From a Cape Town Advance Paper Missing Peoples: The Unserved "One-Fourth" World: Especially Buddhists, Hindus & Muslims:
Over one quarter of the peoples of the world still have no opportunity to hear the message of God’s love or see it demonstrated in action. Dare we call this lack of response on our part, which leads to needless suffering and hopelessness on their part, anything less than “spiritual injustice?” Today these Missing Peoples have virtually no choice with respect to the gospel. They have yet to follow the One who said, “Follow Me,” not because they have rejected His call, but because they have never heard it.
Whenever someone goes missing, especially children and youth, the whole community quickly mobilizes to search for them. Why hasn’t that happened with all these Missing Peoples? What does it say about our priorities as a global Church when 3% of workers and less than 1% of the finances given to mission go toward seeking out these Missing Peoples?
Most people come to faith through a relationship with someone they know and trust. Yet over 8 out of 10 Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists do not personally know a single Christ-follower. What are the implications for the Kingdom? Every day which passes without reaching out in friendship to these Missing Peoples means they miss out on the opportunities we all take for granted—to know Jesus personally, to be filled with his joy and peace, to have his Spirit in us, to experience abundant life and have his power to help change society.
Imagine the impact if, rather than simply continuing to justify our own arenas of ministry, we invested our collective energy in addressing this spiritual injustice, and said, “Yes, we as a worldwide church are not going to allow this to continue.”
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