Praying for Workers in a World That Hasn’t Heard

“The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.”

Growing up as a pastor's kid in midwest America, prayer was not on the top of my daily to do list. To me, prayer was one of those things for the old ladies at church who liked to wake up early on Sunday mornings.

My Sunday morning highlight was grabbing a Starbucks venti iced caramel macchiato and rolling into church at the latest possible moment.

Let’s just say, even after growing up in the church, I was slow in realizing the value and power of prayer.

John Wesley once said, “God does nothing but by prayer, and everything with it.” Prayer isn’t just for the old church ladies, it is the means by which God moves and the nations experience transformation.

Luke 10:2

“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

In Luke 10, Jesus declares that the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few, and He calls us to pray earnestly for more laborers to be sent out.

The harvest is ready, but who will go and bring the good news?

The Harvest is Plentiful:

There are 3,4 billion people considered unreached.

An unreached people group is “an identifiable group of people distinguished by a distinct culture, language, or social class who lack a community of Christians able to evangelize the rest of the people group without outside help.”¹

Missiologists consider a people group unreached when less than 2% of the population follows Jesus.²

The good news is that many unreached people groups have neighboring groups with similar cultures and languages, and even churches that can help reach them.

The neighbors of unreached people groups are one of the most strategic ways to see the unreached reached.

Let's Pray

• Pray that Christians around the globe would have a growing desire to share the gospel with the people around them.

• Pray that barriers to the gospel would be removed.

• Pray for more missionaries, especially those who will go to unreached people groups.

The Workers are Few:

What if we were about to see the greatest missions movement the world had ever seen?

It is estimated that there are around 450,000 Christian missionaries serving across the globe. Some sources suggest that fewer than 10,000 of those have been sent from Germany, one of the most resourced nations in the world.

To reach 3.4 billion people, we are going to need many more people and resources.

In the final years of his life, Loren Cunningham, the founder of Youth With A Mission, felt God speak to him that the global Church is on the brink of seeing the largest missions movement in history.

He believed there could be 200,000 new missionaries sent into the nations.

For the sake of the lost hearing about Jesus, that is something worth praying for.

Let's Pray

• Pray that young Christians across the globe would step into world missions.
• From Germany, we are praying and believing for 10,000 new missionaries to be sent.
• Pray for the young people in your church, your youth group, maybe even your own family, to say yes to the call of missions.

References:

¹ Global Frontier Missions. (n.d.). What is a UPG? Retrieved from https://www.globalfrontiermissions.org/missions-101/the-unreached-peoples-and-their-role-in-the-great-commission 

² Joshua Project. (n.d.). Definition of Unreached? Retrieved from https://joshuaproject.net/resources/articles/why_include_adherents_when_defining_unreached 

³ Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. (January 2025). Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900–2050. Retrieved from https://www.gordonconwell.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2025/01/Status-of-Global-Christianity-2025.pdf