Our world today is composed of more than 6 billion individuals living in 234 geo-political nations but in nearly 17,000 ethnê, or people groups by country according to the latest Joshua Project statistics. Of those ethnê, 6,644 groups remain least-reached–there  is no indigenous community of believing Christians with adequate numbers and resources to evangelize their own people group. These groups are found around the world, not only in the 10/40 Window nations, though the highest numbers are there. Jesus told His disciples in Luke 10:1-3, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” Jesus’ solution to the dilemma of the plentiful harvest with few workers was prayer. “God is doing a truly remarkable thing in restricted access nations. But the closer we come to the completion of this age, the more the church needs to penetrate these regions. There is simply no way we are going to penetrate the final frontiers in a lost world unless we see a greater prayer army raised up,” stated Dr. Dick Eastman. In her book, Intercession, Thrilling and Fulfilling, Joy Dawson echoed this call to prayer, “God’s priority plan to reach the unevangelized is the mobilization of His people in united prayer.”The question before us then, is:

 “What role must prayer play in igniting church-planting and disciple-making movements among the remaining least-reached people groups in the next ten to fifteen years?”