And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.
What a daunting, seemingly impossible task the Lord gave to the early believers before He ascended to heaven. “Make disciples of all the nations (people groups).” The rest of the book of Acts follows that outline as the early apostles / disciples were obedient to make disciples in Jerusalem (Acts 2-6); Judea and Samaria (Acts 6-9); and to the remotest part of the earth (Acts 10-28). Down through the ages, other faithful disciples of Jesus have taken this mandate seriously and have given their time, talents, and treasures to reach their local community, their region, their country, and other countries around the world for Christ.
There are currently more than 8 billion people in the world today. According to Joshua Project, they are identifiable in approximately 17,269 unique people groups (ethnolinguistic groups with a common self-identity, sharing language, history & customs). 7,188 of those groups are considered unreached. That is approximately 3.4 billion people (42% of the world’s population) that have little or no access to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 85% of those 3.4 billion people live in regions of the world where less than 3% of missionary work is currently done.
The is why The Bridge is so committed to world missions. We want to be faithful to get the gospel to those unreached people groups and train ethnic leaders in those groups to plant healthy, reproducing churches. We do this through a number of trained missionaries that we support. Some of our missionaries (McDole clan; Ransoms; Lowes; Kaltofts…) were sent out from our church. Others are ones we adopted that were sent out by other churches. Each month we have a special mission focus on one of them and take a special mission offering (above & beyond what is budgeted from our general offering) to give to them. This month our special focus is Shepherding The Nations.
Shepherding The Nations is our very own mission agency based here at The Bridge. It was a dream of mine from my earliest days as a believer that became a reality in 2007. Its aim is to resource nationals to reach their own countries with the gospel, plant churches, and focus especially on unreached people groups. We provide biblical training through a 10-volume curriculum (2+ years), and additional training in expository preaching and church planting. We started in India and Nepal and then expanded to other countries in Latin America. And the Lord keeps opening doors to more countries with unreached people groups.
I bring this up for three reasons: 1) STN special mission offering this month. 2) STN Training Conference here at The Bridge (9/22-25). We are bringing 5 of our key leaders from India & Latin America for strategic planning and training. 3) STN Benefit Banquet on Saturday, 9/26, 5-8pm. People will hear firsthand from some of our key national leaders. We want to expose more and more people to the ministries of STN. We want YOU to come and invite others to come and see how they can impact the world for Christ by partnering with STN.
Would you please PRAY for STN. Pray for the training conference to equip our key leaders to be even more effective in the coming years. Pray for more people to come to the banquet to learn about what God is doing and choose to partner with us in prayer, service, and financial support. And please REGISTER for the banquet right now. The dinner is free but we have to know how many are coming.
You can register at https://shepherdingthenations.org/banquet/. I look forward to seeing you there!