International (MNN) — Despite centuries of missionary efforts, one in three people worldwide have no access to the Gospel or a local church. Missiologist and author Marv Newell says one-third of the global population is roughly 3.2 billion people.
However, “these statistics probably mean very little to people,” Newell notes. The most important takeaway is a simple one.
“Someone presented the Gospel to us and gave us the opportunity to be reconciled to God, to have a relationship with God, and to transform our lives. Why would we hold that back from others?”
Working together as the Alliance for the Unreached, a coalition of ministries strives toward one goal – mobilizing the Church to reach the unreached. The Alliance is best known for its flagship event, the International Day for the Unreached.
Dr. Marvin J. Newell
(Photo courtesy Alliance for the Unreached)
Starting today, Newell serves full-time as the Alliance Executive Director.
“Growing this alliance so that it has more capacity to bring awareness to the global Church to reach the remaining one-third of humanity that has no access to the Gospel would be a major goal,” Newell stated in a press release announcing his new role.
Newell is an international missiologist and prolific author who brings over 40 years of leadership and management experience to the position. Over half of that tenure was as a missionary in Indonesia, and he served in a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region with TEAM (The Evangelical Alliance Mission).
Find your place in the story
Although the Church has made significant progress in evangelizing the world, Joshua Project statistics show much work remains. Newell describes a two-fold approach for future efforts.
“There [are] two words that start with ‘A’ that we need to rally around,” Newell says.
“One is ‘access’: giving the unreached people access to the Gospel. The other word is ‘awareness.’ We want to help our churches to become more aware.”
Whether you’re actively involved in ministry, or you reflect Christ in the secular world, there’s a place for you in this story.
Find four ways to get involved here.
“One of the greatest injustices of the world is that people have not heard the Gospel story; they’ve not had access to it. We want to change that,” Newell says.
“We’re not disrupting the lives of Christians dramatically to join us, but we’re asking them to have a part. I believe that every single Christian should have a part in the Great Commission.”
Header image is a representative stock photo courtesy StockSnap via Pixabay.
