Where Does the Gospel Still Need to Go?

ABSTRACT: The frontiers of missions are less clear than we might imagine. Complexities surrounding languages, geopolitical tensions, remote access, and a globalized, urbanizing world present fresh challenges for missions strategies. The church cannot rely only on the concepts and plans that others used before us. Faithful engagement in missions requires ever-fresh thinking as the church seeks to obey the risen Lord’s command to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom to the ends of the earth.

When Paul declared his desire to preach in the places where Christ had yet to be named (Romans 15:20), he whetted the missionary appetite for frontier missions. Many contemporary missionaries adopt Paul’s desire as their own, noting that it flows out of the biblical anticipation that one day the knowledge of the glory of God will cover the earth “as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14) — and that one day believers from every tribe, tongue, nation, and people will surround God’s throne (Revelation 7:9). In anticipation of these promises being fulfilled and following Paul’s desire, contemporary missionaries often ask the question, “Where are the current frontiers of missions?”

At the end of the 1700s, the search for the missions frontier focused on geographic places and geopolitical nations that had little to no access to the gospel. Nearly two hundred years later, Ralph Winter pressed the global church’s thinking further than mere geography when he coined the term “hidden peoples.”¹ This term recognized more barriers — linguistic, sociocultural, ethnic, and tribal — to gospel access than mere geography or nationality. Such an approach prompted global research and the production of various lists of apparently distinct people groups.² Following Winter’s “hidden peoples” approach, the frontiers of missions came to be defined as those people groups with the least access to the gospel.

In our globalized, urbanizing, digitally connected world, however, locating the frontiers of missions proves more difficult than one might think. In this essay, I will examine four issues that make determining the frontlines of ministry complex today. I will also highlight some ways that pastors, churches, and aspiring missionaries might consider, assess, and address various frontiers of missions labor. This assessment is best conducted in conversation with churches around the world, recognizing that the Great Commission is a global church responsibility.

Difficulty 1: Defining Missions

The first difficulty with locating the frontiers of missions is upstream from sociological research and demographic study. Before we can determine whom we need to focus on in missions, we need to define what we mean by missions. How we define missions will determine who we believe needs missionary attention.

On the one hand, some take Paul’s desire from Romans 15:20 as the baseline for their definition, simply considering the places where we think Christ has not been named as the frontier targets for missions. Along these lines, some take Matthew 24:14 to define the missionary task as the proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom to all nations. Thus, one finds the frontier of missions wherever this gospel has not been proclaimed.³

On the other hand, a holistic or integral vision of missions includes every good endeavor a Christian is commanded to do as a component of the missionary task. For those of this persuasion, the frontiers of missions work are not only where Christ has not been named but also where economic or ecological injustice has not been addressed.⁴

“How we define ‘missions’ will determine who we believe needs missionary attention.”

While I do not claim to define missions in a way that would be satisfactory for all, I think that the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19–20 both centers the need to proclaim the gospel and extends the task beyond evangelism. We are to make more than converts; we are to make disciples. We are to teach everything that Jesus commanded; instruction is the centerpiece of the church’s mission. Therefore, I define missions the way we do in our classes at Cedarville Seminary:

local churches sending qualified missionaries to bring the gospel and its implications to places and people lacking access with the aim of making disciples who will make disciples, training leaders who will train leaders, and establishing churches that will plant churches and send missionaries.

With that definition, we can acknowledge at least two realities. First, many places and people have basic access to the gospel, but missionary efforts are still necessary there to see the missionary task accomplished. Missionary efforts to train local leaders toward maturity and to equip national churches to plant churches are necessary even when the Bible has been translated and there is an emerging or developing church in place.⁵

Second, it remains helpful to consider places with significant barriers to gospel access as a specific kind of frontier, because Bible translation, literacy training, and remote living require specific skills and abilities that entail specific preparation. Such frontiers need not determine where all our missionary labor goes, but the significant barriers they pose require international effort to identify, address, and overcome. Perhaps most obviously, if the church’s mission centers on proclaiming Christ and his gospel, then places whose languages have never been used to name Christ represent frontiers to which the global church must attend.

