Every Tongue and Tribe and Nation

Every week, Southern Baptist representatives serving around the globe are instrumental in the baptisms of about 7,000 new believers.

Every week, Southern Baptist representatives serving around the globe are instrumental in starting more than 550 new churches.

Every week, Southern Baptist representatives serving around the globe are instrumental in providing leadership training to more than 225,000 local church leaders.

Add up the weekly figures, and that means Southern Baptist representatives played a pivotal role in the lives of about 365,000 new baptized believers and helped almost 30,000 New Testament churches come into being in the last year for which information is available.

That does not mean Southern Baptist representatives baptized that many individuals or personally led them to make a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. It means that Southern Baptist representatives had direct relationships with national Christians around the globe that contributed to the decisions reflected in the reported baptisms and church plants.  

Yes, Southern Baptist representatives did lead some people to make professions of faith and baptize a few of the total number. But most Southern Baptist representatives work in collaborative relationships with national Christians by providing training, resources and leadership.

Two years ago, the International Mission Board (IMB) reported 595 people groups with a population of 100,000 or more that were unreached and unengaged with the gospel. At this writing, that number has fallen to 531, according to information on the IMB’s Global Research website (http://public.imb.org/globalresearch). That means 64 major unreached and unengaged people groups now have evangelical representatives working among them with a church-planting strategy for sharing the gospel.

These figures do not include the people who become believers but are unable to follow the Lord in baptism. That number just adds to the growing number of people coming to know the Lord and contributes to the conclusion that Christianity is the fastest-growing religion in the world, according to demographic studies.

All of this is good news. Jesus commanded us to share the gospel with every person everywhere.

Sometimes that good news gets lost amid the emphasis on the work yet to be done. For example, it can be discouraging to hear that of the world’s 11,591 people groups listed on the IMB’s website, more than 6,000 are considered unreached.

It can be disheartening to read that 3,684 people groups are unreached and unengaged with the gospel. That means evangelical Christians constitute less than 2 percent of the people group’s population and there have been no active church-planting efforts in the last two years.

It can move one to tears to see the list of 1,915 people groups that are not engaged by anyone.

But the deeper one delves into the information, the more confusing the statistics become. For example, China has a higher percentage of Christians in its population than does Australia or Canada. But many unreached people groups on the list are Han Chinese, the group that makes up about 90 percent of the Chinese population.

An IMB representative explained that in China, more than 2 percent of Han Chinese are Christians and there are several church-planting movements. Some of these church-planting networks are larger than the Southern Baptist Convention. But pockets of Han Chinese living in other countries might be considered unreached people groups because there is no organized work among them.

With that insight, the list of unreached people groups can be more understandable in one way. It also can be more confusing.

About 500 Liberians living in Italy are listed as an unreached and unengaged people group on the IMB website. Yet Liberia has a strong Christian history and a high percentage of Christians among its population — far above the 2 percent threshold. But there is no work among the Liberians in Italy, and that makes them an unreached and unengaged people group.

I am reminded of my younger days when my family migrated from our Lawrence County, Ala., cotton farm to Michigan’s factories. We were among hundreds of Alabama families who made such a move in search of economic opportunity. Did that move make us an unreached and unengaged people group according to IMB definitions?

Nigerians living in France, Greeks living in Albania or Han Chinese living in Italy are not what come to this writer’s mind when the IMB speaks of an unreached people group. People groups whose total population is seven, eight or 32 are not what comes to mind either. Yet all of these fall within the current definitions and are reflected in IMB statistics.

Personally I find the definitions confusing, so confusing that they call into question the conclusions often reached when these numbers are tossed around. For example, the June 2011 Global Status Report on Evangelical Christianity by the IMB indicates that only 0.4 percent of the world’s population has no access to the gospel. That is not the impression often created. One could easily conclude that the 3,684 unreached and unengaged people groups frequently mentioned when Southern Baptists talk about world evangelism (almost half the world’s population) have no access to the gospel.  

Undoubtedly the Liberians living in Italy, Nigerians living in France and Greeks living in Albania need to hear the gospel, but are they unreached and unengaged people groups according to common understandings of the terms? Is it helpful to confuse groups like these with the 23 million souls who actually have no access to the gospel?

Last fall, the IMB announced it was changing its policy and reporting more focused numbers about its missionaries’ work. As a result, the number of baptisms dropped about 200,000 in one year (almost 40 percent). But the new numbers were more reliable, and the new policy serves the IMB well.

As Tom Elliff, president of the IMB, leads Southern Baptists to focus on unreached people groups as we try to share the gospel with all people everywhere, perhaps the IMB would do well to revisit its definitions and what it means to be an unreached or unengaged people group. Perhaps there is a better way to communicate with Southern Baptists about the need to take the gospel to every tongue and tribe and nation.

And perhaps a new way of communicating the need for world evangelism will help us celebrate the victories the Lord provides such as 7,000 new baptized believers each week as a result of Southern Baptist representatives’ work.