Reaching the Unreached: The Barriers Within

You have seen the statistics. There are more than 17 million Seventh-day Adventists members worldwide, (SDA World Statistics, 2011). But there are also 2.9 billion people who have never heard the gospel, (Global Peoples Summary). 47% of the world is considered unreached, (Operation World). Most of these belong to Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and other world religions. With statistics like these, it is difficult to understand why we keep plodding on, evangelizing again and again, in areas that have received the gospel repeatedly. Why are we not realigning our Church's programs, finances, and manpower, to focus on truly finishing the task that we were called to do? What are the internal barriers to reaching the unreached of the world?

Culture and Tradition

The Seventh-day Adventist Church is a self-contained society with an all-pervading culture. It conditions one to think and behave like the rest of the denomination. This teaching and enculturation is not limited to doctrines. It includes other beliefs, that dictate values, and values, that dictate behaviors. Thus, the longer one remains a Seventh-day Adventist, the more one becomes used to how things are, and should be done.

The ideal is to believe that Adventist culture is all biblical. But that is not the reality. At conversion, many conflicting beliefs are left behind by the old culture, or are accepted from post-modern influences, and mixed together with biblical ones. This results in confusion at the values and behavior level.

Culture dictates what to prioritize, and how to proceed. Inherited church traditions dictate what can be done, and what cannot be done. For instance, whom to ordain, and when to ordain them? We try to make it into a theological issue, when it's probably more cultural than biblical. Unfortunately, these cultural traditions are institutionalized, making it difficult to innovate and find fresh approaches to accomplishing the Church's mission. Culture and tradition demands that, "what has been done by our forefathers, is what should continue to be done by us." Non-conformists may get ostracized, or marginalized.

We cannot reach the unreached until we become willing to get outside of what might be seen as a xenophobic, Adventist cultural/traditional "box."

Dissonance of Information

People feel good when their actions make sense to them. Psychologists call this, "consonance of information." When people realize that their behavior is not congruent with their self-concept, a condition of uneasiness develops. This is called "dissonance," or "disharmony of information," (Cognitive Dissonance, 2012).

Take the Philippines as an example. For decades the Philippine church was applauded and rewarded for being good at evangelism. Now, we read of millions of people in this territory without a church.¹ One reaction is to discount the validity of such statistics, and just focus on the glowing accomplishment reports.

Another reaction is to simply avoid thinking about the new disturbing facts. The result? Status quo - no change. Yet change is needed to seriously tackle the unfinished task. We need to realize that we are not behaving like we say we should. We must realize that even though we talk a lot about hastening the Lord's coming, yet our actions show we are more concerned about buildings, jobs, position, and a secure future.

We need to seek out new values, beliefs, and information, that can help us adjust our self-concept, or to begin changing our conflicting behaviors to fit our claims. As the General Conference voted document, God's Promised Gift, points out: "The Church's growth rate is simply not keeping pace with the world's burgeoning population. An honest evaluation of our current evangelistic impact on the world, leads to the conclusion that unless there is a dramatic change, we will not complete Heaven's assignment in this generation" (Kellner, 2010).

Organizational Politics

The greatest hindrances to accomplishing an organization's vision and mission are its politics, and the individual's desire for self-preservation. We should ask: Does the Church exist for mission, or does mission exist for the Church? Do we do ministry and mission so that we can have reports, and thereby be rewarded by the organization? Or are we in the organization to help accomplish its mission?

When we begin to wonder how our decisions will affect our career or position in the organization, we'd better watch out. Many good programs have been thrown away, or not implemented, because by doing so, it would shake up the status quo. The reasons given include, "this would become a precedence," or because the person submitting the proposal is, "not one of us."

God has not called us to become company men. He has called us to be His men, in His company. As good managers and under-shepherds, we should first and foremost advance the Lord's cause, and not hinder it.

Statistical Misinterpretation

Such big words! But what I really mean is there are those who promote wrong numbers or misinterpret them! For instance, in one local church, I heard it said that only 2% of the world has never been reached by the Seventh-Day Adventist message. Where did that figure came from? I don't know. There is indeed such a thing as "the tyranny of numbers."²

Another sad use of numbers is the SDA to non-SDA ratio. It can give a false sense of accomplishment. For instance, (using the Southern Asia Pacific Division, or SSD, as a point of reference), I read that there are only 819 non-SDAs for every 1 SDA, (2013). What that actually means, is there are 961,243,676 who are non-SDAs in the entire division! Instead of "triumphalism," (always portraying the church growing by "leaps and bounds"), let us set our numbers in their proper context. When we say we are baptizing 1,569³ persons a day, let us also say that, in the 10/40 Window alone, 33,600 people die daily.⁴ That's 1,400 every hour, 23 per minute, or 1 person every 3 seconds!

