The Hard Stuff

Some of the Unengaged Unreached people groups are the 71,553,000 Urdu-speaking Muslims in India, the 32,097,000 Pashto-speaking Muslims in Pakistan, the 31,328,000 Marathi-speaking Hindus of India, and the 61,482,000 Turkish-speaking Muslim people in Turkey. These 2 billion people represent the most Gospel-resistant people in some of the most difficult areas of the world.

You probably noticed that the largest groups’ religion is Islam. For years now World Witness has endeavored to work with Muslim people groups that reside in Europe, Africa, and Pakistan.

In 2023 Bridge Europe reports work among Muslims includes 15 new baptisms, 3 multi-ethnic church plant works, student café ministry to 150 students, and social media outreach videos that have hundreds of thousands of views. SEED ministry, working in Pakistan and East Africa, has a total of 5 cohorts reaching 245 students/pastors. In the United States, Ethne Outfitters conducted 37 aid visits for Afghans, 4 outreaches to Muslim students, and regularly conducts 2 discovery Bible studies.

Among our least reached ministries include church plants in Spain and the United Kingdom.

To go after the “hard stuff,” World Witness believes our core values of humility, boldness, and connectedness are critical. First, we want to work in Christ’s strength, not ours, which takes humility. If we are working from Christ’s strength that gives us boldness to proclaim His name, and not our name. And lastly, Christ’s strength is multiplied when we strive for connectedness in working through the Church, and not alone.

This work requires apostles. The definition of apostle I am using is, “one who is sent out.” The Latin translation of apostle is missio where we get our modern word for “missions.”
From the Gospels, Peter might be the first name you think of as “doing the hard stuff.” He was brash, bold, and learned lessons the hard way. He had grit, staying power, and eventually whole-hearted submission to Christ. Except for his brief mention in Jerusalem in Acts 15, the last thing revealed about his work is that, “he departed and went to another place” (Acts 12:17). Of course we know from Peter’s epistles that he continued to encourage the church to stand in persecution, and church tradition places his martyrdom in Rome, but before this it’s as if Scripture were content that Peter’s name begins to fade as Christ’s name and story grew ever larger.

The Meberg family served in a small town in Mardin, Turkey for many years. They left behind two converts, one who turned out to be an anti-missionary spy and neither were true Christians but wolves in sheep’s clothing. The Mebergs left feeling broken and tired. But their bold witness and proclamation of Christ’s name gave a nearby church courage to raise up another church planter, a Turkish man, to take their place. Now there is a large protestant church composed mostly of former Muslims in this once spiritually desolate place. Except for the pastor, no one knows the name Meberg in Mardin, but the name of Christ is well-known for that is the one thing the Mebergs left behind.

To be an apostle/missionary today is to be willing to go out humbly and boldly proclaiming Christ in Christ’s strength, and if need be, have your own name forgotten by the world so that Christ’s name will forever be remembered. The vehicle that carries this name is the eternal Body of Christ, the Church. This is what it means to work in humility, boldness, and connectedness. This is what it will take to finish the hard stuff.