Unreached: God's Story

Over the last couple of weeks, we've read about some people who the Holy Spirit used to help change that way that Jesus' followers told God's story. They worked hard, and they were a blessing to a lot of people. Do you remember that word?

Being a blessing meant that they showed the world how good and how big God is. It is the job that God first gave to Eve and Adam and then to all of his people, including me and you. And, the job of being a blessing to the whole world isn't over yet.

But, me and you, we're pretty lucky. Do you know why?

You're right. We're lucky for a lot of reasons. One of those reasons is that we are alive right now, in 2013. Because, in 2013, God's people have a pretty good idea of where in the world Jesus' followers have and haven't gone to be a blessing. In fact, we even have a list of all the places that we still need to go! We call that list a list of Unreached People Groups. Can you say that?

Unreached people groups, that's right. An unreached people group is a group of people, who all speak the same language and have the same ways of doing life, who don't have enough – or even any! - people like them to tell them about how big and how good God is. There is no one like them who knows God's story and can be a blessing.

They need someone who isn't like them to come and be a blessing, just like Peter and the rest of Jesus' followers learned to do way back in the book of Acts. An unreached people group needs someone to come from somewhere else, another city, another country, even another continent, to tell them God's story in a way that they can understand. (We'll talk another week about what that type of story telling might look like.)

Now, lots of Jesus' followers want to be a blessing. In fact, they all should. But, not all of Jesus' followers like the idea of being a blessing to someone so far away or so different from them. So, instead of spending money and time and resources to go to unreached people groups, a lot of the time and money and resources that God's people give away, they give to people who are close by and pretty much the same as they are...

Download a PDF of the entire story here and click on the activity pages below to download.