I love statistics. I find them fascinating, and at times a little hard to comprehend, and swallow. These would fall in that category. I enjoy reading statistics with regards to anthropology, and world missions. Here are some statistics that I recently came upon that were shocking to say the least. I pray that these will help in directing our prayers for the cause of His name being known throughout the world – that from every “people group” there will be those who have come to know Christ, and will praise Him forever.
There are 16,256 “People Groups” – (peoples by country ) making up 6.61 billion people
What is a people group ?
A people group is the largest group within which the Gospel can spread as a church planting movement without encountering barriers of understanding or acceptance. In most parts of the world lack of understandability acts as the main barrier and it is appropriate to define people group primarily by language, with the possibility of sub-divisions based on dialect or cultural variations. Such a list may be referred to as an ethno-linguistic list of peoples. In other parts of the world, most notably in portions of South Asia, acceptance is a greater barrier than understandability. In these regions, caste, religious tradition, location, and common histories and legends may be used to identify the primary boundary of each people group. Language can be a secondary boundary. Taken from Joshua Project list of definitions.
Of those 16,256 there are
6,877 “Unreached” people groups making up 2.72 billion people.
(Unreached means there is no reproducing church or steady witness for Christ from within their own people group)
There are 639 people groups that consist of 100,000 people or more (some in the millions) that are currently “unreached”, and “unengaged” (no church or missionary group is working with them).
That means that 41.1% of the worlds population fit into that “Unreached” category.
42% of the “Unreached” people groups are Muslim
25% of the “Unreached” people groups are Hindu
12% of the “Unreached” people groups are Buddhist
Less than 1% of the 455,000 foreign missionaries are working with each of these three people group blocs.
If you were to combine the population of the Muslim bloc, the Buddhist bloc, and the Chinese bloc, it would come to over 2 billion people – 1/3 of the world population ( of which less than 1% of our 455,000 foreign missionaries are ministering to).
Did you know that while you pumped gas today (estimated 5 mins.)
1,294 souls began life. 574 souls met Jesus face to face. $218,648 was given for foreign missions, while $228,154 was embezzled from Christian funds by leaders. 1,816 people migrated internationally, and 67 children became homeless, or family-less.
Or that in the last 2 hours….
9,100 rural people migrated to cities. 4,560 people moved to urban slums. 274 people began supporting themselves only by collecting garbage. 5,430 children under age 5 died from preventable starvation related causes. 13,600 people became new viewers to Christian Broadcasting, and 40 Christian died for their faith.
We need to pray, and ask the Lord what our part should be – either in going, or in supporting those who are reaching the least reached peoples of the world. I will give what I believe is the Biblical mandate for this in my next post. Think about it.
blessings,
carlos