Project Prayer: Ramadan 2016 - Day 5
Day 5: The Muslim unengaged
By Mike Latsko
A Sunda man receives a New Testament from a C4C Indonesia member. The Sunda are the 10th largest unreached people group in the world (at 36.7 million), according to the Joshua Project. (Photo by Gary Fallesen, Mission: Indonesia 2007)
Ministry in the Muslim world is a bundle of contradictions.
Never in the history of the world have there been so many Muslims coming to Christ! Or churches planted among them. Or Christians burdened to pray, be trained in witness, or proactively pursuing Christ-like friendship.
On the other hand, 52 percent of all unreached Muslim peoples still lack resident, long-term witness.
That means more than 1,100 of the world’s 2,100 unreached Muslim people groups do not have workers incarnate among them, sharing Christ, with the intent to see communities of disciples birthed. Until these unengaged unreached are engaged — while we do rejoice at the thrilling Gospel breakthroughs we know are happening among the engaged unreached — we know we will not be able to affirm that the knowledge of the glory of the LORD has covered the earth as the waters the seas.
So let us pray.
Let us pray that churches and agencies have grace to look beyond the engaged unreached to the unengaged unreached.
Let us pray that God raise up pioneering team leaders who have hearts to not build on another man’s foundation — no matter how frail the current building appears.
Let us pray for emerging missionary emphases in the Majority World to prioritize the work unbegun rather than the work unfinished.
Let us pray for the world’s more developed missionary groups to recover their apostolic roots and complete what we have been assigned.
Let us pray that every currently unengaged Muslim people be engaged by the close of 2025. This is the goal of the Global Muslim Ministries Network with which C4C is happily connected. To see this done, we’ll need to increase the pace of our current engagements from 35 per year to 110 per year. Surely God would enable us to do this.
Mike Latsko was a pastor for 22 years before joining Frontiers in 2004. Frontiers is a mission reaching out to Muslims with the love of Jesus and helping others to do so. Mike is a friend of Climbing For Christ and can be reached at toknohim@gmail.com.
The Word
“‘When you call out to me and come to me in prayer, I will hear your prayers. When you seek me in prayer and worship, you will find me available to you. If you seek me with all your heart and soul, I will make myself available to you,’ says the LORD.” — Jeremiah 29:12-14 (NET)
Defining terms
An unengaged unreached people group (UUPG) has no known active church planting underway.
At least four essential elements constitute effective engagement:
- Apostolic effort in residence;
- Commitment to work in the local language and culture;
- Commitment to long-term ministry;
- Sowing in a manner consistent with the goal of seeing a Church Planting Movement (CPM) emerge.
An engaged unreached (or least-reached) people has workers resident, but there is not yet an indigenous community of believing Christians with adequate numbers and resources to evangelize this people group without continued outside assistance.
The series
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