30 November 2011

By Scott Tompkins | ResonateNews.com

LONG BEACH, Calif. — When Jesus Christ told his followers to “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation,” this “Great Commission” seemed like an impossible dream for 2,000 years. It isn’t any more.

Church and missionary leaders gathered in Long Beach, Calif., as the Call2All Global Congress opened its meetings this week with striking new evidence of the spread of Christianity around the globe. Walt Wilson, a former Apple Inc vice president who now heads an Internet-based initiative called Global Media Outreach, gave one of the most talked-about presentations of Day 1. He said technology enables Christian evangelism to proliferate like never before.

“There are now 5.5 billion cell phones in the world and the number keeps growing. An estimated 710 million Indians now have cell phone access and so do a billion Chinese,” Wilson said.

He demonstrated the SIRI voice recognition technology, which answers spoken questions and is now available on all iPhones.

“By  2015 we will be able to have this technology in all major languages,” Wilson said.

Wilson told the delegates his Global Media Outreach websites now receive about 500,000 questions about Jesus per day in a variety of languages, and 55,000 of those inquirers made decisions for Christ. He said some days they receive as many as two million inquiries. Questions are answered by his team of 8,000 online missionaries scattered around the globe.

“The spiritual hunger in the world is overwhelming,” Wilson said. “We are the generation of the 'Great Commission.' Never before did we have the technology to reach all of humanity. Now we hold the technology in our hand. Let’s not miss this opportunity.”

Wilson was joined on the podium by other speakers who were equally enthusiastic about completing the mandate of Christ in this generation.

“God is radically accelerating things,” Call2All President Mark Anderson said. “Some 1,400 organizations have been engaged in the Call2All movement since it began in 2007. Those participants have launched initiatives toward 641 of the 1,043 unreached people groups identified at that time,” Anderson said, referring to ethnic groups in which Christianity is not widely known about or practiced.

“There have been 13,000 new church plants and 650,000 new believers in just five years."

Samuel Chiang, global coordinator of the International Orality Network, said new initiatives are under way to bring the Christian message to the 350 million people who have no written language and who pass on their history and traditions through storytelling. Chiang said, “I truly believe the 'Great Commission' can be completed in our lifetime.”

Steve Douglass, president of Campus Crusade for Christ, gave the keynote message on the conference’s first day and identified “Ten objective reasons why I believe it is possible to fulfill the Great Commission in our lifetime.”

“Yes. It’s happening before our eyes. I have a 42-year perspective,” said Douglass, referencing major growth of Christianity in the world’s two largest nations — China and India.

Three of his key reasons for belief that the Christian message is going to reach all people are: “God’s people are praying more. Millions have been mobilized since 1984 in a global prayer movement. Secondly, God’s people are planning more, trying to focus on unreached peoples. And God’s people are working together more in efforts like Call2All.”

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