The World is still out there

I am writing this article from the country with the largest Muslim population of any in the world. Islam pervades much of day-to-day life here and yet, amazingly, this is also home to SE Asia’s largest church, with 20 million people professing Jesus Christ as Lord. It’s been a privilege this week to teach and discuss with future church leaders the Gospel needs close to home, but also, and importantly, further afield.

For the Church here has huge potential to reach out beyond its borders. At the moment that potential is largely untapped, yet across much of the Majority World a modern missionary movement is already at work. When we realise that nearly 80% of the world’s Christians are now found in Africa, Asia and Latin America it’s easy to understand why Samuel Escobar would write that, “Christian mission in the 21st Century has become the responsibility of The Global Church.”^1,2 Indeed “the growth rate of Majority World missionaries far outpaces that of the West.”³

And so what of the situation when I head home? That God has changed the demographic make-up of the UK in recent years is undeniable. People from pretty much every nation are here, not least in our capital. There are now wonderful cross-cultural opportunities for the Gospel close to home and we rejoice with those in the UFM family who are working hard with churches and other agencies to take them.

With the growth of the church in the Global South and the increasing opportunities for cross- cultural mission on our doorstep, we can understand why some in the Western church see the sending of missionaries as merely the noble task of a bygone era. Some even suggest that our missionary sending days are over. Yet the oft repeated mantra that “the world has come to us” needs challenging. When we look at the statistics for population growth we find there are now 1.75 billion more people outside the UK than there were a generation ago.⁴ Indeed, there have never been more people around the world who are unreached with the gospel.⁵ The world is still out there and it hasn’t all come to us.

When the Bible speaks about mission the whole world is in mind

Further, while the growth of the church in the Majority World is a cause for praise, the challenges in many parts are well documented. That’s not to say that here in the West we’ve got it altogether, yet our rich Christian heritage, our experience of sending people into mission, and our access to a wealth of faithful resources and training, means we still have our part to play in the global missionary task.

But beyond these pragmatic responses lies an enduring and biblical mandate for the sending of missionaries from everywhere to everywhere.

The making of disciples, at the heart of the Great Commission, is accompanied by an expectation of the geographical progress of the gospel. It will be that way until Jesus comes again. When the Bible speaks about mission the whole world is in mind and, so, if our missionary involvement stops at the English Channel then we’ve got something badly wrong. As John Stott put it, “We must become global Christians because we have a global God.”⁶

And, so, praying that God would raise up workers for the harvest fields, we long to see the worldwide church increasingly giving herself to sacrificial disciple-making at home and abroad. How will that happen? What great mobilization strategy should be followed? Mission stats and stirring stories may grab our attention, but, on their own, they will never fully move us. What we need is more of Jesus. He is the one who can seize our emotions and capture our affections, and he is the one who can stir our hearts and strengthen our convictions.

We must become global Christians because we have a global God.

So, as we share the call to global mission with this generation and the next, let’s get back to his Word. Let’s make the biblical case for mission all over again. Let’s see again, and teach again, that this great disciple-making task is what Jesus calls his Church to do; it’s what Jesus equips his Church to be. And let’s hold on to the truth that this task must go on taking us from the four corners of the world to the four corners of the world – the world that is very much still out there.

Michael Prest
(UFM Director)