Most Effective Form of Evangelism is E-1 By Nationals. However, 4/5th of unreached do not live near any Christian!

“Let us straightforwardly concede right here that, all other things being equal, the national worker always has a communication advantage over the foreigner …………E-1 evangelism – where a person communicates to his own people – is obviously the most potent kind of evangelism. People need to hear the Gospel in their own language. Can we believe God intends for them to hear it from people who speak without a trace of accent? The foreign missionary communicator may be good, but he is not good enough. If it is so important for Americans to have thirty translations of the New Testament to choose from, and even a “Living Bible,” which allows the Bible to speak in colloquial English, then why must many peoples around the world suffer along with a Bible that was translated for them by a foreigner, and thus almost inevitably speaks to them in halting phrases?

This is why the easiest, most obvious surge forward in evangelism in the world today will come if Christian believers in every part of the world are moved to reach outside their churches and win their cultural near neighbours to Christ. They are better able to do that than any foreign missionary. It is a tragic perversion of Jesus’ strategy if we continue to send missionaries to do the job that local Christians can do better. There is no excuse for a missionary in the pulpit when a national can do the job better. There is no excuse for a missionary to be doing evangelism on an E-3 basis, at an E-3 distance from the people, when there are local Christians who are effectively winning the same people as part of their E-1 sphere.

In view of the profound truth that (other things being equal) E-1 evangelism is more powerful than E-2 or E-3 evangelism, it is easy to see how some people have erroneously concluded that E-3 evangelism is therefore out-of-date, due to the wonderful fact that there are now Christians throughout the whole world. It is with this perspective that major denominations in the US, have at some points acted on the premise that there is no more need for missionaries of the kind who leave home to go to a foreign country and struggle with a totally strange language and culture. There premise is that “there are Christians over there already”……..

With the drastic fall-off in the value of the US- Dollar and the tragic shrinking of U.S. church budgets, some US. denominations have had to curtail their missionary activity to an unbelievable extent, and they have in part tried to console themselves by saying that it is time for the national church to take over. In our response to this situation, we must happily agree that wherever there are local Christians effectively evangelizing, there is nothing more potent than E-1 evangelism.

However, the truth about the superior power of E-1 evangelism must not obscure the obvious fact that E-1 evangelism is literally impossible where there are no witnesses within a given language or cultural group.

…………. Far from being a task that is now out-of-date, the shattering truth is that at least 4 out of 5 (4/5^th) non-Christians in the world today are beyond the reach of any Christians E-1 evangelism. Why is this fact not widely known? I’m afraid that all our exultation about the fact that every country of the world has been penetrated has allowed many to suppose that every culture has by now penetrated. This misunderstanding is a malady so widespread that it deserves a special name. Let us call it “people blindness” that is, blindness to the existence of separate peoples within countries- a blindness (pg113)

(Crucial Dimensions on World Evangelisation, Arthur F. Glasser, Paul G. Hiebert C Peter Wagner, Ralph D. Winter. William Carey Library 1980 pg 111- 113)