Communication By Scale

In my last post, I outlined the categories of mission work (Pioneers, Growers, Clandestiners, Insiders, Alongsiders). The category of a missionary's work is determined by two key factors: the location where the missionary serves and the level of understanding the local population has regarding the Gospel. 

 

The world population is nearing 8 billion people. 

47.7% percent of the world has been Reached with the Gospel, meaning 20% percent of the population is Christian, and more than 2% are evangelical. 

41.5% of the world is Unreached, meaning, 5% or less of the population are Christian and less than 2% evangelical. 

Within the Unreached there are the Unengaged, 10%. The difference between the Unreached and the Unengaged is that the Unreached, in many places of the world, like India, the Church has access to non-Christians, whereas the Unreached has limited to no opportunity to hear the Gospel, as in Algeria where the Christian population is .04%. 

Of course, in every country, there may be pockets of Christians within an Unreached country, such as the Nagas in northeast India, and pockets of Unengaged in a Reached country, i.e. the Somali in Kenya. In analyzing ministry/missionary needs, the focus should be on people groups, not countries or regions. 

As stated before, over 90% of all Christian work is among people who have already been reached with the Gospel, they are the Growers, meaning their work is primarily in church growth, and living in countries that are highly receptive to the Gospel message. 

5% of all missionary work are Pioneers, working with 41.5% of Unreached. 

Less than 2% of mission work are among the Unengaged people groups, and what little engagement there are is through Insiders and Clandestiners. 

 The Alongsiders, for the most part, are in partnership with Insiders and Clandestiners. 

Another model in analyzing missionary activity is the awareness/receptivity of people to the Gospel. Most missionaries are familiar with Engle's scale for evangelism, which was introduced in James Engel and Wilbert Norton's book, What's Gone Wrong with the Harvest? published in 1975.

This model is helpful, especially for Growers where most of the population is -6 on the scale, which includes most of North and South America, Sub-Sahara, and Europe…47% of the Reached world.

 

Because my focus is primarily on the Unreached and Unengaged people groups of the world, the scaled-down Engle’s model will be the focus of my next post.