A look at God's global movement:
2006 Annual Statistical Report
7/6/2007
Can the work
of God’s Spirit around the world be precisely quantified?
No. But the International
Mission Board’s 2006 Annual Statistical Report gives us an exciting glimpse into what God is doing through IMB missionaries
and their Baptist partners worldwide.
For instance,
missionaries and partners planted churches among 19 people groups where no Baptist churches previously existed – including
13 peoples with no evangelical churches of any kind. That means for the first time in history, a church representing Jesus
Christ exists among 13 unreached peoples who have never before heard the Gospel.
Here’s
another number with substantial eternal implications:
In Northern Africa and the Middle East, 101 new churches were started – on rock-hard spiritual ground where
fewer than 100 Baptist churches were begun over the previous six decades.
“These
101 churches came in the hardest of [spiritual struggles] anywhere on the face of the earth,” says NAME regional leader
John Brady. One area saw three churches multiply to nine, with 113 baptisms. All of those baptized experienced persecution
for their faith.
“Did they
stand back?” Brady asks. “No. They were energized,” even though some were driven out of their homes.
‘Think about the one’
“Someone
has said statistics are nothing more – and nothing less – than individual people with the dirt, sweat and tears
removed,” says Scott Holste, IMB associate vice president for research and strategic services. “Think about the
Hindu woman in South Asia, living in an environment where millions of gods are worshipped,
exclaiming with joy, ‘Now I have only one God to serve.’ Think about the gang member in Middle
America who has left a life of crime and is now a faithful witness to the One who befriended sinners.
“Think
about the one.”
The sheer number
of lost people, however, continues to challenge us. The world’s population is 6.6 billion and counting. Of the world’s
more than 11,000 people groups, more than 6,000 – containing more than 3.8 billion people – remain unreached.
Most of these peoples have seen no churches planted in their cultural settings within the last two years.
Despite the increasing
sophistication of mission research, strategists don’t even know where all the people are – much less how to reach
them. But God does, and He wants to use all of us in His great mission.
“We aren’t
just sending missionaries. We are impacting people groups who are rising up and sending their own missionaries,” says
IMB trustee Chuck McAlister of what’s happening overseas. “Jesus did not come to launch an institution or an organization.
He came to start a movement, a revolution.
“All
around the world, people groups are getting the feel of that revolution. It cannot be stopped, and it will not be silenced.”
