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You are here: Home / Buddhist World / Jesus Knows Their Names

Jesus Knows Their Names

By Frank Johnson on October 3, 2019 0

Holy Men in Nepal
Photo courtesy of Sebastian Pena Lambarri. Used by permission.

In a 2010 paper written for the Cape Town 2010 Congress of the Lausanne Movement, S. Kent Parks and John Scott deliver an impassioned plea for the “Forgotten Fourth” — the almost 2 billion people without access to the gospel.

These “separate peoples” are mostly Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist, and include significant urban populations. They have been described as unreached people groups, least-evangelized, least-reached peoples, and in what is possibly the most accurate and unsettling description of all, ignored peoples. Dr. (Ralph) Winter and others after him have tried to generate a global movement of the Church toward these peoples. Yet despite all the papers and discussions and conferences, today, 36 years later, this forgotten fourth without access to the gospel still makes up over 28% of the world’s population and 41% of the individuals in the world are members of a people group with no viable church.

Note: although the statistics cited in the quote above are from nine years ago, the situation has not changed much in 2019. According to JoshuaProject.net, 29% of the world’s population (an estimated 2.2 billion people) have had “virtually no exposure” to the gospel. 41.6% of the world’s population is part of an unreached people group, defined as a) less than 2% Christ-followers and b) less than 5% Professing Christians).

Parks and Scott call this 29% without exposure to the gospel “The Forgotten Fourth.”

Parks and Scott go on to identify at least 15 challenges the church faces that explains why the task of reaching the unreached appears to not have made a lot of progress while the world as a whole has changed dramatically.

They then make recommendations for a way forward through the challenges, including obedience-based discipleship and an urgency born out of our love for Jesus. They describe lessons that have been learned, consisting of “new approaches to ministry among least-reached peoples (that) are counterintuitive and defy conventional missiological wisdom,” citing examples from work among unreached peoples in Bangladesh, China, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Mongolia, Nepal, Thailand, and Turkey.

The two billion people who make up these groups don’t know they are missing. But Jesus does. He knows every one of their names. And he is inviting us to join him in places like India, Pakistan, China, Nepal and Bangladesh where the highest concentration of unreached peoples live—reaching across culture and language, discomfort and danger, and often great distance, to befriend them and share the good news of the Kingdom.

Parks’ and Scott’s paper is well worth the read, and I would urge you to digest it carefully, allowing the Lord to spark a passion for the unreached in your heart as you read!

COUNTRIES IN THIS ARTICLE: Bangladesh, China, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Mongolia, Nepal, Peru, Pakistan, Somalia, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda
PEOPLE GROUPS IN THIS ARTICLE: Bhojpuri Bihari, Maasai

Related Resources

In The Ralph D. Winter Story, Harold Fickett captures both the genius and the controversy of a self-described “social engineer,” named by Time magazine as one of the 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America.


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About Frank Johnson

Frank is a 1985 graduate of Bethany College in Scotts Valley, California (B.S. Ministerial Studies) and a licensed minister with the Northern California and Nevada District Council of the Assemblies of God. Frank has been an internet strategist for over 20 years, applying principles of digital media strategy to spread the gospel. In addition, he is the author of Find A Job Through A Temporary Service, “Bringing in the Outcast” (under pen name, John Norman) in Issue 43 (January 1, 1988) of Discipleship Journal, and numerous articles in the Santa Cruz Sentinel.

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  • His Feet International: Prayer for Unreached Peoples
  • Seven Ways to Pray for the Unreached - Radical.net
  • PrayerCast: Pray for Muslim Unreached People Groups with Limited Access to the Gospel
  • Reach Beyond: Weekly Unreached People Group Prayer Focus

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Reaching the Unreached: Becoming Raiders of the Lost Art
Reaching the Unreached: Becoming Raiders of the Lost Art
$14.52

Today there are two types of churches: those who put their proverbial heads in the sand, and those who champion 1st century principles, meet the challenges head on, and embrace the adventure of mission in community. Tomorrow, only one type of church will survive—those that accept the challenge to reach the unreached.

