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Frontier Missions and Our New Missions Partner

News--Anglican Frontiers Missions
There’s been a wonderful development from our World Missions Committee this year. We are adding the frontier missions organization Anglican Frontier Missions (AFM) to our annual giving budget! As part of your giving to St. Philip’s, you are in this partnership as well.
So what is Anglican Frontier Missions? Well, let me start with a few world mission facts:
  • There are 7 billion people in the world.
  • There are 17,000 ethnolinguistic people groups that make up the 7 billion people.
  • Of those 17,000 groups, 7,000 are considered to be out of reach of the gospel of Jesus Christ (commonly referred to as “unreached”).
  • These 7,000 unreached groups consist of 3.13 billion people––approximately 40% of the world’s population have no access to the gospel!
What does it mean to be unreached, you might ask? The unreached, known more recently as the “least evangelized" or “frontier people groups,” are groups who essentially have no access to the gospel––no Christian neighbors, no churches, no Bibles, no Christian radio, no Christian books: zero access. Even if they knew to want access, there is none.

Anglican Frontier Missions is an organization focused on reaching these precious ones for whom Christ died, just as He did for you and me. You may have heard the term “10/40 window” before. The picture below depicts where the majority of these people reside. 

10-40 window

The 10/40 Window is the rectangular area of North Africa, the Middle East and Asia approximately between 10 degrees north and 40 degrees north latitude. The 10/40 Window is often called "The Resistant Belt" and includes the majority of the world's Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists. ––The Joshua Project

Some more disturbing realities:

  • Of the 400,000 missionaries on the field across the world today, only 3% are working among the 40% of the world who does not know Christ. That would be one missionary for every 250,000 people.
  • Of all the giving to Christian causes, only 1% goes towards bringing the gospel to these unreached people and places. 99% goes to the already reached areas of the world.

You see the resource imbalance of huge proportions here. The inclusion of AFM in our annual budget is a small step in the right direction of participating more fully in our Lord’s command to take the good news of Christ “to the ends of the earth.” 

Here is a link to an excellent 5-minute video that explains the task for us as Christians today:

Reaching the Unreached (YouTube)

Here is a link to a 4-minute video about AFM featuring the Rev. Chris Royer, Director of AFM:

The Vision of AFM - YouTube

If you are interested in learning more about efforts among the unreached, take a look at the boatload of information out there online among many of today’s evangelical mission thinkers. Some good resources are The Joshua Project, Finishing the Task, and Global Frontier Mission.