By Mark Powell, International Missions Director

This post was originally published in the 2016 Spring issue of the GB Messenger. Don’t receive the Messenger? You can always catch the latest digital issue on the Messenger website, www.gbMessenger.org

God has gifted General Baptists with varied and unique opportunities to preach the good news that “Jesus tasted death for every man.” Since the time of Benoni Stinson we have been faithful to the call of reaching every person with the gospel of Jesus Christ. The reality, however, is that in the world today there are still six thousand unreached people groups (Joshua Project). The call of the gospel and the command of the Great Commission, not to mention the echo of Benoni Stinson’s voice, is to “go into all the world and preach the gospel.”  From Asia to Micronesia to Central America and the Caribbean we have faithfully proclaimed the good news that Jesus has indeed tasted death for everyone. The reality, however, is that there is much more to be done and much more we can do!

The Joshua Project (joshuaproject.net) identifies 16,404 people groups in the world today. A people group is a group of people with a common identity that shares the same language and thinks in similar ways and has the same basic philosophy of life. The Grecians of Acts 7 would be an example of a people group. A people group is the largest group through which the gospel can flow “without encountering significant barriers of understanding or acceptance.” The Joshua Project explains it this way: “In many parts of the world lack of understandability serves as the main barrier and  it is appropriate to define people groups primarily by language with the possibility of sub-divisions based on dialect or cultural variations. In other parts of the world, most notably in portions of South Asia, acceptance is a greater barrier than understandability. In these regions, caste, religious tradition, location and common histories, plus language may define the boundaries of each people group.”

People groups are further divided into two categories: the reached and unreached. Reached people groups have the chance to hear the Gospel. They have Bibles in their languages, churches in their communities and people to tell them about Christ. They may not have heard but, if they search, it should not be hard for them to find the Gospel.

Unreached people groups have no Bibles in their languages, no churches in their communities and no one to tell them about Jesus Christ and what He has done for them. “The original Joshua Project… selected the criteria [of] less than or equal to 2% Evangelical Christian and less than or equal to 5% Professing Christians,” as a definition for unreached.

The unreached can be categorized by five basic descriptors. Taken together the first letter of each category forms the word THUMB.

TRIBAL

The first category is tribal people. They are found all over the world in little pockets of up to several thousand. Most tribal people live in the Amazon in South America, in Africa or in Southeast Asia rain forests. These people believe in spirits. They think everything in nature has either a good spirit or a bad spirit (animism). They worship the spirits and do all they can to please them. They believe bad things happen if they do not please the spirits. Tribal people need to find freedom from the fear of evil spirits.

General Baptists have tremendous opportunity to reach tribal people in the Philippines, India and Mexico. The Matigsalug Bible Institute in the Philippines exists for the primary purpose of training tribal pastors in the Philippines. Our ministry in India focuses primarily on people who speak Telegu and surprisingly enough there are still opportunities for outreach even to tribal or indigenous groups within Mexico.

HINDUS

Although concentrated in India, Hindus are found around the world, and General Baptists have targeted outreach for Hindus there. Hindus have thousands of gods. These people believe they are caught in a cycle of rebirth called reincarnation. They try to please their gods by giving offerings of flowers, food, money, or animal sacrifices. General Baptist Ministries now focus on two states in India, Andhra Pradesh and Telegana, which combined contain populations that are 89.5% Hindu and 9.6% Muslim.

UN-RELIGIOUS (Unreached)

We can identify these people as un-religious. General Baptists have these people all around them wherever  they may be. These are the people who take part in no organized system of religious belief. They may be atheist, agnostics or simply irreligious or nonreligious. As a prime example, it is often estimated that 64-80% of residents of Hong Kong do not believe in a personal God.

MUSLIMS

One out of every five people in the world today is a Muslim. We think mainly of the Middle East and North Africa when we speak of Islam. These people believe that Jesus was a prophet like Mohammed but that Mohammed is more important. General Baptists have tremendous opportunity to impact Muslims with Christ in the Philippines (10% Muslim), India (which is 10% Muslim and possesses 11% of the total world Muslim population) and with Mission One teams reaching the West African nation of Niger (98% Muslim). In the Philippines we have tremendous potential to create a world Muslim outreach center focusing on the 10 nation ASEAN alliance and the many Filipino contract workers living in Muslim countries. Within the ASEAN alliance lies Indonesia (88% Muslim and 13% of world Muslim population), Brunei (52% Muslim), and Malaysia (62% Muslim).

We must focus our efforts in the Philippines by assisting the General Baptist Church of the Philippines to reach Muslims, aid the General Baptist Bible College to develop a program of intercultural studies and create training programs for Filipino contract workers. We also have opportunity to reach Muslims through our various ministry partner organizations such as the English Language Institute of China.

BUDDHISTS

The last group is Buddhism. Buddhists are found in Southeast Asia and neighboring countries. They are similar to Hindus. They believe in reincarnation. They hope to end the cycle of rebirth by merging with the Buddha – like a drop of water going into the ocean. Buddhist concentrations may be found in such countries as Thailand (95% Buddhist), Myanmar (81% Buddhist), Laos (66% Buddhist), and Vietnam (17% Buddhist).

Currently our best opportunity to reach Buddhists is through Filipinos of Japanese descent who now live in Japan as part of a guest worker program for Filipinos of Japanese descent.

The Prayer Challenge

Missions education is more than teaching people about missions and it is more than training people to give to and pray for missionaries. It’s even more than teaching others about Christ. Missions education must include a challenge to pray for people who have no opportunity to hear the Gospel.

In your church prayer time teach people to pray for unreached people groups. In addition to your prayer ministry, ask God to impress on some of your congregation the need to go to unreached people. Ask God to open the eyes of the very ones they will someday reach for Him. Finally, pray that God will grant General Baptists opportunity to help finish the task of world evangelism.

As you examine this issue of the Messenger you will see many opportunities with which God has gifted the people called General Baptist. We hope you will be both excited and burdened for what God can do through us!