As missionary candidates attempt to steward their lives strategically, these two missional realities are often made to compete with one another. Missionaries who do not want to waste their lives can be stymied by the question, “Is my life best invested among those with access but not maturity or in places with no access?” Yet, both are necessary for complete obedience to the Great Commission. Both also encounter significant difficulty in assessing barriers to gospel access. In what remains, I want to observe three such barriers and then conclude with some guiding thoughts to help pastors and potential missionaries steward their lives toward addressing the frontiers of missions without the pressure of needing to establish whether they have identified the choice that will lead to “maximal kingdom impact.”

Difficulty 2: Defining Language Frontiers

One of the essential elements of the above definition of missions is the need to communicate the gospel and its implications. Such communication requires a shared language. While those following Ralph Winter have at times been prone to excess in how they distinguish one socioculturally distinct people group from another, recent efforts have homed in on the linguistic distinctions between peoples.⁶ Following this line of thought, a language that has not been used to name Christ may represent a frontier for missionary effort.

However, making a list of those who truly lack linguistic access to the gospel is not as simple as identifying the languages into which the Bible has yet to be fully translated. Many cultures are multilingual. Those living in monolingual cultures often believe that every person has a “heart language,” and that those who do not yet have a Bible translation in their “heart language” remain without full access to the gospel.⁷ However, the reality is often more nuanced.

Of course, multilingual societies often have a preferred language of discourse for various topics. Likewise, in places where subcultures have been subsumed by dominant cultures, the use of a dominant language can carry the stigma of having “sold out” to the culture represented by that language. However, that is not always the case. I recently heard of a believer from a West African nation who speaks at least eight languages fluently and claims that none of those languages is more of a “heart language” than the others. For this brother, if the Scriptures are available in just one of the eight languages he speaks, he does not lack access to the gospel.

Not only is it true that in some places the sociological concept of a “heart language” does not represent reality, but employing it can also prove divisive. For example, one missionary related a story of a Russian city in which Russians lived alongside ethnically Tartar people. Though the Tartar community spoke Russian as a trade language, they preferred to use a different language in their homes. In a well-intentioned effort to reach this particular people, a missionary moved to the city intent on planting a church to reach the Tartars in their heart language. However, a local Russian pastor asked the missionary to reconsider because he thought that approach would split his Russian-speaking church, drawing away the Tartar community and undoing the display of the gospel’s ability to create unity out of diversity.

Had the missionary followed his original plan, this community of Tartar-speakers would likely have been tempted to withdraw from their Russian brothers and sisters out of preference rather than a lack of access. In a globalizing and urbanizing world, multilingual communities are far more common than they were a hundred years ago. Of course, just because a contingent of a language has urbanized and become multilingual does not mean that the non-urbanized speakers have access. However, insisting that every “heart language” that does not have a translation of the Scriptures represents a current missions frontier oversimplifies a more complex set of circumstances.

Of course, this does not imply that these communities lack need or that engaging in these specific, targeted ways is not valuable. It is simply to acknowledge again that flattening complex circumstances tends to obscure, not clarify, the frontiers of gospel access.⁸

Difficulty 3: Defining Access Frontiers

Many engaged in the discussion about contemporary barriers in missions aim to discern where they should serve or invest their resources. This is a noble and appropriate process for churches to undertake. However, there are multiple types of barriers to gospel access that should be taken into consideration.

First, we have already considered language barriers. If the Bible has not been made available in the languages a people speak, then they have no permanent access to Scripture. These are serious and urgent matters for the global church to consider as we seek to address gospel need with missionary intention.

Second, geopolitical factors can create barriers to access that stand as frontiers of their own. For instance, the Scriptures and many other theological resources are already translated into Korean. In fact, Kim Il-Sung, the supreme leader who was in place during the separation of North and South, was raised in an active Presbyterian family.⁹ Still, since the middle of the twentieth century, it has been illegal to own a Bible in North Korea, and Christians are persecuted without mercy, being labeled as “hostile elements in society.”¹⁰ Even with the Bible in their language, such a gospel-hostile place certainly qualifies as a frontier requiring intentional targeted work to make and mature disciples.

Third, there are barriers related to harsh geographic considerations. Many will be familiar with the efforts of John Chau to access the Sentinelese people on an island off India.¹¹ Such people are geographically difficult to access and occasionally (like the Sentinelese) protected by laws intended to allow the people and their culture to avoid the impact of foreign contact. Other countries with minimal Christian presence (like Bhutan) have proved notoriously difficult to access, being hard to reach and, once reached, hard to remain in because of residency restrictions.¹²

Pastors and missionaries considering how to steward their efforts would be wise to consider factors that make an individual missionary candidate fit to overcome specific barriers. Age, health, and willingness to put off creature comforts make some uniquely suited to targeting remote locations. For others, non-Western nationality could provide access across political borders closed to US-passport holders. Still others have an affinity for and ability in language study, thus being best suited to addressing those language frontiers that require translation and perhaps even literacy training. Wise stewardship requires considering which candidates best fit different frontiers rather than using a one-size-fits-all strategy.

