APOSTOLIC FUNCTION: GOING WHERE JESUS IS NOT KNOWN

When I walk out my door, I am surrounded by millions of people, most of whom are Buddhists but also many Muslims. I walk through slums filled with the most drastic and complex human problems. And I don’t see a line of apostles, megachurch leaders, or Christian superstars waiting to get in and grapple with those realities. I don’t wake up in the morning feeling apostolic. But the sheer weight of a glorious living God who loves each of these millions He uniquely created and the compassion of Jesus for multitudes that are harassed and helpless compels me to respond. So I say: “Here I am, Lord. Use me to take and be Your good news in this place. I will take responsibility to do what You ask me to do here.”

I have come to call this response “apostolic function.” People get all hung up on the word apostle, either because they want to call themselves one and take authority over others, or they don’t feel like one, so they sit on the sidelines waiting for someone they think is better qualified. Apostolic function is different. It means that in the face of phenomenal need, the Bible's mandate, and the Spirit's burden, we step up to the plate to act in an apostolic fashion to go where Jesus is not known. Whether we feel like it or not.

Our world needs thousands of new teams of people who will band together, like the early apostolic bands we read about in Acts, to penetrate the final ethnolinguistic groups of our world that have yet to hear and see a relevant rendering of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

If we wait until we feel apostolic, the job will never get done. Are you ready to step up to the plate and ask God to use you in this way?

We live in a world with a shameful division: Large numbers of people have nearly unlimited potential access to the gospel via Christians, churches, and media in their sociocultural setting, while other vast blocs of humanity have either none of these or have them in very limited number. The sad fact is that today, the vast majority of mission effort—some have estimated it at 97 percent—is misguidedly done among those who have the greatest access to the good news. It has become Christians from one place going to Christians in another place to help them and tragically neglecting those who have no one in their culture to share and demonstrate the love of Jesus.

The crying need is for people who will step up to the plate and be willing, with God’s help, to function apostolically—to commit to leading or joining a team that will focus its efforts on bringing the gospel to a people group that currently has no access.

LIVE DEAD CHALLENGE

To work in apostolic function means you have to travel light. Make an inventory of your life and how you spend your finances and time. What would need to change if you joined an apostolic band, a team, reaching an unreached people group? Spend time at Joshua Project's website and learn about unreached people groups in our world today. Now that you know about the unreached pass that knowledge on to others and encourage them to begin praying for those who have never heard or responded in the Buddhist, Muslim, and Hindu worlds.

UNREACHED PEOPLE GROUP: ANTAISAKA

More than one million Antaisaka people live in the southeastern rainforest of Madagascar near the town of Vangiandrano. They are the most unreached tribe in Madagascar, mainly because poor roads and trails make access to their region difficult. The Antaisaka bury their dead in a communal burial house called a kibory. The corpses, wrapped like mummies, are prepared and then left to dry out for two or three years before being placed in the burial house. The next time you see a mummy on television or in a magazine, pray for the Antaisaka people.