Monday, August 09, 2010

Praying Towards the Ends of the Earth





I have to confess: I used two slides in an introduction to a sermon on "The Mission and Risk" in Acts. (True regulative principal purists fire away. Obviously, I'm a poser.) You can download the whole "State of the Gospel" presentation here (HT: PLJIII FKA PJ). Many more resources—maps and slides—are available through the Southern Baptist International Missions Board for purchase or as a free download.

Another resource that was much on my mind: Operation World, which is an extraordinarily useful guide to the state of missions across the globe. I haven't seen this new edition, but I've been looking forward to it coming out so I can peruse the latest data.

Use it, and you'll be introduced to people groups you've never heard of, and which themselves have never heard the name of Jesus. It's a great way to lead your family in prayer for the nations. Christianity Today has a nice story on the new edition here.

3 comments:

Paul said...

So where can we download your sermon?

Billy Bob said...

How are they counting "missionaries" and "unevangelized"? And what's the difference between Russia and Mongolia? somehow those godless Russian communists turned their country into 90% Christians without any missionaries while Mongolia got into the top tier of missionary presence but the lowest tier of results

Ben said...

Billy Bob,

90% evangelized isn't the same thing as 90% Christian. "Evangelized" means they've heard the gospel. "Christian" means they converted. Or it might mean the're within the spectrum of what some call "historically Christian," which would include Roman Catholics and various strains of Orthodox.

As for the methodology, I'd encourage you to follow up with the folks who created the presentation.