Those I interviewed all assume that the Bible, Old and New Testaments, is authentic communication from the God who is love. 

Not only is it authentic communication from God, it’s timeless truth communicated through certain people in certain eras of human history. In other words, it’s a culturally influenced collection of books communicating transcultural truths.

That means it’s a cross-cultural book, best understood in a cross-cultural context. This is not to say that mono-cultural people cannot understand it, but only that when we listen to culturally aware people who believe it is authentic communication for God, we gain insights into God and his Word that we otherwise would have missed.

The Bible also has a theme, and – spoiler alert – neither you nor I are the main characters! It’s a book about God and his rescue mission through Jesus his Son. He’s the hero of the story, if you will. We are recipients of his love and grace.

In chapter 6 of Uncharted Mission, you’ll read Ramsay’s struggle to submit to what the Bible says. He won that battle, and changed the spiritual atmosphere for a whole people.

For me, Romans 15:20 captured my imagination when I was in college, and it set the course of my life.

It is important to remember that statistics about unreached and unengaged peoples refer to men, women and children who are made in the image of God and for whom Christ died. Don’t let “statistics” become just dry numbers. Let them provoke your imagination.

That being said, they are constantly changing. When I heard that “missionaries to Muslims are one-in-a-million, literally,” it rocked my world. It’s hard to imagine how a community might inter-relate when they have had no exposure to Jesus or his words. Somehow, I got a wisp of how that might be (I think it was the Spirit of God).

In chapter seven of Uncharted Mission you’ll read about a team who went where no Christ-followers had gone before, and a little bit about family life in that world where reconciliation involved humiliating the woman involved in marital conflict. You’ll see how the example of these Christians rocked that world.

For a quick understanding of the world from a Kingdom of God perspective, click here.

For up-to-date stats on unreached and unengaged peoples, see these websites.

Joshua Project.org

Peoplegroups.org

Frontiers USA

This is where my journey to the nations started. I read the stories of J. Hudson Taylor: God’s Man in China, and C.T. Studd: Cricketer and Pioneer, and In the Shadow of the Almighty: The Life and Times of Jim Elliott. These stories opened my eyes and heart to those peoples and places beyond the reach of any Christian church or outreach effort.

Uncharted Mission: Going to the Final Frontiers is a treasure chest of stories of people possessed of this same Spirit. 

I am unapologetic in feeling a sense of urgency that those with no access to the gospel be given the opportunity to understand and trust the living Lord Jesus Christ. Let’s work together to change the world for such people.

No one has ever carried the gospel to the unreached or unengaged by themselves. It is too big a task to do alone, and it is too big a calling to try to discern it alone. The folks in Uncharted Mission: Going to the Final Frontiers found a community of like-minded people to encourage one another. Some of them started out alone, but as soon as they found others with the same passion, they linked up with them.

If you don’t have a tribe who shares your vision, let me be the first in line to encourage you. Contact me.  I’ll do my best to hook you up.

My friend Kent took the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement Course and did not go to an unreached people group. He saw the “golden thread” throughout the Scriptures tracing God’s passion to reach all nations with his love. He saw the distribution of Christian workers around the world, and how billions are left without a witness to Jesus. He saw the strategic value of focusing mission on the unreached and unengaged. He loves God with all his heart. And he became a pastor and then a counsellor. I have other friends who responded similarly. They are not resisting the Spirit of God. They are not in rebellion against God. They are following God into what he made them for.

This calling is not for everyone. The Bible is clear about that. I believe that every Christ-follower who is confronted with this information has to be open to God’s call to go.

But it has to be the Spirit of God who awakens and sends. That’s why Jesus said to pray in Matthew 9:36-38:

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷ Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. ³⁸ Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”