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| Missions is such a vital part of the body of Christ. It has for centuries given the church it's flavor of pioneerism and suffering to bring about a greater good. Early missionaries set sail from their homes, never expecting to return. Others were buried in foreign soil having met with disease or wild animals. Some even suffered at the hands of men and paid the ultimate price under agonizing torture and death. Throughout all of history missions has been opposed from without. Yet in these latter days it would seem that missions is being opposed from within by strategies that are ineffective and are doomed like the dinosaurs who also could not adapt. Nothing is so noble and selfless as Missions. It bears the comparison with the military in it's sense and purpose. Patriotic feelings arise for supporting the military who are sacrificing comforts to accomplish a task. We have always thought highly of our boys overseas, fighting battles. Our fallen soldiers are treated with honor and buried with a 21 gun salute. Casualties were unwanted and dreaded, yet expected in dangerous battlefields. During war world II the whole country rallied behind our troops and gladly lent a hand to the war effort. The rationing of tires and sugar was taken in stride knowing that provision for our fighting men was first and foremost. Women became welders and factory workers. Ships and tanks were built at a staggering pace. "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition" was the motto of the 40s. We had been attacked and had seen a real enemy which had to be confronted. No convincing was necessary after Pearl Harbor. What took place next was one of the greatest achievements of the United States of America. A logistical marvel of production and supply. Delivering tons of food, ammunition and fuel to the troops stationed abroad. The war was fought on several theaters, yet the supply lines never faltered. We were able to move man and machine to the needed spot and inflict incredible harm on the enemy. The largest naval and aerial assaults that the world had ever seen were brought about with ingenious planning and execution. Supply line that stretched across continents and oceans. Many do not understand that Hitler's war machine was literally defeated by a better supply of gasoline. |
| Mission Statistics |
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| Where protestant mission money goes worldwide |
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| in 1974 half the world was unreached |
| in 2003 one third of the world was unreached |
| 2004 Where Mission funds are at work in the world |
| 87% of all mission giving |
| 12% |
| Only 1% of money given to missions go to unreached groups! |
| Are you and your church affecting this red zone? |
| 2005 |
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| Facts about evangelical status worldwide approx. 2 billion people are considered an unreached people group ( 1 out of 3 ) only 2-3% of protestant missionaries are reaching this group 95% of all unreached people live in the 10/40 window 66,000 people die every day from this group out of every gospel dollar only 4 cents goes to missions of the 4% that goes to the mission field, 80% of it goes to already established works Oaxaca has the largest concentration of people groups in the western hemisphere 27% of the planet has 2-3% of the missionary work force helping them get saved 97% of missionaries work in already evangelized fields last year more money went towards ecclesiastical crime than went to missions America spends more money on dogfood than on missions 10,000 chinese come to the Lord every day every 7 weeks 1 million Latin Americans come to Christ most expensive country to send a missionary to-Japan least expensive-Mozambique |
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| 40% |
| 33% |
| 27% |
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| Who are the 2 billion lost in unreached people groups? |
| 865 million Muslims 550 million Hindus 275 million Budhists 150 million Chinese 140 million tribal peoples in 2500 groups |
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| Imagine the triage unit of a major hospital or mash unit. Stretchers are being brought in a hurry. People are scurrying about. Doctors are diagnosing patients giving orders, this stat, that stat. Overhead loudspeakers are announcing the arrival of more wounded. There is at least one doctor whose job it is to assign to each patient a level of emergency known as status. There are three categories that determine where you go in the hospital according to how bad you have been wounded. Fatal is designated for those who cannot be saved no matter how much resources are allotted to help them. They are beyond help. Everybody knows it. Just keep the morphine flowing for these and try to ease their passing. Don’t put doctors with this group. Save them for those who can be saved. The next group would be labeled critical. Here is where we need to invest the resources of the hospital. Have the Doctors set up camp in here in and you might as well bring the blood bank too. These people are bad off, and if we don’t get to it, we could loose some of them. Here you find doctors performing life saving operations, giving cpr and using those really scary looking electric paddles. You know the ones the always say “Clear” before pumping the poor soul with enough volts to make them bounce off the table a bit. This area is busy and serious. Lots of people lives are being saved even if the pace is a little hectic. The last group of injured would be considered non life threatening. Just about everything from a hangnail to simple gunshot wound are rounded up into this group. That is not to say their injuries are not important or that they don’t require the attention of a physician. They do, just not right this second. They will be treated with the same level of care afforded to all the other patients as soon as we rescue those whose life is hanging by a thread. Now imagine for a minute that there was no triage doctor. No one to assign degree of urgency. No one to focus the resources of the hospital to where they are needed most. Can you imagine a doctor treating hangnail or doing a liposuction while only a few feet away some one with a gunshot wound to the chest or internal bleeding is waiting. You would cry out “Hey, get this man some help! He’s dying.” Wouldn’t it be odd if no one paid you any mind. They just all went about their business while those requiring the urgent attention of the doctors went unnoticed. You are walking past stretcher after stretcher of critical injuries all the while screaming at the medical staff to help this one or that one. You feel like a ghost who cannot be heard as you hear a doctor comment to a nurse to send in the patient with indigestion now. This mental image describes a lot of what is actually happening today in the Kingdom of God. No one is assigning urgency to the critical patients. Doctors are stepping over each other to treat minor ailments and those that are dying with treatable conditions are only a few feet away unattended. This hospital would be a feature the nightly news. Lawsuits and investigations would launched and rightly so. Yet the church plods on neglecting the unreached while dumping 87% of their resources into the already churched. Now in comparison, the already churched is suffering from minor ailments when you look at the desperate state of affairs of the unreached people groups. 66,000 people a day perish from this group without ever knowing how to saved. Only 2-3% of the missionaries are working in this critical group. Can you imagine if only 2-3% of the doctors at the very busy hospital described above were assigned to the critically injured patients. Think of how many of them would needlessly die of treatable conditions. |
| 40% is getting 87% 33% is getting 12% 27% is getting 1% |
| mission dollars |