Most Christians are familiar with Jesus’ command, the Great Commission, to make disciples of all nations.
But with the average Christian giving less to mission than the cost of a coffee, once a month, it appears that the church is omitting the commission, it was concluded in December by Gospel for Asia.
Approximately 2 billion people still wait to hear the gospel for the very first time. According to World Christian Trends, the average church member gives less than £2.50 per week. When it comes to the amount given — whether finances or Christian resources such as books, radios, and bibles — it’s hard to find evidence that fulfilling the great commission is a priority.
Gospel for Asia has gone so far as to conclude that the Great Commission is actually being omitted from our lives, and from our pursuit of God. Jesus said: ‘Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’ The vast majority of our treasure, it seems, goes to reach the Christian world with the gospel – 96.8% of Christian expenditure, according to the Atlas of Global Christianity. Less than 0.3% of giving from foreign missions actually goes to reach people who are currently un-evangelised.
There is enough evangelism in the world today for each person on the planet to hear a one-hour gospel presentation every other day, all year long. However, the majority of gospel preaching goes predominately to Christians in Christian countries. That’s why, according to the Lausanne Movement, not only have 86% of all Hindus and Muslims not heard the gospel, but they don’t even know a single Christian.
Gospel for Asia’s latest campaign, the Great Omission, is seeking to help believers understand this huge vacuum. ‘The problem’, says GFA UK Coordinator John-Paul Dao, ‘isn’t that we’re reaching out to our Christian world too much, but that our daily decisions to choose small things that the world offers us are crowding out our care for the unreached. In Matthew 6:24 Jesus tells us that we cannot serve both God and money, and we’re seeing Jesus’ words played out before us. The Great Commission is being omitted because of our love for the world. It has become our Great Omission. Unless we decide to omit different aspects of the world from our lives, we’ll never fulfil the Great Commission.’
One Gospel for Asia volunteer, Rowina Seidler, was so disturbed by this reality that she created a short video exposing this Great Omission. You can watch the video and find out what you can do about it at www.greatomission.org.
