Jesus commanded His disciples to pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out more laborers into the harvest (Luke 10:2). There are many ways to pray for the unreached harvests around the world; below is one such prayer tool. Use the THUMB prayer guide in your devotional time or with your small group to pray consistently for the unreached areas of the world.
T - Tribal groups (90 Million)
H - Hindu (771 Million)
U - Unreligious/Chinese (161 Million)
M - Muslim (1.18 Billion)
B - Buddhist (273 Million)
Tribal (usually Animist) people groups believe in spirits that live all around us: in trees, in fields, in rocks, in rooftops. People must try to keep these spirits happy and enlist their help. Animists usually live with a certain amount of fear that a spirit will be unhappy with them.
Hindus believe in hundreds or thousands of gods (which are likely appearances of one divine essence). God, as the Christians understand Him, may be divine, but what the Christians call “God” is only one of millions of gods. They also believe in reincarnation—that is, when you die, you come back to life as an insect or a cow or even a better (or worse) person.
Unreligious or Chinese people groups is a conglomerate category. The Chinese make up the largest block of unreached peoples in the world. Some follow Confucius; others follow a mixture of animism and even Buddhist teachings. Secularist or unreligious groups believe there may or there may not be a God. The Bible is an interesting historical book, but it is not divinely inspired. Believes that to worship God and to be a part of God’s people (the church) is to be out of touch with real life. Nominal Christians also fall into this category; the may have been baptized as a child and considers himself/herself a Christian, but has no connection with the church now.
Muslims believe in one God. God is to be worshiped, but He is too high and far away to think of as “father.” In fact, to call him “father” would be blasphemy. They believe Jesus was a great prophet, but He was not God—Christ was not crucified for our sins; he actually lived to be an old man.
Buddhist people groups follow a path of discipline in order to reach enlightenment. Often there is no conception of a god at all.
