I wrote in the end of my last post that I would describe in more detail what I believe is a Biblical mandate to bring the gospel to every people group on earth. Or to put it another way, that the Lord’s desire is that the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ would be proclaimed to all peoples, down to distinct people groups. It is not sufficient to limit “missions” as simply an effort to reach as many individuals as possible in places different from our own. Of course seeing lives changed by the power of the cross is what we all want to see, and I am not belittling the ministries of outreach that happen around our city, or around the world to peoples that would be considered as “reached”. That must happen, it needs to happen. I am not saying that this is an “either, or” scenario, but rather a “both, and” scenario. But the fact still remains that only 1% of all missionary activity is aimed toward unreached peoples, and I feel this is something we all need to take a hard look at why it is this way, and then pray and ask the Lord if we are looking at “missions” the way He has revealed it through His word. Because of the magnitude of this topic, we will take a couple of posts to look at this idea of unreached peoples.

In the Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus tells His disciples to “make disciples of all nations”, and He then gives them the promise that “I am with you always even to the close of the age”. That promise is given to sustain the command to make disciples of all nations. This was not just for the apostles, as they died in one generation, but rather for the church because the promise given extends to “the end of the age”. This commission is for the church who will endure to the end of the age. To fully understand what the missionary task is for the church, we need to look at the phrase “make disciples of all nations”, and more specifically, the words “of all nations”, which in the Greek is translated ‘panta te ethne’. Of the 18 times this phrase is used in the N.T. in only one circumstance would it demand the meaning of “gentile individuals”. The rest of the 17 uses of that phrase would suggest the meaning of distinct people groups.

In Genesis 12:1-3, God makes a promise to Abram in which He states that in him “all of the families of the earth will be blessed”. The word for “families” translated in the Septuagint is phulai, which is our word meaning “tribes”. So the blessing here is intended to reach down to a small grouping of peoples. This same verse is quoted in the N.T. in Acts 3:25, and the Greek for “all the families” is pasai hai patriai, which is another reference to “people groups”. The writer of Acts understood that the promise given to Abraham was not just for gentile individuals, but for distinct people groups. We read throughout the O.T. and find verse like Psalm 96:3 “Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous works among the peoples”. Or Psalm 117:1 “Praise the Lord, all nations! Extol Him, all peoples!”, or Psalm 67:1-2 “May God be gracious unto us, and bless us, and make His face to shine upon us,(WHY) that Thy way may be known upon earth, Thy saving power among all nations”. When we read these verses we can see very clearly that the promise of salvation is to come to every tribe, and tongue, and nation. This O.T. hope was the very foundation for the Apostle Paul’s work as a missionary, he understood the promise of Abraham was to go to every people group, and that was what he aimed to see accomplished – that was his goal. We’ll look at Paul and the way he viewed the great commission, as well as other N.T. examples of this “All Nations” phrase in my next post. In the meantime, I would encourage you guys to look over some of these passages yourself, particularly in the O.T., and ask the Lord to show you more of this promises for the “Nations” to be blessed. I’ll leave you with this. In Exodus 19:6 the Lord says to Israel, “…and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation…”. What did the Lord mean by calling Israel a kingdom of priests? What was Israel to do regarding the nations around them, and how does that fit in with what we have been discussing?
Think about it.

blessings,
carlos

Some Statistics ..........

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

Pray for the work in Nepal

I know many of you are familiar with PUMA, and all the great stuff that is going on in Nepal through their ministry- the medical clinics, the childrens home in Katmandu, the churches planted, the Pastors Conference recently held there, etc etc. PUMA is one of CC Philly's missions partners, and they are requesting prayer at this time. I got this email today from Mary Ellen who overseas the childrens home in Kathmandu. Here is what she says....

We're asking for prayer here. The news has shown that good ole Kathmandu is out of fuel, well almost, but life in general is at a slow pace. There are not many vehicles barreling up and down our road, because there is no fuel. This crunch is beginning to hit us here in the children's home. There is no fuel to drive the tankers that carry the water and cooking gas to our homes. These are services we have on a weekly basis, but it's all stopped now. As I was searching the newspaper this morning, it's amazing how quickly people in Nepal revert back to their ox pulled buggys and transporting stuff on animal or man pulled vehicles. Nepal is always ready to take a step back in time to before civilization, how surprising this is to an American. It's so not the American way. These folks know their country and know if all else fails we can go back to the middle ages. Please pray for us, we're out of fuel, (1 canister left at the girls home and 1/2 canister left at the boys home & water supply will be dwindling, not a problem yet, but we're making plans to preserve what we have) The boys actually had to cook their dinner on a wood fire outside last night. Oh dear! But on the upside, hey it's like camping out, right? Many schools are closed because there is no gas for the buses that carry the kids to school. Our kids are still going to school, as of yesterday, but we'll see what tomorrow holds. We expect that if something doesn't give, that'll stop too.Please pray for the country of Nepal.
Thank you,
Mary Ellen

So I would ask you to pray that the Lord would be with Mary Ellen, and with Franny there at the girls home. That He would give them wisdom on how to prepare for what may be a crisis, but also, that the Lord would work everything out for fuel to again arrive in the city. I'll keep you guys updated as soon as I hear more.

blessings,
Carlos

Back from Brazil.....good things coming up.

