The Obligation of This Generation to Evangelize the World

Since tomorrow is the 52nd anniversary of the death of Missionary Statesman John R. Mott I thought you might all be interested in reading a short bio of his life. Also, you will find some amazing quotes from one of his most famous speeches "The Obligation of This Generation to Evangelize the World"

John R. Mott
The Nobel Peace Prize 1946
Biography
John Raleigh Mott (May 25, 1865-January 31, 1955) was born of pioneer stock in Livingston Manor, New York, the third child and only son among four children. His parents, John and Elmira (Dodge) Mott, moved to Postville, Iowa, where his father became a lumber merchant and was elected the first mayor of the town.

At sixteen, Mott enrolled at Upper Iowa University, a small Methodist preparatory school and college in Fayette. He was an enthusiastic student of history and literature there and a prizewinner in debating and oratory, but transferred to Cornell University in 1885. At this time he thought of his life's work as a choice between law and his father's lumber business, but he changed his mind upon hearing a lecture by J. Kynaston Studd on January 14, 1886. Three sentences in Studd's speech, he said, prompted his lifelong service of presenting Christ to students: «Seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God.»

In the summer of 1886, Mott represented Cornell University's Y.M.C.A. at the first international, interdenominational student Christian conference ever held. At that conference, which gathered 251 men from eighty-nine colleges and universities, one hundred men - including Mott - pledged themselves to work in foreign missions. From this, two years later, sprang the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions.

During Mott's remaining two years at Cornell, as president of the Y.M.C.A. he increased the membership threefold and raised the money for a university Y.M.C.A. building. He was graduated in 1888, a member of Phi Beta Kappa, with a bachelor's degree in philosophy and history. In September of 1888 he began a service of twenty-seven years as national secretary of the Intercollegiate Y.M.C.A. of the U.S.A. and Canada, a position requiring visits to colleges to address students concerning Christian activities.

During this period, he was also chairman of the executive committee of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions, presiding officer of the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh in 1910, chairman of the International Missionary Council. With Karl Fries of Sweden, he organized the World's Student Christian Federation in 1895 and as its general secretary went on a two-year world tour, during which he organized national student movements in India, China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, parts of Europe and the North East. In 1912 and 1913, he toured the Far East, holding twenty-one regional missionary conferences in India, China, Japan, and Korea.

From 1915 to 1928, Mott was general-secretary of the International Committee of the Y.M.C.A. and from 1926 to 1937 president of the Y.M.C.A.'s World Committee. During World War I, when the Y.M.C.A. offered its services to President Wilson, Mott became general secretary of the National War Work Council, receiving the Distinguished Service Medal for his work. For the Y.M.C.A. he kept up international contacts as circumstances allowed and helped to conduct relief work for prisoners of war in various countries. He had already declined President Wilson's offer of the ambassadorship to China, but he served in 1916 as a member of the Mexican Commission, and in 1917 as a member of the Special Diplomatic Mission to Russia.

The sum of Mott's work makes an impressive record: he wrote sixteen books in his chosen field; crossed the Atlantic over one hundred times and the Pactfic fourteen times, averaging thirty-four days on the ocean per year for fifty years; delivered thousands of speeches; chaired innumerable conferences. Among the honorary awards which he received are: decorations from China, Czechoslovakia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Jerusalem, Poland, Portugal, Siam, Sweden, and the United States; six honorary degrees from the universities of Brown, Edinburgh, Princeton, Toronto, Yale, and Upper Iowa; and an honorary degree from the Russian Orthodox Church of Paris.

Dr. Mott married Leila Ada White of Wooster, Ohio, in 1891; they had four children, two sons and two daughters. He died at his home in Orlando, Florida, at the age of eighty-nine.




The Obligation of This Generation to Evangelize the World
by John R. Mott
Commentary by David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson of the Global Evangelization movement.

“The Church…possesses a remarkable resource. Think of her membership! There are not less that 135,000,000 members of Protestant churches.”

Today there are 680,000,000 Bible-believing evangelicals world wide. This means that for every believer there are only 9 non-believers and for every unreached people group, there are 583 Christian congregations.

“With over 500 missionary societies and auxiliaries there are, without doubt, missionary organizations and societies in sufficient number.”
Today there are 3,970 mission agencies in existence.
Last year alone, about 120 million people were presented the gospel for the first time.

The number of people who are being presented the plan of salvation every day is now at least 260,274. The average number added to the body of Christ world-wide is 174,000 daily.

“If only one-fourth of the Protestants of Europe and America should give but one cent a day toward the evangelization of the world, it would yield a fund of over $100,000,000…”

Today, Great Commission Christians (those Christians who are committed to world evangelization) earn $2.5 trillion in disposable income. We give about $8 billion annually to missions (about one-third of 1% of our disposable income). All that would be required to reach every unreached people group is an additional $1.25 billion - one-twentieth of 1%.

“It would take less than one fiftieth of the Christian young men and women who will go out from Christian colleges in the United States and Canada within this generation to furnish a sufficient force of foreign workers to achieve the evangelization of the world in this generation.”

About 100 million evangelical believers worldwide are young people. Just one-tenth of 1% of these would field a force of 100,000 new missionaries - enough to send a church planting team to each of the remaining unreached people groups.
“The Bible Societies, not fewer than eighty in number, have translated the Scriptures entirely or in part into 421 languages and dialects.”

Every 14 days another translation of the New Testament is begun in a new language.
“There are nearly 80,000 native workers, and their number and efficiency are rapidly increasing.”

Today, 70% of the world’s missionaries are native.
“The greatly enlarged and improved means of communication constitutes one of the chief facilities of the Church…”

“Of the 400,000 miles of railway lines in the world, a considerable and growing mileage is already to be found in non-Christian lands. It took Judson eleven months to go from Salem to Calcutta. The trip can now be made in a month.”

It is possible to travel by air to any part of the world and be there in less than 24 hours.
“The thoroughly organized news agencies which, through the secular press bring before the members of the Church facts regarding the most distant and needy nations, serve indirectly to awaken and foster interest in the inhabitants of less favored lands.”

Through the internet, it is possible to access information about every corner of the world, not to mention the countless websites that are committed to encouraging prayer by providing statistics on unreached countries.
“The Universal Postal Union with its wonderful organization and its vast army of well nigh 1,000,000 employees immensely facilitates the work of foreign missions.”

Today, instant communication with the other side of the planet is possible through email, cell phones, web-cam and international chat rooms.

The stats above are adapted from data by David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson of the Global Evangelization movement.