In the sermon yesterday from Luke 18 we gave a challenge to commit to pray for justice (God making things right in the world) in three areas for thirty days.
- Pray by name for 3 friends who do not have a relationship with Jesus
- Pray for an unreached and unengaged people group (more on this below)
- Pray over an issue of injustice and brokenness in the world
Would you join us in this real application of the Parable of the Persistent Widow for the next 30 days? This blog is to help you find a people group for your prayer. Shared a new term with our people yesterday, the idea of the 10/40 Window. This is a concept used by missionaries to speak of the rectangular area of North Africa, the Middle East and Asia approximately between 10 degrees north and 40 degrees north latitude. The 10/40 Window is often called “The Resistant Belt” and includes the majority of the world’s Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists, and the majority of the unreached and unengaged people groups. The International Mission Board defines an unreached and unengaged people group as a people who share an ethnicity, language, or worldview and the number of Evangelical Christians
is less than 2% of its population. It is further called unengaged when there is no church planting strategy consistent with Evangelical faith and practice under way. This definition applies to over 6,400 people groups with a population of over 4 billion people. Think about this, there are 4 billion people living on this big blue ball right now who will never hear the name of Jesus, never have a church planted near their villages, and never have the opportunity to repent and embrace the Gospel unless God acts through His church on behalf of these people. This is why we pray. So the challenge is to do a little research, find one of these groups that you can identify by name, and then pray for Gospel advance and church planting among these people for 30 days. The below are a few websites you can use to research and choose a people group. Be sure to share your story in your Community Group and talk about the people group for whom you are praying.
International Mission Board Research Site for Unreached Peoples
People Groups – A website with lots of information about specific unreached and unengaged peoples
Joshua Project – Terrific and easy to use site with all kinds of information and even apps that can help you pray for people groups around the world
I will be praying for the Zhuang, Liujiang of China, a people group in Southern China with 1.6 million people and are less than 2% Christian. There have been initial attempts to begin a church planting movement among these people in the last 2 years. What people group will you lift in prayer?