new souls begin life on Earth each year, but Christianity’s 4,000+ foreign mission agencies baptize only 4 million new persons a year.
• 91% of all Christian outreach/evangelism efforts are expended in World C locations, where the Gospel is already rooted and the church is thriving.
• 818 different un-evangelized, ethno-linguistic peoples have never been targeted by any Christian agency to date.
• 40% of the church’s entire global mission resources are being deployed to just 10 overly-saturated countries already possessing strong citizen-run home ministries.
• 98.7% of people have access to scripture in 6,700 languages leaving 78 million in 6,800 languages with no access at all.
• Only 1 out of every 4 missionaries is working in a pioneer ministry among non-Christian peoples of the major religious blocs.
• Of foreign mission giving, 87% goes toward work among those already Christian, 12% goes for work among already evangelized non-Christians, and 1% goes for work among people groups in the un-evangelized or unreached category.
• Out of 648 million Great Commission Christians, 70% have never been told about World A’s 1.6 billion un-evangelized individuals.
• Every place on Earth can reasonably be targeted with at least 3 of the 45 varieties of effective evangelism.
Read it all at Shawblog.
3 comments:
hey man, you will find this interesting too in regards to this topic: http://www.serioustimes.com/blog.asp?id=30
I tend to think the 'great commission' needs to happen where we are - and this is dependant on one's views of what they want to do. I am from Aboriginal Canada and I feel the need to be an Aboriginal Christian in my midst - since this is long been damaged by church and state within my country (and has developed a lot of bittereness towards the church over the years).
As for missions, I am not sure where I stand on that. I think Christians need to work in a community and then let that community work it's way outwards - to new communities. This way the commission stays cultural to the area it is in (and understandable).
I guess I have my reservations about those statistics - it does not take into effect the tv, books, radio, inetrnet, and other media effects which are used as sending this message (of course nothing is as good as human to human contact). I guess I have a tough time with a European Christianity being brought to other cultures - in which some of them might not respect that culture. Which is in it's own way a small problem.
Joey: Will check it out.
Hi Society:
Great remarks.
I just finished reading Whose Religion is Christianity?: The Gosspel Beyond the West, by Yale prof. Lamin Sanneh (born in Ghana to a Muslim family I think, who later converted to Catholic Christianity).
It is a short book and an easy read and he addresses these issues very nicely. I would be more than glad to buy the book for you and have it mailed to you in CA.
Check it out at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Whose-Religion-Christianity-Gospel-beyond/dp/0802821642/ref=sr_1_1/104-7729543-7424746?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179478770&sr=8-1
E-mail me if you would like me to get it for you. I'm serious that I'm glad to buy this book for you or any of our other readers, as long as you promise to read it.
winterlightning
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