Sorry about the delay in my updating. There is always so much on my heart that I want to write, I have to just make the time to sit and type it all out. Let's see.....the rest of our trip in Brazil was great. We ended the conference with communion, followed by a baptism by this incredible waterfall on the property of Calvary Chapel Bible College - Brazil. It was a sweet ending to what was an incredible week. We were encouraged to take communion with someone else from another Calvary other than our own, and I got to take communion with the Pastor of the Calvary Chapel in Porta Alegre, a town in which my father was born, and I still have relatives in. It was great to pray together, and thank Jesus for the cross, and for the new covenant established in His blood. It was a great week of making new friends, reconnecting with old ones, worshiping in another language, and watching as the Lord continued to fullfill His promise made with Abraham in Genesis 12:3 that throught his seed, "All the families of the earth (nations) will be blessed".

Our trip home was uneventful, and it was great to come back and tell everyone about all the great things that the Lord is doing in Brazil. I really feel, (and am praying) that the Lord is going to use the Bible College in Brazil to raise up and send out an army of missionaries to other areas in Brazil as well as other neighboring countries like Argentina, Paraguay, and Uraguay - in which there are no Calvary's at this point.

Please keep on checking this blog, as well as the C.C. Philly site for information on missions trips that will be going on this summer. Nothing is formally set at this time, but we are working on trips possibly to Zambia, Germany/Hungary, El Salvador, and Brazil. As soon as the dates are set, I will list all of them here on the blog - and will write about what the focus will be for each. Lastly, I would ask you guys to pray about the possibility of having a Missions Conference at Calvary Chapel of Philadelphia this coming May. Nothing is finalized yet, but we are in the middile of trying to work this out. If it does happen it would be an all day event open to all of our congregation, as well as all the other Calvary's (and other churches) in the area. Some speakers would be K.P. Yohannan, Matt Ellison, Jeff Jackson, David Guzik, Dave Sylvester, just to mention a few. I will keep you guys updated as soon as the details get finalized. Pray that this could all work out - it has the potential to be huge !

Blessings,

carlos

Calvary Chapel Bible College - Brazil

Hello everyone. Our trip to Brazil has been going great. We're now at the Calvary Chapel Bible College in Campo Mourau, Brazil. The annual Calvary church conference is being held now. Basically it is a time for all of the Calvary Chapel's in Brazil (those who can travel here) to get together and fellowship/ worship / and study the Word together. Traditionally most churches in Brazil will have their conferences during "carnival" to escape the madness in their cities - and that is what the Calvary fellowships are doing now annually. It's been a blessing to hang out and fellowship with the pastors of the different Calvary Chapels here in Brazil, as well as to get to know their congregations represented here. The Lord is doing a great work here in Brazil, and with less than 8 Calvary Chapels, in a country the size of the United States, the owrk has only begun!

It's great to have a Calvary Bible College here in Brazil now. I really believe that the Lord is going to use this place as a sending hub for more missionaries going out all over South America. I think that more laborers will go out to help the works that are currently started, as well as to start new works here in Brazil, and in neighboring Argentina, and Paraguay. You can learn more about the Bible College at http://www.ccbcbrazil.com/ . The property is amazing. Everything is manicured - from the grand atrium in the main building, to the pool area, to the soccer fields, and the coffee shop, and student dorms. You can tell that a lot of hard work has been poured into this property - it's a blessing to be here, and to be able to study the Word here.

Please continue to pray for the rest of the conference today and tomorrow. I really believe that the Lord wants to do more in the hearts and lives of those here. Pray that no one would leave tomorrow without really hearing from the Lord, and if they don't know Him, that they would surrender their lives to Jesus while being here. Please also pray for our travels back home on Wednesday. We'll be on three different flights, and will get back to the States on Thursday morning. I will update some more on the trip in a couple of days, and will share about the trip at MISSIONS PRAYER on THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7th in the PRAYER ROOM.

picture 1 - the atrium inside the main building

picture 2 - the outside of the main building

picture 3 - worship last night during the conference