8 Important Facts from the International Day for the Unreached

COLORADO SPRINGS – You can almost hear his feet as they crunch the pebbles on the dirty street as he passes a man selling a birdcage to a customer. You can almost feel the quiet despair as they go about their daily routine of existence. What is missing in this picture is any appearance of hope.

These people may well be among those who have been unreached with the Good News of Jesus and the sure and eternal hope available in and through Him.

How many unreached people would you guess are in the world in 2018? A million? Two million? As many as 100 million? The answer, shared during an International Day for the Unreached program held in and broadcasted from Colorado Springs, should rock the very foundation of our comfortable existence and blessed assurance in Christ.

1. There are approximately 2.5 BILLION unreached people in the world today who have never even heard of Jesus Christ.
   That is nearly eight times more than the entire population of the United States. It is half-a-million more people than the combined populations of North America, South America, and Europe.
2. “70,000 people enter eternity every day without a chance to know Christ.”
3. There are more than 4,000 people groups that have fewer than 2% Christians.
4. There are more than 500 people groups where:
   a. There is no Christian presence, and
   b. Where no one is actively attempting to reach them.
5. 90% of the unreached live in areas that a resistant to the Gospel.
6. Fewer than 1,000 Christians are among the 2.8 million Hazara people in Central Afghanistan.
7. Fewer than 1,500 Christians are known to be among the 14 million Kazakh people in Central Asia.
8. Only 5% of those engages in full-time Christian work are involved in efforts to reach the unreached.

Not everyone is able to go to the 10/40 window of Africa and Asia where most of the unreached live, but we can pray. Prayer is not the least we can do. It is often the most we can do. What is more, Samuel Zwerner rightly observed that “The history of missions is the history of answered prayer.”

Make it a daily practice to pray for the 2.5 billion people who have never heard the Gospel.

Perhaps some will respond to God’s call to engage in a more active roll in reaching the unreached.

“My ambition has always been to preach the Good News where the name of Christ has never been heard, rather than where a church has already been started by someone else. I have been following the plan spoken of in the Scriptures, where it says, ‘Those who have never been told about him will see, and those who have never heard of him will understand.’”
— Romans 15:20,21 (NLT)

---

Sources:

• CBN News, ‘It’s the Mission of Christ’: Singer Phil Stacey Hosts Sunday’s International Day for the Unreached
• The Christian Post, Gospel of John Transforms Animistic Headhunters Into Jesus Heart Hunters: Int’l Day for the Unreached
• YouTube, International Day for the Unreached
• Wikipedia, List of continents by population
• Day for the Unreached.org, Great Commission Action Guide

Image Sources:

• Image #1 – By Afghanistan Matters (Flickr: Bird Market) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons
• Image #2 – Wikimedia Commons, free to use, © Yann Forget / Wikimedia Commons