Why So Few Churches Go Where The Need Is Greatest - Part 1
A few years back, I joined a group of mission pastors, pastors, and leaders from our denominational mission board to find ways to work together so we could encourage more churches to reach people groups that had little to no access to the gospel. It is a daunting task.
Currently, there are approximately 6000 UPGs (unreached people groups) worldwide. An unreached people group is defined as having less than 2% who are Christian within a people or ethnic group. Of the 6000 UPGs, 3000 have no known Christians working to take the gospel to this people group. I will not go into depth in this article, but reaching ethnic groups or people groups is a scriptural priority. For further study on this idea, you can reference a Bible study here, and for a more in-depth study, I suggest John Piper’s book “ Let the Nations Be Glad.”
Global Frontier Missions has produced this video showing that of all the money taken in by American churches, less than 1% goes to the more than 2.7 Billion that have little to no access to Jesus. Americans spend more on Halloween costumes … for their pets than they do on taking the gospel to the people who need it most.
Seeing that reaching the least reached is a priority, I asked our mission board, “In our denomination, how many churches would you say are actively engaged in a partnership seeking to reach UPGs.” The answer was astonishing. Out of 46,000 churches, they could identify approximately 135 churches that were seriously seeking to reach UPGs. Thankfully that number has gone up in recent years. But as a denomination, we still are far behind what is necessary to carry out the great commission.
In this article, I wanted to address some of the reasons I hear about regularly why churches do not engage people groups.
#1 Objection: There are plenty of lost people in our community that need reaching. Or, a variation of this is “There are plenty of lost people right here in our area; why can’t we only focus on them?”
Answer: Yes, we need to take the gospel to our community. But we can do both. We must reach people in our communities. But let’s also remember that our communities have access to the gospel. They have the Bible in their language, with multiple churches they can attend. They have your church in their community, giving them free access to the gospel. I guess that the vast majority of church budgets reflect a focus on only reaching their community.
On a 3-mile stretch just one street from our main campus, there are fourteen churches. Yet there are people around the world with no bible, no Christians, no churches, no pastors, and no one who can share the good news in a language they can understand. If we are to take the scripture seriously, we need to engage both worlds.
#2 Objection: Our Church does not have much money to go overseas or support missionaries.
Answer: A few things I have seen in churches over the years that address this issue.
When vision is cast to take the gospel to crazy places worldwide, no matter the size of the church, God opens the floodgates.
God does not tell us to “Go to the nations” and then fail to supply the means to do what He asks.
Many pastors tell their congregation that they cannot out-give God. Usually, they only apply this principle to individuals giving to the church. But I would ask, “Does this principle not also apply to the churches giving to missions”? We cannot state the idea of God supplying all our needs and fail to apply that idea to our church giving.
I have a good buddy that pastors a church in a town of 2000 people. When he arrived, the church was running 150. Following his leadership, they made missions to UPGs a priority. Today that church has moved locations, has gone through 2 building expansions, and is running around 900 in a town of 2000. They increased the mission giving and going throughout the years of their growth, and they grew. Missions was a priority and God made sure to expand their footprint. I have seen this many times including in my own church.
#3 Objection: Our primary goal is to only grow our church in America.
Answer: I would ask ”Where is this in the scripture?” I honestly do not know a passage that overrides the vast amount of the bible to say we are primarily to only grow our church.
A story was relayed to me by a friend working for our mission board in my state. A new pastor took over a once large church. Speaking to my friend he told him that he would do more mission work if he could show how missions can grow his church. The new pastor then proceeded to cut the mission's budget by $90,000. Unfortunately, that pastor is now trying to keep his once-thriving church alive as it dwindles.
People will follow a pastor who leads them toward God’s vision for the church. God plans to reach all the ethnic groups so that in heaven, there are people from every ethnic group represented around the throne (See Rev. 5:9 and Rev. 7:9.)
If we are focused solely on the numerical growth of our church, we have failed to see the entire mission of God. That mission is making disciples ( Matt. 28:19) among the ethnic groups of the world. God will give your church the people and funds necessary for this task. We can do both, grow our church and reach the nations.
To Be Continued