(This post is a continuation of a thought from a previous entry. You can read it here first if you would like. )

Let's say this dollar represents all of the money Christians give to missions, which is about $32 billion dollars, or approximately 5.6% of all giving to the Church. $32 billion is a lot of money, right?

(For comparisons sake, Americans spend about $18 billion a year on specialty coffees , $66.5 billion on lotto tickets  and $66 billion on tatoo removal.)

Now, it is time to see if the Christian church has recognized the opportunity that exists for the Gospel among the Unreached Peoples in terms of how we spend our missions giving.

Let's split the people of the world into three groups based on two questions.

"Do you have access to the Gospel?"
"Are you a Christian?"

Approximately 33% of the world's population would most likely answer those two questions "Yes and yes." They are Christian of some form and they have access to the Gospel. Most of the "western" countries would be found in this group. There is a church on every street corner, there are Gospel broadcasts on numerous radio and TV stations, our favorite pastors have their own podcasts, and  there are 706,000 results for "bible" at Amazon ! Most of us have grown up hearing about Jesus and know where to learn about Him. This is a good thing!

The next grouping of people would answer our two questions as "Yes" they have access to the Gospel, but "No" they are not a Christian. This is about 38% of the world's population.  This grouping also includes areas where the Gospel is starting to catch fire and grow. It is a middle ground; the Church is either growing or dying in these areas.

Finally, we have the areas of the world where the answers to our questions are "No and No". They are not Christians and they do not have access to the Gospel. Even if they wanted to hear, there is no one there to tell them about Jesus. If you've been counting along, or fired up a calculator app, you know that we are looking at about 30% of the population of the world fitting in here. Almost all of the peoples that live in this category are inside what missions people call the ' 10/40 Window '.

Now to tie this all together.

Almost everyone who responded to the previous blog about the most strategic place to spend our marketing money said that we should focus on the third market. It had the most potential for growth and in business that's what we want. We want every dollar we spend to generate the most revenue it can. And the only way for a business to continue to succeed and grow in our economy is to find new sources of revenue. Market C was the right choice!

So how do we spend our missions money?

You have most likely already guessed that Market A is the Christian world (Yes/Yes), Market B is the growing/dying church world (Yes/No) and Market C is our Unreached Peoples (No/No). Therefore, as Christians focused on obeying the last command of Christ in the Great Commission, we should be putting our strongest focus on the area where we have yet to see growth. Right?

Unfortunately, it is not like that.

Taking our dollar bill from above, here is where we are spending the money:

Market A (Yes/Yes)   -  87%
Market B (Yes/No)   -  12%
Market C (No/No)   -  1%

Can you see the spending for Market C? It's that little red strip at the very right hand side. Even though we as Christians give mental consent to the idea that every person on the Earth should hear the Gospel of Jesus, our physical actions in terms of our spending show that we may believe something completely different.

For every $100 given in Christ's name, only a nickel of that goes to the unreached people of the world!

Is this even fair? Shouldn't we as a Church make a commitment to having this balance out?Can you imagine the impact on the world if green, yellow and red were divided equally on the dollar? Actually, let us give you a glimpse of the impact:

Jesus commanded us to "make disciples of all nations". This means bringing the Gospel to all people groups and "teaching them to obey".  But He didn't make this command to us without letting us know what the benefit is!  Did you see it in Matthew 24:14? The promise is that when the Gospel is preached to all nations, " the end will come "! How much more of a motivation do we need to bring the Gospel to all nations than to know that when it happens, Christ can and WILL return!

So here's your challenge:

If you don't know where to send your missions giving so it gets to the Unreached, check our our Partners page. Each of those sending agencies are focused on getting the Gospel to the unreached. We at GFM are also focused on that. You can give to our UPG fund  where every dollar goes to work among the Unreached Peoples. Or, just give to our general fund as our entire focus is getting the Gospel to all nations so that we can experience the return of Christ!