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Finish the Mission: Bringing the Gospel to the Unreached and Unengaged
Finish the Mission: Bringing the Gospel to the Unreached and Unengaged
$15.00

From astronomy to exegesis, from apologetics to the Global South, from being missional at home to employing our resources in the global cause, Finish the Mission aims to breathe fresh missionary fire into a new generation, as together we seek to reach the unreached and engage the unengaged.

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06 Visit Websites

  • Joshua Project: Seeking God's Glory Among All Peoples
  • People Groups: Reliable, relevant and realtime information to help you engage unreached people groups around the world
  • Statistics on Unreached People Groups - Lausanne Movement
  • The History of Unreached People Groups - East-West Ministries International
  • The Ultimate Guide to Unreached People Groups - Bethany Global University

07 Listen To Podcasts

  • UNREACHED: Sharing the supernatural stories of God at work
  • Unreached of Day Podcast (~ one minute per episode) - Joshua Project
  • A Third of Us: Your Gateway to the Unreached - Alliance for the Unreached
  • World Outreach Podcast: Engage with the Heart of God for the Nations
  • Unknown Nations Podcast: Explore Reaching the Nations Where Jesus is Unknown

08 Review Articles

  • Why Unreached People Groups Still Matter in Missions - The Gospel Coalition
  • How Serving an Unreached People Group Changed My Perspective
  • 3 Reasons to Care About Unreached People Groups - ABWE
  • Why Are There Still So Many Unreached People? - Renew.org
  • Unengaged and Unreached People Groups: What Is a UUPG?

09 Watch Videos

  • What is an Unreached People Group - East-West Ministries International
  • David Platt on Unreached People Groups, Hard Conversations, and Unity | That Sounds Fun Podcast
  • Reaching the Unreached - Pastor Chris Lazo of Reality Santa Barbara
  • Over 7,000 Unreached People Groups are Living Without Access to the Gospel - The Timothy Initiative
  • Spotlight: Unreached People Groups - The Evangelical Alliance Mission

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frankjohnson_squareFrank describes himself as an online strategist who advocates for world missions through storytelling to spotlight the work of God throughout the nations.

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Our Daily Declaration

Lord Jesus,

This day, we cast our souls upon Your sacrifice as our only hope for purpose, meaning, and fulfillment here on earth and for life in the age to come.

This day, we swear allegiance to You, our King.

This day, we pray that You would set our hearts aflame for Your cause and for the over 3 billion people in this world who have yet to hear Your name.

We long for the day that we will stand before Your throne, surrounded by the most diverse community ever formed — from every tribe, every tongue, every people, and every nation — those whom You have purchased with Your blood — as we cry out together “Worthy is the Lamb!”

Until that day, we commit ourselves to loving our brothers and sisters in Christ — no matter what their people group, no matter what their language, no matter what their race, no matter where they are from — and to living in community with them — that the world may know that the Father loves them and that He sent You to save them.

This day, we devote our lives — our time, our money, our passion, our mind, our strength, our everything — to see Your gospel proclaimed in every corner of this world.

And we thank You for the astounding privilege of playing a small part in carrying Your name to the nations!

Pray for the Tsukuba Express Church Planting Team

Tsukuba Express Line

  1. Please pray for the areas surrounding these twenty rail stations: Akihabara, Shin-Okachimachi, Asakusa, Minami-Senju, Kita-Senju, Aoi, Rokucho, Yashio, Misato-chuo, Minami-Nagareyama, Nagareyama-centralpark, Nagareyama-otakanomori, Kashiwanoha-campus, Kashiwa-Tanaka, Moriya, Miraidaira, Midorino, Bampaku-kinenkoen, Kenkyu-gakuen, and Tsukuba
  2. Pray that God would raise up church planters and send forth laborers into the harvest fields surrounding these stations (Luke 10:2-4).
  3. Pray that God would help these church planters identify persons of peace in the areas surrounding these stations (Luke 10:5-8).
  4. Pray that God would enable these church planters to speak the word of God with boldness in these areas (Luke 10:9b).
  5. Pray that the proclamation of God’s word in the areas surrounding these stations would be accompanied by demonstrations of God’s compassion and power (Luke 10:9a).