Take the Gospel of Jesus Christ Everywhere
We live in an age where there are countless ways to reach people through technology, financial support, and missions work. It is common to hear about certain places and people groups that are in these resources and efforts, such as third-world nations or areas under restrictive governmental regimes.
However, certain ethnolinguistic people groups continue to be unreached, and at the same time, overlooked.
For example, we can point to Quebecois in Canada and the thousands of South Asian Indians in the western suburbs of Chicago. There are also geographical areas that are unacknowledged. Perhaps the most notable are rural areas in the United States and around the world.
Paul strategically prioritized urban centers during his missionary journeys. Think of Philippi, Ephesus, Colossae, and Thessalonica: they were all places where large numbers of people lived, worked, and worshipped.
Paul could reach the most people with the gospel by preaching and planting the gospel in these cities. Acts actually tells us “all Asia” was reached from Paul’s three years in Ephesus (Acts 19:10). While today’s cities are still vitally strategic and important, our world is different than Paul’s.
We now have numerous unprioritized areas that God calls us towards.
When thinking about these forgotten areas, as pastors in particular and Christians in general, we begin to ask questions about what we should do to improve the church’s reach: Do we travel to these places and evangelize? Do we plant churches there? Do we send money? How do we accomplish all of these things?
I believe that there are two main answers to the questions concerning outreach to overlooked peoples.
First, one of the best ways to improve the church’s reach is …
News brought to you by Christianity Today
