Our world is more interconnected than ever before. We could legitimately provide every last person on our planet with access to the gospel in our lifetimes. Here’s why I believe that.
THE TECHNOLOGY IS AVAILABLE TO US TO CHANGE THE WORLD
We have better technology at our disposal than ever before. And we can leverage this to bring the gospel to the unreached.
Today, I can video chat with a church planter in the developing world from Washington state. Google Hangouts and Skype gave us all that ability. Potentially, I could on a video call answer a biblical question of a church planter in the field—in a remote village, because pretty soon, 3G and 4G is going to be everywhere. That’s at least the plan of big tech companies—with their efforts empowered by a space company who can now send reusable rockets to space to launch satellites. This is the age we live in, one where any person on the planet can potentially connect to any other person in seconds.
All the sudden, the issue of training and empowering church planters is far simpler than it has ever been. And the interconnection between those who sponsor church planters and the church planters themselves is greater than it has ever been.
Imagine the potential for global discipleship in this world. I first realized this when I was sitting next to a church planter in Bihar, India and he showed me the screen of his Motorola flip phone. On the screen was my bio on JesusEconomy.org. He said, this is you, right? I was first surprised by how good our website looked on his phone—leave it to me to notice that first. But my second thought is what changed my life: If this guy can look up my bio on his phone, right here while we’re talking, what if I put a study Bible in his hand? What if I gave him a full Bible dictionary and a Bible translation? What if I gave him Bible studies in his native language? And, of course, we can do this. We could even send him video courses on SD cards. We could put any piece of information in his hand.
This is our world. It is more interconnected than ever before. And it means completely rethinking missions.
HOW WE CAN BRING THE GOSPEL TO THE UNREACHED
If our churches thought long and hard about their budgets, we could—like the churches of Paul’s day—pool our resources to bring the gospel to the unreached corners of our world (see
Romans 15:26–29). If we sponsored indigenous church planters, it’s surprisingly cost-effective to fund missions.
The church should be innovating in this space. And in the process, we should be thinking holistically about how we approach poverty and reaching the unreached—thinking about how we care for a person’s soul, mind, and body. We should be leveraging every opportunity possible to bring the gospel to the ends of the earth (
Acts 1:8).
The fact that the gospel has not reached every people group on our planet is an injustice. And it’s an injustice we can correct.
Likewise, it’s an injustice that the people of our planet do not have clean water. And with technology we can do something about. It’s an injustice that everyone on the planet does not have access to economic opportunities. And in this world, in this time, we can do something about.
JUSTICE IS THE BIBLE’S CRY AND ONE WE SHOULD ANSWER
Justice is a central cry of the Bible. The works of the prophets are full of calls to create a more just world (
Micah 6:8;
Isaiah 1:16;
Jeremiah 22:3;
Amos 5:23–24). Isaiah put it this way: “Learn to do good! Seek justice! Rescue the oppressed! Defend the orphan! Plead for the widow!” (
Isaiah 1:16 LEB).
Jesus himself told us that he will distinguish between those who truly know him and those who do not by what they do for the marginalized, outsider, prisoner, and impoverished (
Matthew 25:37–40). And we know from James that true religion is loving the hurting and the poor—the widow and the orphan (
James 1:26–27).
Indeed, it is unjust when a child has to go without clean water, healthcare, or education. It is unjust when a parent doesn’t have access to a fair paying job that can lift their family out of poverty. It is unjust that there are millions of people who have never heard the name of Jesus. Let’s do something about it.
Let’s innovate the bring about a future of missions where every last person has heard the name of Jesus and experienced his love.
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