The apostle Paul was a pioneer missionary. His ambition was to preach the gospel where Christ hadn’t “already been named” (Rom. 15:20). A fire burned within him for those who’d never been told to “see,” for those who’d never heard to “understand” the message of God’s grace in Christ (Rom. 15:21). Although he spent much time laboring among churches, Paul always longed to move into “lands beyond” (2 Cor. 10:16).
But Paul understood not all gospel workers share his call. As he reminded the Corinthians, in God’s harvest some plant and others water (1 Cor. 3:5–9). In God’s building, some lay the foundation while others build on it (v. 10). These workers labor “as the Lord assigned to each” (v. 5). Some, like Paul in Corinth, are planters. Others, like Apollos, labor where the gospel has already taken root.
Today, in the world of missions, we tend to think of people groups in two categories: “reached” and “unreached.” But if, as Paul explained, some labor where others have sown, we can’t limit the church’s mission to pioneer work among the unreached. So where do waterers and builders serve? I want to suggest three additional categories of peoples and places that warrant missionary labors: the misreached, the once-reached, and the underreached.
Misreached
The “misreached” would include peoples and places where the gospel has arrived but in an impure form. Vast regions of the Global South fall into this category. There are countless professing Christians and churches in these areas, but many are the products of an anemic or false gospel.
Whether it be the result of Roman Catholicism, radical Pentecostalism, or some variety of the prosperity gospel, they’re Christian in name only. There may be an external form of Christianity that makes them look reached. They may even be labeled as “reached” and painted green on a map by well-meaning researchers of people groups. But they’re not Christian and they don’t have the gospel. They have a form of godliness, but the power of the gospel is absent (2 Tim. 3:5). Instead, they possess “a different gospel” which, Paul reminds us, is no gospel at all (Gal. 1:6–7).
Once-Reached
The “once-reached” are people and places where there once was a faithful gospel presence but where, at some point in history, the candlestick was removed from its place (Rev. 2:5). It’s interesting that the Middle East, now among the most unreached regions on earth, was once the epicenter for the burgeoning early church. Europe, once considered the “ends of the earth,” later became the birthplace of the Reformation and eventually of the modern missions movement. Today, however, Europe is among the most secular, atheistic places on the planet.
With the ebb and flow of the gospel throughout church history, many peoples and regions have moved back and forth between varying degrees of reached and unreached.
This reminds us of the complexity of our mission. We can’t view the Great Commission as a linear task to be fulfilled or finished. It’s a command to be perpetually obeyed. Boxes that were once checked become unchecked. Reached people often become once-reached.
We can’t view the Great Commission as a linear task to be fulfilled or finished. It’s a command to be perpetually obeyed.
Of course, the misreached and once-reached are in reality the unreached. They’re just not categorized that way by most missiologists. However, they’re just as needy. The lack of true believers in true churches rightly proclaiming God’s Word may leave the people in those places as unlikely to ever hear the true gospel in their lifetime as their counterparts in the 10/40 Window.
Underreached
Many who are normally considered “reached” fall into the category of “underreached.” These are people and places that have the true gospel but lack the health to grow, make disciples, and fend off false teaching.
There are many reasons for the existence of the underreached. In some cases, the gospel has been introduced in seed form by a traveling minister, but it was never cultivated to maturity. Sometimes the gospel has come through a well-meaning but misguided missionary who was eager to “finish the task” of world evangelism but didn’t stay and “finish the mission” of discipling converts and establishing churches. In other cases, people are underreached because local leaders were never identified or fully trained to shepherd the flock and rightly handle the Word (2 Tim. 2:2, 15).
At some point in the life of these “reached” peoples, the process of fully obeying the Great Commission through faithful, full-orbed church planting was cut short. They were never brought to full ecclesial health. As a result, existing churches are unhealthy at best or dying at worst.
In underreached areas, there’s often a constant threat from false teaching because no one was taught to “give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it” (Titus 1:9). As a result, they’re “children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine” (Eph. 4:14). Sometimes sin is rampant because the church was never taught to biblically address it.
Same Work, Different Needs
What do all these peoples and places need? They need Great Commission workers. In some cases, they need planters and foundation layers; in others, they need waterers and builders.
What do all these peoples and places need? They need Great Commission workers.
Given the realities of the misreached, once-reached, and underreached, I believe we should move beyond “unreached” and “reached” as the only labels for the peoples of the world. In missions, we need a more nuanced understanding of the diverse places where the gospel has gone. And we need a greater appreciation for the variety of missionaries needed for the task.
These laborers, Paul insisted to the Corinthians, shouldn’t be in competition. They are “God’s fellow workers” (1 Cor. 3:9). Each one is given a specific role and function. At the end of the day, “he who plants and he who waters are one” (v. 8). They’re essentially the same. They’re simply servants in God’s harvest, each one working in the field God assigns.
The Gospel Coalition