How to Develop a Heart for the Least-Reached This Year

Make a New Years’ resolution that will last for eternity.

Leaning across the table, about to enter my hula-hoop space, my friend looked me square in the eye and asked, “How did you become so passionate about the least-reached?”

I knew right then that I would have a sleepless night.

I love questions that make me stop and think. You know, the kind that poke not just at my actions but at my motives.

Why do I care so much about people I’ve never met? Why is it hard to keep my mouth shut about the 3.2 billion unreached people of the world? It hasn’t always been this way, so what led me here?

As I pondered my friend’s question, here’s what I discovered.

1. My passion for the least-reached is driven by my relationship with God and His Word.

From Genesis to Revelation, we see God valuing His glory above all else and working to make His name known through specific events in time. He blessed Israel to be a blessing. He anointed kings, sent prophets, and accomplished miracles. He commanded His people to pray for Him to send out laborers and He sent the Holy Spirit to empower that very work. All of this so that He would be known among all the nations.

If God’s heart is to be worshipped among all people, and if my heart is directly connected to His, how can His passion not be my passion?

Ideas to align your heart with God’s heart:

Read through the Bible in 2021 and keep a journal of every Scripture reference about God’s passion and plan for the nations.
Take a Perspectives course.
Set an alarm for 10:02 every day to pray to the Lord of the Harvest to send out workers. (See Luke 10:2.)

2. My passion for the least-reached is driven by intentionality.

It’s one thing to know God’s love for people intellectually, and it’s another to experience it in the faces of people He has made. Witnessing God at work among the least-reached — both through my own eyes and through the eyes of others — fuels my passion to be part of what He’s doing. But it doesn’t happen naturally; it has to be pursued deliberately.

Ideas to make the least-reached a priority:

Meet with disciple-makers who are home on furlough, or connect with ones on the field.
Read missionary biographies. Here’s a starter list.
Build cross-cultural relationships by getting to know people from other cultures in your own community.
Take a short-term trip to see the work God is doing in a least-reached country.

If you’re looking for a worthy New Years’ resolution, I challenge you to commit to developing a heart for the least-reached this year. It will not only last, but it will last for eternity.

Tell me if you’re taking the challenge.

Mark Silvers served in the Philippines for 10 years and is now Crossworld’s Director of Mobilization. Mark’s driving passion is to reach the 3.2 billion people in the world today with no access to the gospel.

This article is submitted by Mallory Barks of Crossworld. Crossworld is a Missio Nexus member. Member organizations can provide content to the Missio Nexus website. See how by clicking here.