CAPE TOWN, South Africa–“You are needed to go to people who have never been reached,” said Paul Eshleman, founder of the JESUS Film Project. Visibly moved, he told the Third Lausanne Congress, “What is God already telling us to do that we are not doing?” he asked as he called 4,000 evangelicals from 198 nations to focus on the most neglected people of the world – people who have no Scripture in their language and no workers committed to reaching them.

Eshleman reminded participants that noted missiologist Ralph Winter told the original Lausanne Congress in 1974 that reaching the nations is a task that can be completed.

Urging the Congress to keep evangelism at the core of its purpose, he told them that 2,252 language groups do not have even one verse of Scripture translated, and voiced his hope that thousands of teams of “Scripture servants” would result from this Congress meeting in Cape Town, South Africa.

Eshleman introduced a young woman Misty* who gave a gripping testimony of moving into a Muslim community and living with a Muslim family to make Christ’s love known. With the help of the family’s daughter, she translated 46 Bible stories into the local dialect and was able to share them with others, see people accept Christ, be baptized and share their faith with others.

Speaking of the goodness of the people she had gone to reach, Misty said that she experienced the death of her brother while there and “40 Muslim women came dressed in black to cry with me.”

Three priorities are vital to reaching the world, said Eshleman. First, evangelism must remain central. “How many people are hearing today?” should be the question. Second, the Gospel has to be delivered through media that is appropriate to time and culture. Cell phone videos are already being widely used to lead people to Christ, and need to be used even more, he said. Third, the global church must focus on reaching the Muslim world.

The unremitting evangelist said that 639 groups of unreached people groups were identified five years ago as being “unengaged” by “Table 71”, a partnership of several of the largest mission organizations including Campus Crusade, the International Mission Board, Wycliffe Translators, and Youth With a Mission.

Since then, through the Finishing the Task initiative, evangelicals have cooperated to place workers among 470 of the groups. There are now 225,000 believers among those groups and 8,000 new churches.

Many of those unreached people groups have been engaged by Southern Baptist IMB workers, and hundreds more of the groups have been adopted by Southern Baptist prayer advocates.

Still the needs are great. Eshleman said that as he has often heard, “We didn’t know!” as he shared the overwhelming needs of unreached people groups with other evangelicals. “Now you know!” he said.

Participants were given an updated listing of unreached people groups and asked to seriously consider committing to reach one of them.

*Name changed