By John R Stott
from The Manila Manifesto,
The world population today is approaching 6 billion people. One third of them nominally confess Christ. Of the remaining four billion, half have heard of him and the other half have not. In the light of these figures, we evaluate our evangelistic task by considering four categories of people.
First, there is the potential missionary work force, the committed. In this century this category of Christian believers has grown from about 40 million in 1900 to about 500 million today [1989]. And at this moment it is growing over twice as fast as any other major religious group,
[RW.: 570 million Bible-believing Christiansùthe potential work force in missions. It is a vast body of humanity that Is growing at least twice as fast as the fastest growing group that large, of Hindus or Muslims.]
Secondly, therearethe uncommitted. They make a Christian profession (they have been baptized, attend church occasionally and even call themselves Christians); but the notion of a personal commitment to Christ is foreign to them. They are found in all churches throughout the world. They urgently need to be re-evangelized.
[R.W.: 1,300 million other Christians, who need to be renewed in order to help in the mission task. This is the slowest growing block of humanity – dragging down the "average growth rate" of all Christians.]
Thirdly, there are the unevanqelized. These are people who have a minimal knowledge of the gospel, but have had no valid opportunity to respond to it. They are probably within reach of Christian people if only these latter will go to the next street, road, village or town to find them.
[RW.: 1,660 million non-Christians, already within the reach of Christian people. They need ordinary evangelism, not missions.]
Fourthly, there are the unreached. These are the two billion who may never have heard of Jesus as Savior, and are not within reach of Christians of their own people. There are, in fact, some 2,000 peoples or nationalities in which there is not yet a vital, indigenous church movement. We find it helpful to think of them as belonging to smaller "people groups" which perceive themselves as having an affinity with each other, e.g., a common culture, language, home or occupation. The most effective messengers to reach them will be those believers who already belong to their culture and know their language. Otherwise, cross-cultural messengers of the gospel will need to go, leaving behind their own culture and sacrificially identifying with the people they long to reach for Christ.
[R W.: 2,170 million non-Christians, outside the reach of Christians from the ranks of their own people. They live within "Unreached groups" where there is no viable, indigenous, evangelizing church movement within their nation, people, tribe or tongue. They need the special kind of evangelism called "missions".]
There are now about 11.000 such unreached people groups within the 2,000 larger peoples, so that the task is not impossible. Yet at present only 7% of all missionaries are engaged in this kind of outreach, while the remaining 93% are working in the already evangelized half of the world.
If this imbalance is to be redressed, a strategic redeployment of personnel will be necessary.
We are deeply ashamed that nearly two millennia have passed since the death and resurrection of Jesus, and still two-thirds of the world's population have not yet acknowledged him. On the other hand, we are amazed at the mounting evidence of God's power even in the most unlikely places of the globe.
Now the year 2000 has become for many a challenging milestone. Can we commit ourselves to evangelize the world during the last decade of this millennium? There is nothing magic about the date, yet should we not do our best to reach this goal? Christ commands us to take the gospel to all peoples. The task is urgent. We are determined to obey him with joy and hope, if
* JOHN R. STOTT is the world-renowned theologian, evangelist, preacher and erstwhile rector of All Souls Church, London. He edited the Manifesto. Ralph W Winter is the head of the U.S. Center for World Mission, and the founder of the movement, Theological Education by Extension (TEE). This article is reproduced from Mission Frontiers, V.17,# 5-6