by Lisa K. Lundy

My husband is better than me about praying for missionaries regularly. As I picked up his Open Windows devotional the other day to glance through it, I looked at the names of missionaries with birthdays on the prayer list. I noticed the familiar but mysterious “Last Frontier” listing. Have you ever wondered about the Last Frontier often mentioned in Southern Baptist missions? I confess, I grew up in GA and Acteens, but still didn’t really understand what the Last Frontier was. This term represents an important emphasis of international missions.

According to the International Mission Board[1], the Last Frontier includes people groups who are unreached and for whom most have little or no access to the gospel of Jesus Christ. When you hear this definition, do you think of some small tribe of people in a remote location? Actually, 28 percent of the world’s population, or 1.7 billion people, are included in the Last Frontier. In other words, more than one in four people in the world live in the Last Frontier. This includes 80 percent of the world’s poorest citizens. Sadly, the Last Frontier represents less than 5 percent of all missions work. It is difficult for missionaries to reach these people groups, in part because less than 10 percent have the New Testament or the Bible translated in their language.

The geographic region representing most of the Last Frontier is sometimes referred to as the 10/40 Window. The 10/40 Window is the rectangular region of North Africa, Middle East, and Asia between 10 degrees north and 40 degrees north latitude. This region includes the majority of the world’s Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists. While the 10/40 Window represents only one-third of the earth’s total land area, it represents nearly two-thirds of the world’s population.

There are lots of terrific resources online to help Christians understand and pray for the Last Frontier and the missionaries who serve in these areas. One great resource is the Joshua Project (www.joshuaproject.net). “The mission of Joshua Project is to help bring definition to the unfinished task of the Great Commission by identifying and highlighting the people groups of the world that have the least exposure to the gospel and the least Christian presence in their midst.”[2] The Joshua Project aims to identify ministry resources available to minister to the least-reached people groups in the world. They provide people group information for use by various mission agencies, denominations, churches, and missionaries to support the sharing of the gospel with the least-reached people groups.

Take some time this month to read about people groups included in the Last Frontier. Pray about how God might use you to reach these least-reached.

Lisa Lundy teaches public relations at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.