GOING BEYOND THE CUTOFF POINTS

By Colin Stott, Acting International Coordinator, Global Recording Network (GRN)

It was very encouraging at GCOWE (the Global Consultation on World Evangelism held in Seoul, Korea in May 1995) to hear reports and strategies from many ministries and to see the wide variety of works that God has raised up in these last days. Each of us has our own special task to do. Others can do things we could never hope to accomplish, while we are able to do things others cannot. Functioning under the Lordship of Christ, we can each truly complement one another. 　

The more I listened to the reports, the more I saw how useful GRN can be in the Great Commission. As I reflected on what I was hearing, an image came to mind of a line of people standing at a lunch counter. They were lined up in order of their size--the bigger ones at one end and the smaller ones at the other. The food was always served starting at the end where the bigger people were. The only problem was that the food usually ran out before getting to those at the other end of the line. Not only that, the smaller ones were too small to reach up and take from the counter anyway. 　

In this analogy, the line of people represents people groups. It seems that most ministries and media resources usually start at one end of the people group line, working from the largest on down to the smallest. However, because of practical or economic considerations, most ministries have a cutoff point beyond which it is not feasible or viable for them to continue. 　

For example, missionary radio broadcasts, while wanting to reach the whole through radio, find that it is really only practical to target groups of over one million speakers. 　

Bibles and literature are only useful to the half of the world's population that are readers which means that most of those at the end of the line do without. And Scriptures on cassette can only be made available to the people who have the translated scriptures. 　

The "Jesus" film is primarily being translated into languages where there are over 50,000 speakers. 　

Even the "AD2000 & Beyond Movement" has a list of "Least Evangelized Peoples" - significant ethno-linguistic groups in which they believe a pioneer church plantiring movement is needed. And they define significant as meaning over 10,000 individuals!　

So, as I was hearing all of the reports, I thought, "What about those at the tail-end of the line?" Those groups with populations under 10,000 are seldom candidates for receiving the Word of Life. More than likely, by virtue of their smallness, they rarely qualify to be on anyone's priority list. 　

By no means is this meant as a criticism of those who, by necessity, are targeting the larger groups. It would be impractical for them to do otherwise. And I know there are faithful missionaries working among some of the smaller groups. But it struck me with renewed impact that GRN has focused on and should intentionally continue to focus on those at the tail-end of the line. 　

Reaching out to those from the other end of the line - giving priority to the "tail-enders" - enables us to fill a crucial niche in the Great Commission that is so often overlooked.

God has given GRN a very practical tool for reaching the "tail-enders" - one that allows us to communicate with them quite economically in terms of time and money. 　

This deliberate focus of starting at the tail-end of the line could be called a Strategic Language Initiative, because it is strategic to give people the Gospel for the first time, and unless we specifically take initiative, then these peoples may continue to be denied access to the Truth.

We know from the Book of Revelation that the "Bride of Christ" will be made up of those from every language - not just those from language groups of over a certain number. May God motivate and move us to make deliberate plans to go to the opposite end of the line - to go beyond the cutoff points and preach Christ to those who are still waiting for their first opportunity to hear of Him.