I listened to a podcast interview this morning featuring Andy Byrd, who runs the Fire and Fragrance ministry of the missions organization, YWAM, and was given a paradigm shift in the definition of the “unreached.” In the context of the World Race and the general mission field, “unreached people groups” are those who lack access to the gospel of Jesus Christ. However, as Byrd defines it by his own experience as a young adult entering the mission field in Cambodia and the Philippines, the “unreached” are not only people who have not heard the gospel, but people who have not felt “a measure of love” even! As possible it is to deduce this as a necessary effect of the lack of the gospel in a given location, it was a striking statement and a sobering truth. I am reminded of my own life and the blatant juxtaposition of love, flourishing and mercy in a community of Christ as opposed to the bleak unforgiving nature of the world outside of it. And this is why the gospel must go out!
