All Men are Equally Lost, but not all Men are Equally Needy.

“All men are equally lost but not all men are equally needy” – Dr. Ralph Winter. Missions mobilizers can affirm that all men are equally lost ( and equally loved by God) and yet continue advocating for those who are most needy in terms of access to the gospel.

Photo by James Douglas on Unsplash

One of our favorite mobilizers slash missions strategists of all time was Dr. Ralph Winter. And he said this “All men are equally lost, but not all men are equally needy’. Catch that? “All men are equally lost but not all men are equally needy” This is something I feel that we as missions advocates, missions leaders really need to internalize and own and to be able to affirmed when we talk to folks. Yes, we understand that the people on the streets of your city are as lost as the people in the most unreached part of the world. Equally lost. In fact we’ll go further and we’ll affirm that God loves them equally. He loves the people in the streets of your city and your neighborhood just as much as he loves the most unreached people group in the world and yet not all men are equally needy. There are billions of people that have no access to the Gospel. Whole entire people groups with limited to no access to the Gospel. And that is a… that is a great need. All men are equally lost. Yet not all men are equally needy but sometimes this need, this injustice of billions of people with no access to the gospel can really stir us up as missions mobilizers, and sometimes give an edge to our communication where we we kind of slip into judgment and it comes across that what we’re focused on is more important than what you’re focused on. And I think that’s a mistake.

All men [people] are equally lost, but not all men [people] are equally needy.

-Dr. Ralph Winter

We should never slip into being judgmental and judging people’s calls of whether or not they’re hearing from God. That doesn’t help anything. We can affirm that God is calling His Church to be witnesses both in Jerusalem, and Judea, and Samaria, and the most parts of the earth. Right? God doesn’t want to reach the most unreached people group and lose our city! He really cares about both and it’s a both/and scripture! Both Jerusalem and the most parts of the earth. So he’s calling people to those things and we can serve people that are called those things with all our heart. But at the same time we can as missions mobilizers I think keep that end goal in our minds. While we’re serving people and wherever they’re called to, be identifying the people who are called to go to the unreached and catalyze disciple making movements among them. Really be clear about that, but at the same time not slip into judgment about who’s hearing from God and who’s not, and those type of things. So “All men are equally lost, but not all men are equally needy”. I think that can be something that, that helps us to affirm what God is doing here. And at the same time keep advocating for the least reached and those who have no access to the gospel.