MissionsResearch
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Missions Research
What is Missions Research
Missions Research is the process of tracing the impact of missions strategies and the progress of the Gospel. This is done by collecting and using data about the current state of the progress of the Gospel, and looking at it the light of past collections of the same information.
We do not have access to all aspects of missions history, so much of the information of the past is built off the best historical data that could be found. Current data is much more complete, but still lacking. There are many positions available for people desiring to work towards compiling current missions information.
Missions Research has been around for many years, but there has been a recent emphasis on it since the start of the information age. People started asking questions like, "what groups are covered by 'every tongue, tribe, and nation?'" and "how many languages do we need to translate the Bible into, anyway?" From these questions, a number of research entities began to collect and collate information.
Impact of Missions Research
There are a number of areas that missions research impacts.
Mobilization
As we gather more data, stories, and information, mission mobilizers have more information to draw from. And the more we see the complete picture, it lets us explain the needs around the world more.
One good example of this was the focus of AD 2000, and the various ministries that spawned from it. During the lifetime of AD 2000, a great deal of focus was spent on raising up an awareness of the many unreached peoples so that we could raise up missionaries and churches to reach them. Adopt A People Group is geared towards helping churches and groups reach the unreached such that every People Group has a church trying to reach it. These are examples of how missions research impacts mobilization.
Prayer
Operation World is one good example of how missions research helps us focus on prayer. Operation World started as a book that helped people pray through the world, focusing on one area at a time. It now has a very nice online presence and you can subscribe to the prayer-list to get one prayer-request per day and pray through the world over the course of a year.
Improving Effectiveness of Ministries
Research helps improve missions effectiveness in many ways.
- It lets us find ministries that are no-longer effective
- It lets us find cities that have a very high ratio of missionaries to target-people-group.
- It lets us find cities that have a very low ratio of missionaries to target-people-group
- It helps us find types of outreaches that might be effective to reach a specific people-group by finding ministries that were effective with similar people-groups. (see Vernacular Media Services)
Finding Missing Pieces
It was through missions research that the 10 / 40 window was discovered. The 10 / 40 window is the area of the world that holds the majority of the least reached peoples.
The 4 / 14 window was also realized through missions research. The 4 / 14 Window describes the age-group that is statistically most receptive to hearing the Gospel.
Missions Trends
We can also see trends in missions, from which countries give more money to missions and which countries send more missionaries, to the countries that have the "least reached" peoples in them. These trends can alert us to the changes in the countries around the world and help us catch issues as they are coming up.