The Unfinished Task

God is on the move! He is superintending the events of our time. He is the source of the world’s growing spiritual thirst. That means that now is the time to act!

It was nearly two thousand years ago that Jesus challenged His Church with the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations. Today, as we rapidly approach the 21st century, we are nearing a milestone that Christians once only dreamed of reaching. Within sight for the first time ever is a goal that for centuries has ignited the hearts of missionaries: “A church for every people and the Gospel for every person.”

This great “Unfinished Task” is the motivational goal of the AD2000 & Beyond Movement—not only that it be done, but that it be done by the end of the millennium—by December 31, 2000!

Perhaps this overwhelming goal sounds too ambitious, too far-reaching. But consider for a moment Coca-Cola’s well-publicized goal to place “a Coke in the hand of every person on earth by the year 2000.” If reaching the entire world with a soft drink is not too ambitious for a business corporation, how much more should Christ’s own Church be committed to reaching that same world, in the same time frame, with the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ?

A hundred years ago, evangelist D. L. Moody said concerning the spread of the Gospel to the whole world by the end of 1900, “It can be done; it ought to be done; it must be done.” However, five years before the end of the century, his colleague, A.T. Pierson, conceded, “We despaired of hope.”

Today, a few years before the end of our century and millennium, hope and anticipation have regained the upper hand over despair and pessimism. More than 4,000 Christian leaders representing 186 countries have committed themselves in writing to the goal of a church for every people and the Gospel for every person by the year 2000. With that common goal in sight, they gathered in May of 1995 for the Global Consultation on World Evangelization (GCOWE ‘95) in Seoul, Korea, which Ralph Winter—founder of the U.S. Center for World Mission—said may have been “the most strategic Christian gathering in history.”

It is apparent, then, that many Christian leaders from around the world believe “The Unfinished Task” can indeed be finished. They have committed themselves and their resources to the effort, joining hands to seek completion of the task in this century. Embracing the conviction of D. L. Moody, they have accepted even more strongly that, “It can be done; it ought to be done; it must be done.”

It Can Be Done!

The first thing we must understand about the goal of “a church for every people and the Gospel for every person” is that the greatest portion of the task has already been done. As Operation World author Patrick Johnstone (Chairman of the AD2000 Unreached Peoples Network) has observed, “There is cause for much praise to God in the progress over the past 200 years, and more especially in the past 30, and cautious hope for the initial attainment of our goals.”