Contents
May/June 2006
FEATURES
Guardian angel on alert Chuck Ferrara discovers something beyond the badge.
John Wesley and United Methodist renewal James V. Heidinger II appeals to the wisdom of Methodism’s founder
The emergence of confessing Christians Thomas C. Oden encourages mainline renewal.
Anne Rice: The dark wing of night Trish Teves inquires the once gothic author about her conversion.
Holiness Manifesto The Wesleyan Holiness Study Project makes an appeal.
Columns
Editorial Why membership matters
Next Generation The answers are right, but the life is wrong
RENEW Women’s Network The tie that binds
The Great Commission The world in high resolution
From the Heart Tell
DepartmentsLetters to the editor
Straight Talk
News
Re-thinking ‘doing church’ to reverse membership decline
Prayer event brings unity to community
U.S. church opens arms to Iraqi girl with birth defect
Culture in View
Family films with a message
Walking the line into a ring of fire
Numbers. The call for us to be involved in missions is often represented in terms of numbers. For example, there are currently 6.4 billion people in the world, 1.6 billion of whom have no access to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Numbers can help us grasp the degree and urgency of need; an attempt, if you will, to see the world from God's perspective.
Over the past ten years our perception has been enhanced by several helpful tools, enabling the church to become more aware of spiritual and material needs around the world. Perhaps the most notable such instrument is the "10/40 Window," the area from ten to 40 degrees north latitude, stretching across Southern Europe, North Africa, and Asia-a notion conceived by missiologist Luis Bush in the 1990s. This conceptual tool has enabled us to visualize and respond to areas of great need. It is estimated that the 10/40 Window includes:
. two-thirds of the world's population
. seventy-seven percent of the "poorest of the poor"
. about 85 percent of the people who have little or no access to the gospel. However, it is estimated that less than two percent of the financial contributions given to Christian missions goes to ministries within the 10/40 Window.
Certainly a sense of Christian conscience cries out for us to be good stewards in response. In fact, there are now some churches that have been so motivated by these statistics that they will not participate in a mission work unless the focus is on the 10/40 Window. While I understand their rationale, I also believe that we should never allow statistical tools to cause us to lose sight of the "face" of missions, responding wherever there is a need to share the love and message of Jesus.
I think about a Mission Society missionary who, while serving just a few hundred miles north of the 10/40 Window in Asia, was severely beaten by thugs. He subsequently became friends with the Muslim bystander who had dragged him out of the street to safety and had cleansed his bloody face with snow. As a result of that friendship, a number of that Muslim man's family members have met Jesus.
I also think about a work in which the Mission Society is involved 500 miles south of the 10/40 Window that is currently reaching three of that country's 22 unreached people groups. And about the strategic ministries of many organizations taking place in other parts of the world including Northern Europe, the southern half of Africa, Indonesia (the world's largest Muslim country), and other parts of Asia, not to mention Latin America. These are all places outside of the 10/40 Window, yet they contain people who have little or no access to the gospel.
Numbers. They can help us grasp the enormity of our missions challenge, but in our zeal to respond we should never lose sight of the fact that every number has a name. In other words, in spite of all the numbers, missions is personal. In fact, there is nothing more personal. To see the world in high resolution means that every number has a face and a name. Our attempts to view the world must not lose sight of this.
Over the years I've used three diagnostic questions to determine whether or not someone is "reached" or "unreached."
. Is there a Bible or New Testament he/she can read or hear?
. Is there a disciple-making community of believers in his/her town or village?
. Do they know a believer who is speaking the Truth into his/her life?
People who cannot say "yes" in response to each of these questions will most likely not have the opportunity to say "yes" to Jesus, no matter where in the world they live.
The 10/40 Window is a helpful tool which we should continue to use as information and motivation, because there certainly are many more unreached people inside of the 10/40 Window than outside of it. But consider the below visual aid as well, recently produced by the Southern Baptists. From the legend you can see that access to the gospel is greater in the green areas, less in the yellow ones, and least in the red. (The gray portions have very few inhabitants).
While there are many red and orange areas in the 10/40 Window (something we would expect), notice the red, orange, and yellow places in southern Africa, Asia, and even parts of Latin America. Notice also, for example, that eastern China has a higher percentage of evangelicals than almost all of Europe.
Of course, to see these statistics from God's perspective would mean that our map would have a high enough resolution to identify the access to the gospel of each individual person. Each face. Each name. I think that's how God views the world; a world to which he calls us until each person has an opportunity to meet Jesus.
High resolution maps reflecting the status of Christianity worldwide are available at www.worldmap.org.
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