International (MNN) — According to the Joshua Project there are more than 6,600 unreached people groups around the world. People groups were the population is less than 2-percent Christian. Many of them are living in countries antagonistic to the Gospel. However, tentmaking missionaries will be the people who will penetrate these nations.
Mission to Unreached Peoples’ Danny Martin says, “The idea of tentmaking today is applied to people who use their vocations to serve God overseas.”
The question is, how important is tentmaking ministry today? “It’s critical,” Martin says, “Because we cannot take the Gospel to the unreached peoples without tentmaking. If we want to go to China or India, which are the two least reached countries numerically, you can’t get a visa any more as a missionary. You’ve got to go in and have something they want and need.”
According to Martin, that may take many different forms. “You can help teach English in China, if you can help do business or medicine in India, you’re welcome and you get a visa.”
While there are many North Americans and Europeans who are serving as tentmakers, they’re not the largest group. Martin says, “It is primarily the Asian tentmakers that are reaching the world. There are over 1 million evangelical Filipinos and over 1 million evangelical Koreans living and working outside of their own countries and they’re spreading the Gospel through their business opportunities.”
Martin says missions outreach has evolved and says frontline missions work is best done by nationals. “For the frontline I really do see the Lord is now using the Indians and the Chinese and others, they’re on the forefront now,while we’re supporting them and helping them.”
However, there is still a need for North Americans. Martin says Mission to Unreached Peoples has up to 300 positions that need lay people. “God gives us the abilities to be an excellent manager, an excellent teacher, a person with a heart of compassion for orphans for a purpose. And, instead of just saying, ‘that’s real nice I’ll write a check once in a while’ we today can go.”
Information on opportunities with Mission to Unreached Peoples is available by clicking here.
