What difference do words make? We are inundated with words every minute of every day. It is hard to separate out the truly significant from just noise. It can be exhausting, but when we do make that distinction, the results can be earth-shaking and life-changing. When the apostle John wrote, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God,” it changed everything. When Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Church, it started a revolution of faith. And for 46 years, we have published Mission Frontiers magazine in the hope that the words we publish will likewise change the course of world evangelization—catalyzing kingdom breakthrough in every people group so that every person may have access to the gospel.
In every issue of MF, we seek to inspire, encourage, and equip every faithful follower of Jesus to effective action on behalf of the unreached peoples so that kingdom movements will emerge in every people group on earth. We seek to provide the best strategies and insights so that we can work with the Holy Spirit to overcome obstacles and see increased progress in reaching the unreached. Following are some examples of how our many words made a difference.

MF Casts the Vision that Births a New Network

In our May–Aug 1996 issue of MF, we featured the topic of “Worship and Missions.” One of our readers was Dr. Robin Harris. She told her story in our Sept/Oct 2014 issue.
“God launched my personal journey into ethno-doxology (ethnic worship) with the 1996 May/Aug edition of MF. In the late ’90s, I was beginning a decade of cross-cultural service with my husband and family in
Siberia, and that MF issue, hand-carried to us on the field, rocked my world. Its seminal articles by pioneers in arts and mission served as a clarion call to service for me and others in this movement. The issue presented a
vision for combining worship and local arts in ministry—an idea that changed our lives forever.”1
Robin went on to edit the Ethnodoxology Handbook and Manual and founded a whole new movement that became known as the Global Ethnodoxology Network. In our Sept/Oct 2023 issue of MF we celebrated the 20th anniversary of the creation of this network.
In that issue, the late Jo-Ann Richards Golfe tells her story, starting on page 11, by saying, “I remember that 1996 May/Aug Mission Frontiers issue like it was yesterday. When I read Tom Avery and Jack Popje’s articles, light bulbs went off in my head. I immediately said to myself: “That’s what I want to do!” I had already accepted God’s invitation to join him in global mission, but I had no idea specifically what my role was until I read those two articles.”2
The Global Ethnodoxology Network now involves hundreds of practitioners who are working tirelessly to bring meaningful, heartfelt, indigenous worship to all peoples. This network has literally changed the course of world evangelization—and they are just getting started. At MF, we are overjoyed to have played a small part in the creation of this essential network. This is the power of the printed word in the hands of the Holy Spirit.

MF Helps to Catalyzes New Movements

In the Mar/Apr 2000 issue of MF, we reprinted portions of the booklet, Church Planting Movements by Dr. David Garrison.3 At that time, there were just a handful of movements where disciples were making new disciples and churches were planting new churches. The principles of multiplication of faith from one generation to another were revolutionary. Since the year 2000, the number of these movements have been doubling every few years so that today there are over 2,000 of these kingdom movements with over 110 million people involved. While we cannot claim credit for all this progress, at a critical time in history MF was there casting the vision for a powerful new strategy for ministry that has resulted in tremendous progress.

50 Unbelievable Years, 1974–2024

In 1974, Dr. Ralph Winter began calling the global church to reach the “hidden” or unreached peoples. He founded the U.S. Center for World Mission, now Frontier Ventures, the Perspectives course and Mission Frontiers magazine to wake up the church to the remaining missionary task. Through the vision cast by Mission Frontiers and other ministries, many people joined this effort to reach out to Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Tribal peoples and more. I was one of those who came alongside to help wake up the church. I joined Dr. Winter to help produce Mission Frontiers in 1990.
The results have been breathtaking. It took from the time of Jesus until 1974 to get to the point where 40% of the world lived in people groups that had access to the gospel. In just the past 50 years, another 35% of the world gained access to the gospel for a total of 75% having access to the gospel. This means that almost as much progress in world evangelization has been made in the past 50 years as in the previous 1,950 years. Could it be that Frontier Ventures and its publication, Mission Frontiers, have been part of the greatest move of God in the last 2,000 years? I think it is more than coincidental that our efforts to mobilize the Church
to reach the unreached peoples have coincided precisely with this tremendous progress. Can we take credit for all this progress? Of course not. Thousands, if not millions, of people have made this progress possible. But neither can we say that our efforts at mobilizing the Church through the written word had nothing to do with it. Like the person who calls the fire department to put out a fire cannot take all the credit for putting out the fire, the fire would not have been put out without that person calling the fire department for help.
In every endeavor in life that involves lots of people, success depends on visionary leaders who can point the way forward and provide effective strategies for reaching the goal. That is what we have sought to do through Mission Frontiers and Frontier Ventures.
As you can see from the stories above, we have had a good measure of success in mobilizing the global body of Christ with the vision necessary to complete world evangelization.
Throughout our 46 years of service, we have sought to be faithful in mobilizing the church with the vision to reach the unreached peoples. Fortunately, thousands of others have joined with us in this task and the results have been spectacular. We invite you to join with us in completing the task of bringing the gospel to every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.
Here are some things you can do to help:
1.     Tell others about MF and encourage them to subscribe.
2.     Download the PDF of each issue or your favorite articles and share them with others.
3.     Give to MF and to Frontier Ventures to help us carry on the work.
4.     Put MF or Frontier Ventures in your will so your giving may continue after your passing.
5.     Pray for us as we seek to extend the boundaries of the kingdom to every people.
Together we can work toward that day when every person in every people will have access to the gospel and Jesus will receive the worship and glory he deserves. The best is yet to come.