FAMILY PRAYER SERIES
Welcome to the first (of four!) family prayer guides for the lost around the world!
This month we are unpacking what it means for someone to be unreached. Since the concept of unreached is the foundation for this series, we'll do a deep dive into this topic (so buckle up for a longer read!).
Use this as a tool to help engage your kids in global intercession. Utilize components that work well for your family and don't worry about the rest! This shouldn't feel stressful but an adventure into family prayer for the world!
The Muslim call to prayer filled the Central Asian village. All the men in the house slowly rose from the floor cushions to cleanse themselves for prayer—all except the one Western visitor in a private guest room.
Mohammed’s heart beat as fast as a hummingbird’s wings. He had waited years for this moment to transpire.
“I will stay with our guest,” he said, stroking his long black beard. Since hospitality and honoring guests are highly valued among Central Asians, the others nodded in agreement. Cultural standards dictated a guest should never be left alone. Mohammed could pray after the group returned.
Once he was certain the other men were gone, Mohammed leaned toward the guest and whispered, “All my life, I have wanted to be near to God.” With ten minutes of privacy, the middle-aged man asked the visitor questions about a Bible passage he had read years ago.
The guest wanted to give Mohammed a copy of the New Testament in his own language, but he wouldn’t be able to return to this newfound seeker’s far-flung village without raising suspicions. They would need to find a time when Mohammed could visit the city.
What is an Unreached People Group?
The idea of a person or group being unreached can be difficult to understand in America where many churches can be close by. But in many parts of the world, this is not the case! A people group is considered unreached when from the time a person is born until the day they die, they do not have a chance to hear who Jesus truly is.
People who live in an unreached country can’t walk down the street to a church or find a Christian to ask questions about Jesus. If there are believers around, they often don't tell many people about their new faith because they could get in trouble for becoming a Christian. In parts of Central Asia, it’s still against the law for a Muslim to become a Christian!
According to the Joshua Project (a group that tracks which people around the world have heard the gospel), 42.5% of the world is unreached with the gospel! That means if the world was a pie and you divided the pie into 10 pieces, 4 pieces wouldn't know about who Jesus truly is—that's almost half the world!
Not only do unreached people groups not have a way to hear about the gospel, but many Christians aren't trying to get the gospel to these dark places. About 99.9% of church giving is directed toward itself which leaves 0.01% of giving to take the gospel to the unreached! That's essentially the entire pie! Only a crumb would represent the unreached! [1] As Christians, it's important to give money toward missionaries going to places where the gospel isn't and pray for the unreached around the world.
We've unpacked what unreached means, but let's discuss what people mean when they talk about unreached people groups (UPGs). We can break people into groups based on what language they speak or the culture they are from. As we divide the unreached into smaller groups, we can better pray and track the gospel's progress.
UPGs takes the bigger picture of the unreached around the world and focuses on a specific people group. So keeping with our pie example, rather than wondering how many pies a bakery sells each day, bakers might focus on which pie flavors are sold the most and least. Bakers make more of the popular flavors and fewer of the less sold ones. UPGs let Christians know which people groups around the world still need to hear the gospel and focus on getting the gospel to them.
Some countries with large populations of unreached reached people groups include: Chad, China, India, Niger, Laos, Bangladesh, and Turkey.Family Devotion: The Bible’s Call to Care for the Unreached
In Acts 10, God leads the way for Gentiles (those who weren't a part of God's people) to hear the gospel by sending two visions—one to a man named Cornelius and another to Jesus' disciple, Peter. As a family, read Acts 10 together.
Now that you've read the story, let's talk about three reasons the Bible tells us caring for the unreached is important.
First, Cornelius needed someone to share the gospel with him. Cornelius was not a follower of Jesus yet. But when we meet him in Acts 10, he was being drawn to God. This means God was preparing his heart to become a follower of Jesus.
Cornelius had “a zeal for God” but he didn’t yet have the full picture. Having "a zeal for God" means Cornelius was interested in learning more about God, but he didn't know everything about who Jesus is. He needed someone to share more about Jesus with him from the Bible.
Cornelius was a nice guy. He prayed to God every day and gave his own money to help the poor. And even though Cornelius wasn't a Christian, God was pleased with Cornelius' heart to pray and help the poor (10:4)! But God wanted Cornelius to know how to have a right relationship with Him. So God sent the apostle Peter to share the good news about Jesus with him. And as Peter shared the gospel with Cornelius, this was the beginning of the Gentiles becoming a part of the global family of God (10:45; Rom. 10:17).
