The Current State of Kingdom Advance

The Current State of Kingdom Advance – Evangelism and Missions –

Jonathan Bean 2-20-11

And the gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. Matthew 24:14

I.               State of the Nations (Unreached Peoples)

a.     Unreached People Group (UPG): A people group in which less than 2% of the population are Evangelical Christians. There are currently over 6,400 UPGs throughout the world.

b.     Unreached, Unengaged People Group (UUPG): A people group in which there are less than 2% of the population are Evangelical Christians and there is no active church planting among that people group. There are 5,845 UUPGs, representing over 1.5 billion people worldwide.

“For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then will the call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?” Romans 10: 13-15

c.      Balance: More than 90% of the personnel and resources of North American missions goes to ministry among reached people. North American missions still evidences a great imbalance.

II.             Global Realities (Poverty)

a.     Staggering numbers

*963 million people do not have enough food to eat, more than the entire populations of USA, Canada and the European Union combined.

*25,000 people (adults and children) die every day fro hunger-related causes.

*More than 6-% of chronically hungry people are woman and children.

*65% of the world’s hungry live in only seven countries: India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Ethiopia.

*Under-nutrition contributes to 53% of the 9.7 million deaths of children under age 5 each year in developing countries. This means that one child dies every 6 seconds from malnutrition and related causes.

*Worldwide there are over 25 million internally displaced people who have been forced to leave their homes due to violence and various human rights violations.

III.           State of the People of God (Persecution)

a.     Statistics: There are over 200 million Evangelical Christians in over 50 countries who regularly face various degrees of persecution for their faith in Christ. As members of the same body, we are to pray for and identify with our persecuted family around the world.

b.     Christians Experience SEVERE Persecution in:

-North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, Maldives, Pakistan, and Somalia.