The Numbers that Matter

Dear Friend and Partner of WME and the INSTAR Project,

Thanks for all you do in continuing to give and pray for the INSTAR Disciple Making Movement project in Latin America and Beyond.  WME has Missionaries and Teams that are focused on seeing Disciple Making Movements happen in Central America, South America, the Caribbean, Africa, and in the United States among Native Americans, Muslim Peoples, and the general population.

By God's abundant Grace, we have seen an amazing Harvest over the last several years.  Beginning in 2008 with a small team of just 13 Honduran leaders and 2 Missionary families, a movement has been birthed that has touched approximately 100,000 people in many nations.  We believe over 70,000 people have come to faith in Christ and been Baptized and thousands of churches have been planted.  Nearly 4,000 Discovery Groups and Churches were planted Last Year Alone!  At the deepest point, the movement is 34 Generations deep (Groups and churches that plant another that plants another that plants another.....to 34 Generations).  

When I type this on my computer, it is still something that is amazing to me in some ways, although we have now become accustomed to the amazing things that God is doing through the faithful work of our missionaries, our national teams, and our prayer and financial supporters.  You are a part of this team that is experiencing this amazing Harvest.

Beyond that, good research is telling us that this Strategy and similar strategies that are seeing Movements Multiply worldwide has seen between 70 and 80 Million People Come to Jesus as the Christ and Savior of their lives among Many Peoples!  This Harvest has mostly been in the last approximately 20 years.  Never in History has such a Harvest been reaped in conversions to Christ in such a short period of time! That number actually represents about 1 PerCent of All Humans Living on Earth Today!

Sometimes we are told that Numbers don't matter.  That is definitely an opinion....and like everyone else on earth, its just an opinion.  

The Scriptures would seem to indicate something else.  In fact there is a whole book in the Bible Called the Book of Numbers!  Once I heard someone (thinking it something spiritual to say) blurt out, "God has taken me out of the Book of Numbers into the Book of Acts"!  While that was kind of funny and cute.....it kind of makes me wonder.....Have you actually read the book of Acts?
Over and over the Book of Acts reports numbers of people being saved and reached....3,000.....5,000,  Multitudes......again and again the Book of Acts records that the Gospel of Jesus Christ spread with the Power of the Holy Spirit

So we celebrate the Advance of the Gospel as Multitudes are turning to Christ in our Day!  This is the Good News that the Nightly News is not Reporting at all in our world of Crisis.

And Yet....

There are Numbers that grab my attention more  than the ones I have just shared.  That is the number of People Groups and Tribes that are still listed as Unreached People Groups in our world.  In spite of the Harvest that is happening, our work is not done.  Over Half of all Humans on Earth today.....more than 50 percent of all living Human Beings, are part of Unreached People Groups.  In the Western Hemisphere, where our Primary focus for Disciple Making is located, there are still 374 Unreached Indigenous Tribes and People Groups.....less than 2 percent responsive to the Gospel.  And of those groups, 217 of the tribes are still listed as Unengaged with Church Planting at Present.  Those are the numbers that concern me.  
While the Number of New Believers is increasing, I want to see the Numbers of the Unreached go down, until there are None Left......None Unreached.  This is our Burden and this is our Goal at WME and the INSTAR Project!

Currently the INSTAR Team is engaged with many groups.  And Currently we are either already engaged to some degree, or targeting about 7 of those 374 groups and we are working to train partners to engage others of them with the Gospel and Disciple Making Strategy.  Please Pray and continue to support WME as it moves forward in this mission of Focusing on the NUMBERS THAT MATTER MOST!  The NUMBER of the UNREACHED!

Thanks for all that you do, once again.  May God Bless You as you continue in Prayer and Service of the King of Kings!

David Parish
President
World Missions and Evangelism, Inc
www.worldmissionsevangelism.com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

7 Stages of a Disciple Making Movement

In this blog post, I want to introduce the reader to the 7 stages of a developing disciple making movement. Then in my next teaching post on this blog, I want to specifically focus on 1 of the stages that seems to be challenging to many practitioners of the dmm/cpm strategy.   These 7 stages are broad categories that encapsulate several of the Critical Elements of disciple making movements. If you check out several of my older posts from several years ago (especially from the first year of the blog 2008) you will find several blogposts that describe what we call Critical Elements.  (This series of blogposts from 2008 are entitled  "The Critical Elements","Critical Elements of a Church Planting Movement", "Passionate Extraordinary Prayer", "Authority of Scripture and Obedience", "Rain and the Holy Spirit", "Miracles", "The 1:8 Factor", "The Strategic Critical Elements", and finally "The Discipleship E
Read more

The Holy Spirit and Disciple Making Movements

Recently at the Disciple Making Movement leadership meeting in California, one of the main topics that we focused on was the Role of the Holy Spirit.  A key leader from West Africa led the discussion of this topic.  I remember being especially challenged by this study and by interactions with this leader.  He is a special friend who I have known since 2006, and his influence has touched me greatly.  In the last few weeks since the meeting, I have reflected, prayed, and begun to seek the influence of the Holy Spirit more than I had been doing in recent years.  Now I want to share some reflections on the role of the Holy Spirit in Disciple Making Movements (which may or may not reflect the discussions we had in California).  Regardless of where one stands theologically, it cannot be denied that those who focus attention on the Holy Spirit's activity have seen the launching of some of the largest "Movements" in the history of the Church.  Think of the Pentecostal/Charism
Read more

Non-Cessationist Sola Scriptura: The Theology of CPM

I believe in a theological position that I call Non-Cessationist Sola Scriptura. Sola Scriptura refers to the Reformation doctrine that means "Scripture Alone" and that asserts that the Bible alone, the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments, are the only inspired Word of God and that they are the sole authority for God's people, flawlessly communicating God's will to mankind. The "Sola" or "Only" part asserts that nothing else does this or has this authority....Not Tradition, Magisterium, Hierarchy, Leaders, or Experiences from whatever source....ONLY SCRIPTURE! Non-Cessationist refers to the concept that God still is active in the world and in the lives of people today in overtly supernatural ways. It says that no activity of God, described in the Bible, has ceased just because that the Bible is now complete. It asserts that all of the gifts, operations, and manifestations of the Holy Spirit described in the Bible may continue to happen to the en
Read more