Second, Peter learned that God’s plan to make a way back to Himself through Jesus included the Gentiles. Before Jesus came, God's people were almost all Jews. But after Jesus came, God shared His plan to have people around the world become a part of the family of God.
Through a vision about food (Jews had a lot of rules about what they could and couldn't eat!), Peter learned the gospel was meant for everyone around the world who turns to God (10:35). God showed Peter all people can become followers of Jesus (10:35). This would have been a surprise to Peter who thought only Jews could be a part of God's family!
When Peter visited Cornelius’s home, it went against all the Jewish traditions and customs he’d been taught from his childhood (see Lev. 20:24–26)! Before Jesus, Jews weren't allowed to spend time with Gentiles. But after Jesus, Peter saw how God wanted the Gentiles to become a part of the family of God now.
When Peter preached to Cornelius’s household, he shared how God is the Lord of all—over everyone and everything (10:34, 43, and 47). Peter repeats the word “all” several times (10:36, 38, 43) in his sermon. Go back and count how many times he says it in verses 36–38.
Peter is making the point that God’s plan—since Old Testament times—has been to save people from every nation (cf. Deut. 10:17, 2 Ch. 19:7, Job 34:19)! Peter saw this wasn't a new idea but the plan from the beginning! God doesn't have favorites. His purpose is to save people from around the world, not just the Israelites (another name for the Jews) (Gen. 12:3, Isa. 49:6, Ps. 67:2).
Third, bringing the Gentiles into God's family is putting the Great Commission—to share the gospel across the street and to the ends of the earth—into action (Matt. 28:18–20).
God was directing what happened in Acts 10! He sent both Cornelius and Peter visions! And through both men doing what God told them to do and the work of the Holy Spirit, many Gentiles were saved!
Across the globe, God is drawing people from every tribe, tongue, and nation to Himself. He works in a variety of ways: through dreams, visions, healing works, and through Christians like you and I to share the gospel with others.
How Your Family Can Pray for the Unreached
Christians have a role in helping those without the gospel gain access to it. Some believers go as missionaries to preach the gospel in hard places. But if we aren’t called to go to the unreached, then an important way we can help is through prayer (Isa. 49:6).
Prayer Prompts
Carve out a few minutes–on the drive to school, during breakfast, before bed–and lift up UPGs using the following prayer prompts (and add to this list with your own prayers!):
1) Pray for UPGs to have access to the gospel, whether that's through a radio program, social media channel, the Jesus film (a film about the life of Jesus translated into languages around the world), or reading a copy of the Bible in their native tongue.
2) Pray for UPGs to meet Christians who can live out and speak the gospel.
3) Ask for the lies of the evil one to be silenced in places around the world lacking believers and access to the gospel.
Activities
Below are some activities to learn more about the unreached.
1) Swing by the Weave website to meet a Tunisian Arab boy named Kamel, create your own henna design, make some breakfast porridge called farka, and learn two ways to pray for unreached Tunisian Arabs.
2) Grab dinner from a Middle Eastern restaurant.
4) Swing by the Weave website to meet a Yemeni boy named Hadi, construct a traditional Yemeni model home from graham crackers, make sesame candy called simsim, and learn two ways to pray for the unreached of Yemen.
Additional ResourcesTo keep digging deeper, here are resources to grow our understanding of the unreached. As we increase our understanding, we can better pray for others.
1) Wycliffe's 6 UPGs to Share With Children blog post: This blog post provides three different UPGs and provides a prayer card overview of an UPG, short video from the UPG's part of the world, and three ways to pray.
2) Unreached people group daily prayer list: Sign up for the Joshua Project newsletter and have an UPG and how to pray delivered to your inbox each day. Then you can pray for that UPG with your family during a designated prayer time.
3) Window on the World: An Operation World Prayer Resource: This made-for-kids prayer book provides insight into what life is like for people in different countries and regions of the world, and it gives prayer prompts that families can use to pray for the people in each country to be reached with the gospel.
As you go about this month, remember to pray for the unreached! Swing by next month to learn how to pray for the minimally reached (and to unpack what that even means!).
*Adapted portions of this article were originally published by ERLC.
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