“At the sound of the tone, the global population will be seven billion.”
I was driving to the campus of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary to teach a class when I heard these words on the radio. The year was 2010.
The world reached another record this week–8 billion people. By 2060, the number is expected to reach 10 billion, peaking at 10.4 billion in 2080.
But for now, we are at 8 billion.
8 billion individuals reflecting the imago Dei.
4.7 billion filling the earth and not glorifying the Creator. Of which, 273 million have no evangelical church planting strategy being executed to reach them.
How should the apostolic imagination influence our prayers, thoughts, finances, strategies, and other Kingdom labors in view of this new number? Eight billion is more than a milestone, a threshold crossed in time, a tone from the car’s speaker.
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While I can join those key missiologists who lament the complete unreachedness of major groups of people, at the same moment, I must interject that Jesus NEVER told us to ‘reached the unreached’ but RATHER to TEACH ALL the nations–including those completely unreached–to OBEY ALL THAT I’VE COMMANDED YOU…something FAR more intensive and extensive than merely getting a CP strategy going among all of these unreached populations… In other words, with the other billions of people on this planet, our task is FAR from being finished, and in some cases, like our great U.S. of America, we have declined horribly in recent decades. So my approach to this ‘unfinished task’ while giving proper respect to those who are completely unreached (and their numbers ARE going down) my bias is for those billions who are, apparently already ‘reached’ but who do NOT fall remotely into the realm of the task being FINISHED–as laid out above.
Thanks for sharing, Stephen. Unless I’m misunderstanding your comment, you seem to be using the same terms I use in the post, but hold to different definitions than those of the broader missiological community.
What we know:
Jesus told us to make disciples which involves evangelism and teaching them to obey.
Jesus did not tell us to plant churches, but churches come into existence through disciple making (e.g., Acts 13-14).
Just because a group is labeled “reached” does not mean the task is finished. The labels “unreached” and “unengaged-unreached” are to assist the Church as a steward with her resources and strategies in view of the Great Commission and now 8 billion people.