During its report to Southern Baptists on June 13, the International Mission Board celebrated 79 new missionaries and announced a new effort to send “missionary explorers” to 3,000 people groups not yet engaged with the gospel.
Paul Chitwood, IMB president, explained the scope of Project 3000 after messengers heard the stories of the soon-to-be-sent missionaries during the Sending Celebration.
“As an expression of our commitment to pursue every people group on earth, the International Mission Board has identified the remaining 3,072 people groups that no one has been engaging with the gospel until now,” he said.
‘Key part of entry’
This week, IMB is launching Project 3000 to send out 300 new “missionary explorers,” each assigned to scout out 10 of those remaining groups.
“Each missionary explorer will find their assigned unengaged, unreached people group, research them, get to know them, find out where they live, learn their culture, discern their literacy, share the gospel with them and determine strategies,” Chitwood said.
The explorers will also become prayer warriors for the group and find national partners to work alongside them, he said.
“In so doing, these missionary explorers will play a key part of entry in the missionary task, cultivating gospel access among the least-reached peoples of the earth,” Chitwood said.
After that, IMB teams will continue the work, moving the group from unengaged to engaged and then reached.
Chitwood said IMB plans to send out the first 100 missionaries through Project 3000 “this very year.”
They will often work in rugged places where they may only be able to go with a backpack and may not have resources like internet access, but their sacrifice is worth it to see the lost reached, he said.
He challenged Southern Baptists to consider if they might be up to the task of going, or if they would be willing to support missionary explorers as a prayer partner and through financial generosity.
“Today more than half of the world’s population lives among the unreached peoples of the world,” Chitwood said. “In Matthew 28, God calls His people to action through the Great Commission. In Revelation, He gives a beautiful vision of the heavenly worship that will someday take place when that great multitude … will join together in worship.”
Today, Southern Baptists are living between the Great Commission and the great multitude, and their support of the mission is vital, he said.
It’s a “great work” that Southern Baptists were a part of in 2022 through record Lottie Moon Christmas Offering giving plus more than $100 million in Cooperative Program funds. Last year, IMB missionaries planted 21,000 churches in 122 countries and shared the gospel with 728,000 people, 178,000 of whom professed faith in Jesus, Chitwood said. More than 100,000 of those were baptized.
“Thank you for continuing to count the cause of those 3,500 missionaries and their 2,700 children as your own,” he said. “I hope you’ve been able to see our growing desire to serve you and your church. We want those missionaries to feel like they are your own because indeed they are.”
‘We need more’
Through the Church Connections effort this past year, every IMB missionary was given a list of churches to cultivate relationships with “in order to give your church a very up-close view of what is happening around the world through your missionaries,” he said. “We want the work that your church is doing to have a name, to have a face, to have a family.”
Chitwood challenged Southern Baptists to stay committed to supporting their missionaries as well as new IMB missionaries as they work toward the goal of Revelation 7:9.
“For 178 years, you have obeyed the Great Commission by sending missionaries overseas through your International Mission Board,” he said.
The 79 new missionaries who shared their stories during the Sending Celebration are part of that, coming from 44 churches in 19 states and heading to 33 countries.
“The need for gospel presence in the world is greater now than any other time in human history, and these brothers and sisters long to be that presence,” Chitwood said.
And, he added, “We need more.”
Chitwood noted that in 1979 when the world’s population was 4.3 billion people, the IMB had a little more than 3,000 missionaries on the field. Now, with nearly double the world population, the number of IMB missionaries is only up 500.
“In a single decade, between 2008 and 2018, a total of 2,000 of your IMB missionaries came home never to be replaced because of the lack of financial support,” he said.
Chitwood said he recognizes “there are countless other overseas sending organizations and groups that your church can support and partner with, and many of them we work with around the world, and we thank God for them and for their impact.”
But he reminded Southern Baptists that there is only one sending organization that belongs to them, ascribes to the Baptist Faith & Message and answers to the trustees from their churches and the messengers of the convention.
Southern Baptists are investing more than $1 billion every year in shoeboxes, child sponsorships and other non-Baptist causes, Chitwood said.
Donning an oversized baseball cap and showing off a matching uniform with “International Mission Board” emblazoned across the front, he asked Southern Baptists to “keep cheering for the home team, which is the IMB.”
“We cannot tell our own sons and daughters ‘we can’t afford to send your beautiful feet to the nations to proclaim the gospel’ simply because a non-Baptist group spends more on marketing, while we are committed to spending more on the work,” he said.
For more information about Project 3000, visit imb.org/missionary-explorer.
To view more photos from the IMB report, click here.
To view more photos from the Sending Celebration, click here.