Complacency and Wrong Priorities

I do not want to be a crier of doom, but with the economy going where it seems to be going now, should we be prioritizing church buildings, and nice-to-do social activities that deplete our already meager resources, to the detriment of the budget for reaching the unreached?

Dr. Erich Baumgartner once estimated that the Church spends 99% on itself, and only 1% on reaching the unreached. Do we think the world is going to get better? Thinking people are preparing for a long, difficult time ahead. They are not spending on extravagant, unnecessary things, for they realize that soon, money will not be as easy to come by as before. Should we not be saving money to support the task of reaching the unreached? Instead, when there is a church building project, often the first item to be slashed from the budget, are outreach ministries. Church members find it difficult to give $10 a month to support a missionary, when they would charge on their credit card one-hundred dollars for a one-day church outing!

Wrong priorities do not just involve money, but they also involve the heart. The number of individuals committing to spend their lives to bringing the gospel to the unreached, are steadily dwindling. People who used to sacrificially work among the unreached, are now going to "greener pastures."

The urgency of the time in which we live in, should awaken us to these hindrances inside of us. Time is getting shorter. Let's be revived. Let's reform ourselves. Let's work, and spend on behalf of the unreached. And, please, let's do it NOW!

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Works Cited

Cognitive Dissonance Theory. (2012, October 16). Retrieved from University of Twente: http://www.utwente.nl/cw/theorieenoverzicht/theory%20clusters/interpersonal%20communication%20and%20relations/cognitive_dissonance_theory.doc/

Dizon, A. P. (2012). Isang Manwal para sa Pagtatanim ng mga Iglesyang Lumalago. Silang, Cavite: PFM Literature.

Global Peoples Summary. (n.d.). Retrieved October 15, 2012, from Joshua Project: http://www.joshuaproject.net/

Kellner, M. A. (2010, October 11). Adventists Urged to Pray for "Latter Rain" Power. Adventist New Network. Silver Spring, MD, USA: Adventist Review. Retrieved from Adventist News Network.

Online Statistics. (2012, February 6). Retrieved October 15, 2012, from SSD: http://www.adventistdirectory.org/viewAdmField.aspx?AdmFieldID=SSD

Operation World. (n.d.). Retrieved October 15, 2012, from Operation World: http://www.operationworld.org/

Operation World - Philippines. (2012). Retrieved October 15, 2012, from Operation World: http://www.operationworld.org/

Philippine People Groups. (n.d.). Retrieved October 15, 2012, from Joshua Project: http://www.joshuaproject.net/countries.php

Province List. (2011, January 1). Retrieved October 15, 2012, from Philippine Challenge: http://philchal.org/dawn/provselect.asp

SDA World Statistics. (2011, June 30). Retrieved October 15, 2012, from Adventist.Org: http://www.adventist.org/world-church/facts-and-figures/index.html

Southern Asia Pacific Division. (2013, February 4). Retrieved from ASTR: http://www.adventistdirectory.org/viewAdmField.aspx?AdmFieldID=SSD

(Endnotes)

¹ In the Philippines, there are more than 735,000 Seventh-day Adventists (Online Statistics, 2012). Yet there are also 4.5 million people who are considered least reached (Philippine People Groups). Evangelicals listed more than 24,000 baranggays in the Philippines without a Bible-believing church (Province List, 2011). Even the North Philippine Union Conference church planting initiative identified 181 municipalities and cities out of 738 in its territory, without an SDA church. That means, 32% of the towns and cities in NPUC are unentered (Dizon, 2012, p. 7).

² By the way, you can find out the true figures yourself. The statistics are out there. Go to Joshua Projecthttp://www.joshuaproject.net/ and Operation World http://www.operationworld.org/ for a more reliable list of numbers regarding the state of the unfinished task.

³ 2003 Annual Council Statistical Report. 1.

⁴ http://www.bgcworld.org/newstand/standard/stnd0302/10,11.pdf <11 August 2005>