More than 3 billion unreached people worldwide. What does that number actually mean to you? Can you wrap your mind around it? Does it help to count the zeros in 3,000,000,000? It doesn’t really help, does it?

The problem is that we humans aren’t very good a deriving meaning from huge numbers. For most of us, numbers just numb.

So, instead of contemplating big, numbing numbers, let’s look at the unreached on a human scale—person by person, face by face, story by story. This is how AFM does ministry; this is how we measure success. As you read through this special year-end issue of Adventist Frontiers, you will see this approach reflected in the theme: stories about individual people on journeys with Christ.

In a world where electronic media ministry is accessible to billions, why do we still insist on counting by ones? Because that’s how God counts. Luke 15:7 tells us that all of heaven erupts with joy when one sinner repents. One by one, those repentant sinners become contagious with the good news of salvation, and integers become exponents. Individual salvation stories become the stories of entire people groups! Can you begin to imagine the party in heaven?

This is how the wildfire of salvation spreads across the face of the earth, and this is how the billions of redeemed will praise their Redeemer into eternity: person by person, face by face, story by story.

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