Children: An Unreached People Group

An unreached people group is described as the following: “an unreached people group refers to an ethnic group without an indigenous, self-propagating Christian church movement. Any ethnic or ethnolinguistic nation without enough Christians to evangelize the rest of the nation is an "unreached people group.”

According to Joshua Project there are nearly 4,000 unreached people groups. Most of those are located in the portion of the world known as the 10/40 Window. That’s 10 degrees parallel and 40 degrees parallel. Those areas include India, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Why am I talking about this on a kids ministry blog?  It’s because I believe we need to reach an unreached people group that’s ALWAYS changing.

When you look at the world’s Christians, especially in the United States, most of them came to Christ between their 4th and 14th birthday. Barna research spent significant resources a few years ago to figure out that number is between 60-70 percent. That means if you have a church of 500, at least 300 of them have been walking with the Lord since they were 14.

We know why this is. Kids hearts are more receptive to the Gospel during these ages. If you continue looking at the research, the number of people who come to Christ later is life falls incredibly as hearts harden. There’s good and bad news to this.

First, the good news. God is using ministry to kids in incredible ways. Groups like Child Evangelism Fellowship, Awana Clubs, Keys for Kids and others are seeing countless numbers of children giving their hearts to Christ. The stories are amazing. At Keys for Kids alone we’ve seen families up to four generations come to Christ because of this ministry that started in 1942.

Jesus tried to help us understand this when He was here on earth. That’s why He talked about the children the way he did. He said, “Let the little children come to me.” “Unless you come to me as a little child, you can’t enter the kingdom of Heaven.” He loved children. I think He created them to want to know Him. But, sin clouds our judgement as we get older.

Now, the bad news. According to 4/14 Ministry leaders, the average church is spending just three percent of their budget on children’s ministry. Three percent.  Why?  This is the most foundational, effective, and efficient use of ministry dollars. Instead, most churches are spending 97-percent of their funding on people who are already Christians, or those whose chances of coming to Christ are small.

I’m NOT saying don’t do outreach to adults anymore. But, I am say this -- as an investor, would you support a company that’s more or less likely to turn a profit?  Would you support a company you knew had a 60-70 percent chance of accomplishing its mission, or would you risk it all going after that five or six percent?  I think we all know the answer to that question.

So, let me encourage you today to do something. James 1:22 says to be a doer of the Word, not just a hearer. Being a doer can mean different things. It can mean actually going and doing the work of evangelism and discipleship with kids. It could mean being a prayer warrior. Or, it may mean being a financial investor with groups like Keys for Kids.

We currently have a $97,000 need to help  build for our future. The dollars raised would be used to create a state of the art mobile app and website that kids not only need to be on, but want to be on. It helps us create some new programming for radio stations that will allow the world to know about our resources for kids and their families. It provides for our marketing and development needs to help fund all of these on-going expenses once they’re created.