1. A Psalm of Blessing for the New Year!
“May God be merciful to us and
bless us,
And cause His face to shine upon us,
That Your way may be known on earth,
Your salvation among all nations.
God shall bless us,
And all the ends of the earth shall fear Him.
Psalm 67:1-2,7
May God bless you in this New Year that Your Intercession will bring “salvation among all nations” and impact the ‘ends of the earth’ to fear God.
We appreciate your intercession during the 2023 and Praise God for the answers to prayer and for the impact of your intercession on Missions.
2. The Remaining Task of the Great Commission:
“The Lord said to him (Joshua), “You are growing old, and much land remains to be conquered.” Josh 13:1-2
Dawn of each New Year brings the reality of ‘aging’! However, despite his aging, Joshua was challenged by God about the ‘Remaining Land.’ In 2024, the Church is also challenged with the Remaining task of the Great Commission.
While we praise God for what has been accomplished in 2023 we are reminded of what the great Missionary statesman Loren Triplett said:
‘You don’t measure yourself by your success but by the Unfinished Task.’
3. Celebrate what has been accomplished:
Let us first take some time to celebrate what God has accomplished in the Great Commission so far by looking at some of the information provided by Operation World and World Christian Database and other sources:
The World Today in 2024
- Population: 8,045,311,447
- Urban: 56.2 %
- Languages: 6,909
- Christian: 32.3 %
- Evangelical: 7.9 %
- Largest Religion: Christian 32.3 %
- People Groups: 16,542
- Unreached: 2.25 billion.
a. Amazing World Harvest and Spread of the Church:
- The amazing harvest of new believers continues across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
- Christians now live and fellowship inside every country on plant earth.
- Christianity is no longer a ‘European religion’, but a global faith for all peoples.
- The majority of Christians today are Africans, Asians, and Latin Americans.
- World mission, globalization and high migration rates have dispersed the Church into every corner of the world,
- There are over 1.4 Million Churches with around 13 million National workers and with 425,000 Missionaries around the world.
b. The Spread of the Gospel.
- Hundreds of millions have heard the good news for the first time in the past century.
- Missionary efforts of the past 200 years have borne incredible fruit.
- Years and generations of prayer and faithful service to the unevangelized world by both missionaries and indigenous Christians have not been in vain.
- A number of studies and reports estimate around 10.2 million Muslim people have converted from Islam to Christianity in the past 20 years; more than any other point throughout the history of Islam.
- Often they do at the risks of social rejection and even imprisonment and murder in more radical states.
c. Amazing Growth of Pentecostals:
- Globally, Evangelicals have grown from 89 million (2.9%) in 1960, to 625 million (7.9%) by 2020, just in 60 years!
- Pentecostals grew from few hundreds in Azusa Revival to over 12 million during the 1960’s Charismatic move. They grew to 178 million in 2010;
- Charismatics grew from 167 million in 1990 to 426 million in 2010.
- There are estimated 680 million Pentecostals and Charismatics in total in 2024!
- The Charismatic move in 1960 which carried on from the latter part of the 20th to the 21st Century is what many believe is a new (and possibly final) global outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
d. Reaching the Unreached:
- The Gospel took root within hundreds of the world’s least reached peoples in the past few decades.
- The 1990s saw the most concerted attempt to analyse the need of the world through ‘people group’ or ‘ethne’ approach.
- Operation World and Joshua Project expanded research to make the Church aware of all peoples in the world, around 16,350 People Groups.
- This list served as a catalyst for the Church to pray for, adopt and engage with every one of these least reached peoples.
- People groups with no known believers for 2000 years until ten or twenty years ago now have churches within them and some thriving, growing and involved themselves in the Great Commission!
- Praise God for miraculous opening of doors and receptivity to the gospel in new places – some once considered all but impossible to reach.
3. Prayer Movements:
- Prayer movements and networks multiplied and grew in the past 30 years as God’s people joined together to pray on an unprecedented scale and with greater focus and breadth.
- Prayer Movements on local, national and international levels are praying for communities, nations, peoples and thematic issues as well.
- Sustained, informed, impassioned intercession is occurring as never before and throughout the globe.
- Many grassroots movements with 24/7 prayer focus, and fasting and prayer periods like 7, 21 day prayer have increased.
f. Spread of Scriptures:
- Through the combined ministries of the Bible Societies and Bible translation agencies, 95% of the world’s population has access to Scripture in a language they can understand, though not always in a heart language.
- The remaining 5% represents over 300 million people.
- Vision 2025 aims to see a Bible translation programme started in every language that needs one by the year 2025.
- New translation programmes for 617 languages have started for communities with no known Scriptures. This equals 82% of the 750 programmes known to Wycliffe started by all organizations during this same time.
Thank and Praise God!
Let us stop for a moment and give thanks and glory to God for what He is doing by His Spirit around the World. God is going to fulfill His promise:
“For the earth will be filledWith the knowledge of the glory of the Lord,
Habakkuk 2:14.
As the waters cover the sea.
Next Week: Praying for the Unfinished Task in Missions.
Sources:
Operation World.
Gordon Cornwall – Status of Global Christianity
Joshua Project.
People Groups.
The National Catholic Register.