As it stands today, more than three billion people will never know Jesus and the blessings of His Kingdom—it’s time to change that.” – Dr. Ray Noah
At Petros Network, our response to this staggering statistic is obedience to God’s call in the Great Commission. We are taking the Gospel to those who have no access to it.
One example of many of how we are answering the call is our expansion into the unreached tribes of the Omo Valley in southern Ethiopia this year. These tribes, with zero to one percent Gospel exposure, had never heard the Good News. But that is changing! Since launching 30 new church plants in these villages, the Gospel is being shared and received. Remarkably, since April, these church plants have multiplied at an incredible pace, and we now have 42 active churches in areas where there once were none! This is just one example of how the unreached are being reached.
“But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, ‘How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring Good News!’”
Romans 10:14-15
Getachew is one of our newest “messengers” bringing the Good News to one of these tribes:
“My name is Getachew. I am a new church planter with Petros Network. My calling began during a serious illness when I was taken to church for prayer; miraculously, I was healed and found Jesus. This experience ignited a desire within me to share the message of Jesus with others, particularly among the Daasanch tribe, where less than 2% have heard the Gospel. They are proud warriors deeply rooted in their traditional beliefs and spiritual practices, and I am grateful to understand their language and culture. My work involves sharing the Gospel, discipleship, and praying for healing, despite facing regular persecution. As I serve here and see God at work changing lives, I ask for your prayers for continued favor in this community and for their openness to the Gospel.”
By having local church planters like Getachew, who know and understand the unreached villages where they serve, these indigenous missionaries are able to successfully share the Good News and restore hope in the most distant and dark corners of the world.
Globally, the number of unreached people groups is sobering. According to the Joshua Project, over 7,000 such groups constitute more than 42% of the world’s total population. Each group presents unique challenges –linguistic barriers, geographical isolation, governmental restrictions, or cultural opposition to Christian teachings.
The time to change that is now. There are still billions of people in the world waiting to hear the life-changing message of Jesus. It is not that they have already heard the Gospel and rejected it, it is that they have never even been given the chance to hear it. These people live in rural villages where there is no indigenous community of believing Christians able to evangelize them. These are the unreached.
We –all of us– are at the forefront of responding to this call. We are not just asking Christians to join this cause—God has already called us to it in the Great Commission—we are asking:
How Many?
CHURCHES will you plant
PEOPLE will you reach
VILLAGES will you transform
Like the Good Shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine to find the one lost sheep, we too embrace a vision where even one unreached person is too many and believe that now is the time to change that!
Let’s all come together to affirm our commitment to go wherever the Gospel is not yet known. Let’s be the ones with beautiful feet, sharing the Good News with every corner of the globe. Together, let’s answer the call.