Difficulty 4: Defining Frontier Mobilization

The final difficulty relates to the previous one — namely, who should be mobilized to meet frontier needs. Often, those who have the information assume that they should meet the need. However, in a world where we have far more knowledge than ability to act on that knowledge, assessing frontiers may not always mean mobilizing people from our own congregations to meet those needs directly.

This tension especially applies to my brothers and sisters from the United States. Our passport gets us into many different parts of the world; it also precludes us from some of the neediest places. Places like North Korea are incredibly difficult for Americans to access, and our knowledge of existing believers and churches there is quite limited. However, in the case of North Korea, there are other nations whose passports are more readily admitted. In such circumstances, we should be quick to consider whether it might be most advantageous for Americans to partner with Russian or Chinese Christians, for instance, mobilizing them to serve as the tip of the spear in North Korea.

This consideration is also relevant in nations where extremely remote areas — places most likely to contain monolingual, indigenous communities — are not open to foreigners or where foreigners would be scrutinized more heavily by gospel-hostile governments. In such places, mobilizing national believers, who will be less conspicuous than Americans, might be the most advantageous and strategic way to address those gospel-access frontiers. If that is the case, then the American missionary will need a different set of skills to raise up, train, equip, and partner with local believers than if he intended to do the frontline work. By God’s design, each part of the body functions differently (Ephesians 4:16), and the urgency and complexity of frontier missions requires that we pay careful attention to those skills, strengths, and desires with which he has equipped and positioned the global church.

Targeting Frontiers with a Sovereign God

Given the complexities charted above, it is not surprising that many pastors and aspiring missionaries feel overwhelmed at trying to steward the one life they have been given for maximum kingdom impact. While we should be thoughtful, intentional, and even strategic, allow me to alleviate some of the pressure by reminding us that we serve a sovereign God. In fact, he has promised that one day the knowledge of God will cover the earth “as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14) and that the end will not come before the “gospel of the kingdom [is] proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations” (Matthew 24:14).

Our sovereign God has entrusted us with the task of making disciples of all nations. This task involves attempting to overcome barriers to the gospel wherever they occur. As we have seen, those barriers are manifold: Unreached languages are often frontiers requiring translation efforts. Gospel-hostile nations present frontiers requiring creative partnerships. And remote locations filled with image bearers are frontiers worthy of the efforts it will take to engage them because Christ deserves to be worshiped in mature churches even in the mountains and on the islands we are prone to overlook.¹³

“Christ deserves to be worshiped in mature churches even in the mountains and on the islands we are prone to overlook.”

All these frontiers are important to consider alongside the skills and gifts that the Lord has bestowed on his people as stewards entrusted with precious resources to be leveraged for his glory. However, we lack the ability to ensure that the decisions we make will result in “maximal kingdom impact” and “the greatest stewardship of our days.” While we want to approach these decisions with a fitting weight of responsibility, the ability to choose what is best and what will lead to the highest impact belongs to God alone.

So, pastor, aspiring missionary, church — do your best to leverage your resources to overcome the barriers and address the frontiers that God puts before you. But do not become paralyzed, worrying whether spending your life among ten thousand who have never spoken the name of Jesus is more or less strategic than spending it among 1.5 billion whose access to the gospel is limited by a gospel-hostile government. Frankly, it is not possible for us to adjudicate which is of greatest value; we have not been asked to do that. Relieving this pressure, I hope, will help us avoid the sad stories I hear of missionaries who arrive in a place only to go back home when they realize that it was not quite as unreached — and therefore not as strategic — as they thought. Instead, if you arrive on the field only to find that the people group you planned to reach is less unreached than you thought, praise the Lord and get to work alongside those who got to work before you.

Our Lord is sovereignly mobilizing his global people to proclaim his word at the frontiers. He is guiding all of history to its awesome culmination in the joy-filled worship of all peoples before his throne. This certainty enables us to confidently jump the gospel-access barriers in front of us without worrying whether they are maximally strategic.