{"id":4072,"date":"2010-01-19T10:45:41","date_gmt":"2010-01-19T14:45:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/?p=4072"},"modified":"2010-01-19T10:45:41","modified_gmt":"2010-01-19T14:45:41","slug":"painting-by-numbers-with-words-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/2010\/01\/19\/painting-by-numbers-with-words-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Painting by numbers with words, 2"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>
A Mibu man teaches others to read.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In our first painting, you saw a picture of a man who had to resolve to wait for the Gospel to come to his people.<\/p>\n

But why?<\/p>\n

Missionaries had shared the Gospel with the Mibu people, and now the Mibus were reaching out to share the Good News with another group. Why couldn\u2019t the missionaries leave the Mibus and share the Gospel with the man\u2019s people, or send out another groups of Mibus to his people?<\/p>\n

Because the number is two.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how many people groups that a ministry in that stage can effectively reach.<\/p>\n

The missionaries are done evangelizing the Mibus, sure. But that multi-year process is just the beginning of planting a church. There\u2019s still a lot of discipling to do. Leaders need to be identified and trained. The Bible needs to be translated. And Mibu evangelists need to learn to share God\u2019s Word with other people groups. That\u2019s more than a full-time job for the missionary team.<\/p>\n

And the Mibu evangelists have their hands full just learning what they need to do in order to be effective in sharing God\u2019s Word with one other group \u2013 in one unique culture and language. They can\u2019t effectively handle another outreach.<\/p>\n

But surely there\u2019s some urgency here. The man in the story we shared last time is elderly, and he was wondering if he\u2019d be able to hear the Gospel before he died. Doesn\u2019t that make it worth sharing the Gospel, even it\u2019s not going to be terribly effective?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a really good question. There are times and places in which you need to simply share the Gospel as effectively as possible, knowing the results are always up to God. The decision of when that is or is not appropriate is best left to the people on the ground, who would have to make that choice to be less effective in one or two additional people groups to make time to share the Gospel in a third.<\/p>\n

With more than 100 people groups already asking NTM to send them missionaries today, it\u2019s not unusual for our folks to face that kind of choice.<\/p>\n

And I think the bigger question is, what are you and I going to do about that?<\/p>\n

These missionaries have left home and family and friends to work hard to help plant churches wherever God sends them. I\u2019m not sure it\u2019s right for us to question whether they ought to be doing more, until we\u2019re as personally invested in praying and giving and going and helping others go.<\/p>\n

And if we were, I doubt there would be a need for those missionaries to make such difficult choices.<\/p>\n

What are you going to do about that?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In our first painting, you saw a picture of a man who had to resolve to wait for the Gospel to come to his people. But why? Missionaries had shared the Gospel with the Mibu people, and now the Mibus were reaching out to share the Good News with another group. Why couldn\u2019t the missionaries […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[98],"class_list":["post-4072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-ministry","tag-painting","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4072\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}