I recently read K.P. Yohannan's book "Revolution in World Missions". Yohannan is the founder and international director for the mission organization Gospel for Asia. Gospel for Asia trains and equips native missionaries throughout Asia to spread the gospel and meet the needs of the poor and oppressed. You can check out their website here.
I requested a free copy of this book after hearing a little about this wonderful organization. You can request your free copy here. I must say that Yohannan's thoughts on the native missionary movement fascinated and excited me. The book goes into great depths on how successful the native missionary movement is in Asia, and is a bold call to the affluent church in the West to do more to support native missionaries throughout the world. Yohannan strongly believes that native missionaries are far more productive and successful at reaching the lost with the Good News of Jesus Christ than missionaries that are traditionally sent from western nations. This is in large part due to language and cultural barriers that must be overcome by non-native missionaries, as well as the huge amounts of financial resources that it takes to support western missionaries in foreign lands. Native missionaries, however, already know the language, culture, and have the contacts to be succesful immediately. They also require a small fraction of the financial support for living expenses that a typical western missionary needs. However, Yohannan doesn't believe that western churches should stop sending their own missionaries. He does, however, believe that our churches should refocus on what we can all do to assist what God is obviously doing through native missionaries. He also calls into question (rightly so!) some of the large amount of financial resources that are spent in thousands of North American churches each year on buildings, programming, and entertainment, with many of those dollars having little to do with reaching the lost for Christ and loving our neighbors. If we could redirect even some of these resources to native missions, Yohannan believes that so much more of the harvest that is exploding in Asia could finally be brought in!
I for one was gripped by this vision after reading this book. I hope you request your copy, read the book, and commit to helping missionaries in other parts of the world reach the lost for Christ.
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Hi, Mike. I first learned about this from Pastor Hank. He refers to the unreached peoples of the world as the 1040 window. After visiting Africa, he became convinced that native missionaries were the way to proceed. Calvary has been reluctant to pull support from others, however.
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