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                     Reaching The Unreached
                    What Does It Really Mean?
                     by Richard LaFountain
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Because Unreached People Group is a fairly new term, and there are a
variety of ways to define a people and what "reached" or "unreached"
means, it may be helpful to set out a clear definition of what we in
the Christian and Missionary Alliance mean by it.

The officially accepted definition of an unreached people group is:

    "a people or people group among which there is no indigenous
    community of believing Christians with adequate numbers and
    resources to evangelize the rest of its members without outside
    (cross cultural) assistance."

Since "Unreached People Group refers to a group of people with no
viable and relevant church, a non-Christian neighbor of most American
would not be termed "unreached."  They are unsaved, and need the
gospel of Jesus Christ. Yet they probably have a church available in
their own language and culture. They could go to church, read the
Bible, listen to radio, or be approached in some other way with the
Gospel.  In other words they may be called "unsaved" or
"unevangelized" but not unreached because they are part of a people
who have been reached by the gospel.

There is a biblical answer to this question found in Revelation 5:9
and 14:6. In both passages the nations to whom the Gospel is to be
preached are described as "every nation, tongue, people, tribe." It
is clear from this passage that God has ordained that the every
cultural-linguistic group of people be evangelized and that there
would someone of every group before the throne in heaven.


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                Why Is A Group Still Unreached?
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After 2000 years of evangelism and church planting you would think
that the task would be finished.  It is not!  There are over 2.2
billion people yet out of reach of the good news of Jesus Christ.
Researches have identified some 12,000 specific people groups, of
which more than 2,000 groups, each numbering well over 10,000 in each
have not Gospel witness...they are yet Unreached!

Jesus instructed us in a parable to go to the highways and hedges and
to compel them to come in.  He proclaimed to the disciples that they
were to go to the ends of the earth...Jerusalem, Judia, Samaria, and
to the uttermost parts of the earth.   He also mad it clear to Israel
that other lost sheep were to be brought of every kindred, tribe,
tongue and nation.

Paul was specifically called to go to the ethnos - the gentiles - and
to preach Christ where he has not been named.  He was acutely aware
that the Gospel needed to spread to every crack and crevass of earth.
Yet in Corithians he said, "Many have not the knowledge of God, I
speak this to your shame."  In the context of awaking the church to
the urgent task of world evangelization Paul cried to a sleeping
church to awake out of sleep.

Why has not the who ethnos - world - been reached with the Gospel?
Because of a sleeping church. Throughout the history of the church God
has had to give wake-up calls to his church through persecution,
revival, crisis, and plagues, but normally through his anointed
prophets who decried the lethargy of the church.  It is interesting to
note that after every major revival there has been a massive
ressurgence in world evangelization.  Tragically it has all to often
either preceded or succeeded a major war. (Civil War, WWI, WWII)

Why has not the world been reached? It is not the fault of the
denomination, or of missions organizations, or of missionaries. It is
the fault of every individual Christian and every local church who
does not feel a compelling burden for the lostness of man, and who
become safe, satisfied and comfortable in his own salvation. God is
calling His church to awaken. It is midnight and the cry goes out,
"The bridegroom is coming!"  Awake, trim your lamps, be about the
Father's business!  The 'parousia' is upon us!


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                Where Are The Most Unreached People?
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Many, if not the vast majority of Unreached Peoples live in the highest
density populations of the world.  In a broad area stretching from 40
degrees north of the Equador (about southern Spain) down to 10 degrees
north of the Equator (the protruding hump of Africa) then stretching
eastward through Japan and Indonesia, constitute what has been called
THE 10/40 WINDOW.  In this area live the vast majority of the human
race, in countries that have been politically and religiously closed
to the preaching of the Gospel.  They too must be reached.

The are the hardest of people, in the hardest of places...Places where
western acceptance and comfort are not known. Places where prison
certainly awaits those who preach bodly in Christ's name. Places where
historically evangelists and missionaries were put to death for the
cause of Christ.  Are we willing to go?  Do we love our lives unto
death.  The words of that great missionary hymn echo the poetical
lyrics of profoundest truth:

        To the hardest of places he calls me to go,
        Not thinking of comfort of ease.
        The world may pronounce me a dreamer, a fool.
        Enough if the Master I please.

        To the regions beyond (UPGs)
        I must go, I must go!
        'Til the world, all the world (every ethne)
        His salvation shall know.


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                How are they to be reached?
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Reaching is a process, not a one time event. It begins subtily long
before the first missionary actually steps foot inside their village,
with a BURDEN a VISION, and a FIRE.

IT BEGINS WITH A BURDEN.  God, is his sovereign care, prompts a
believer, one of his children, with a prayer burden to reach out to a
people that have been excluded from the banquet table of Christ by
having never heard the message of Jesus Christ. God begins the process
in the hearts of individuals. Often those individuals are the least
likely to be the landing party that will invade that culture with the
gospel, but it begins with prayer warriors who are close to the heart
of God.  This prayer burdens the heart of many people with compassion
for these "other lost sheep" that the Master must bring.

THE VISION IS NEXT. It comes about through several instruments of
Divine intervention. In Pauls case with Macedonia it was with the
instrument of a "vision" or "dream" of a people group saying "Come
over and help us."  Other times it may be through the means of
observation.  Paul saw the city of Athens almost wholly given over to
idolatry and was burdened.  Other times the Spirit of God uses the
Word of God with a preacher who helps to open the eyes to the ripe,
but neglected harvest fields.  Still other times it is through
circumstances of tragedy, natural disaster such as what took Paul to
the isle of Melitus to an unreached tribe there.  God is the Lord of
the Harvest and He calls men to serve in the fields, but it begins
with a burden.  That burden and the vision are like seeds planted in
fertile soil. They begin to grow and multiply.

FINALLY IT IGNITES INTO A FIRE.  Jeremiah called it the "fire shut up
in his bones."  Paul called the "Woe" of the Gospel.  On the day of
Pentecost it was the Holy Spirit responding to the prayer for the Lord
of the Harvest to thrust forth laborers into his harvest. The Holy
Ghost is the fire that burdens within with a deep longing desire to
reach the lost.  Jeremiah said, "I could not sit still."  Would to God
that all of God's children had that fire and couldn't sit still.

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