#4 God’s World in Need
God’s world is NOT homogenous. It is a melting pot of culture - made up of all types of peoples, languages, nations, and belief systems. However, today, unlike at any other time in history, we can educate and equip missionaries to minister in this ever-changing harvest field. Therefore, we must become learners of our mission field to become better laborers within it. Getting to know our world will cultivate a need for missions, set a context for missions, and help us to contextualize the gospel in a biblically faithful and relevant way. To win the world we must know the world and understanding its intricacies is invaluable to the current missions movement.
DISCUSS
#1 If you could snap your fingers and immediately solve one of our world’s problems what would it be?
#2 The world stats
28,000 people a day are forced to leave their home countries because of conflict or persecution.
40% of the world’s peoples lack basic sanitation and live on less than $2 a day.
By 2050, 70% of the world will be urban.
141,000 new non-Christians enter our globe’s cities everyday.
Annual church embezzlement (20 billion) exceeds the total of all financial gifts given to missions worldwide.
Only .05% of Christian income is given to sustain missions every year.
DEFINE
Have you heard of the 10/40 window?
The 10/40 window is a region of the world that lies between the latitude lines of 10˚and 40˚north. Between these lines live the most spiritually and physically impoverished people in the world.
The 10/40 Window is a rectangular geographic area stretching from North Africa through the Middle East to Asia, covering 68 countries. It is also known as the resistance belt because of its great resistance to the gospel.
10/40 window
• 2/3 of the world’s population lives here accounting for about 5 billion people total.
• Three out of every five people in the 10/40 window have no access to the gospel. Roughly 70% of the people groups in this region have no access to a Christian that can tell them about Jesus.
• The poorest of the poor live in the 10/40 window. The “poor are the lost and the lost are the poor.”
All top 50 of the least-reached mega-cities in our world lie here.
and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation,
Paul, Romans 15:20
Tell the students to give up their small ambitious and come eastward to preach the gospel of Christ.
Francis Xavier
Q & A
Look at Matthew 9:37-38. What is the state of the harvest and what is the need according to Jesus? What does Jesus call us to do? Take a minute to apply that for a country in the 10/40 window right now
2. Who is someone that comes to mind that you could introduce to the 10/40 window? This window is largely unknown and will not know Jesus until more know of it.
INTERACT
World Evangelization—Countries vs. People Groups
Consider the words below. What do you learn from each one based on the definitions and illustrations below? When the Bible speaks of nations, what often is it really meaning?
NATIONS ≠ POLITICAL BOUNDARIES IN THE BIBLE
Most people think of nations like the picture to the right of Nigeria—We think of political boundaries. But the Bible understands nations and thinks of people boundaries.
A PEOPLE GROUP
defined by missiologists, is a group of people with a shared language, culture, history, and worldview by which the gospel can be understood and received without encountering significant barriers.
ETHNE = NATIONS
(as in peoples, not countries)
And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all [ethne].
Matthew 28:19
And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all [ethne], and then the end will come.
Matthew 24:14
√ DEFINITIONS
not a nation state or area defined by political or national border. Nation, as used in the Bible refers to a people group. Many different people groups can make up a nation.
So, when we speak of world evangleization we are speaking in terms of getting the gospel to every people group, not just to every nation on earth.
So, there are 195 countries in the world, but over 10,000 people groups!
Ethnic Diversity Per Country
Gauging the ethnic diversity of the countries of the world.
Q & A
How does Nigeria compare with the other countries of the world?
What areas of the world have the most different people groups within them?
What does it mean for the missionary need in countries with high volumes of people groups?
PRAY
Prayer for the CO international ministries
Use the video below to pray for our ministry in Australia. Pray through the prompts at the end of the video.