The document outlines 7 barriers that must be overcome to fulfill the Great Commission of making disciples of all nations: 1) the geographic barrier, 2) the language barrier, 3) the cultural barrier, 4) the social barrier, 5) the spiritual barrier, 6) the communication barrier, and 7) the logistic barrier. It provides details on strategies for overcoming each barrier, emphasizing the need to address all barriers through a strategic order and plan of multiplication to effectively reach more people with the gospel.

1. Missions:
overcoming barriers
to the fulfillment of
the Great Commission
2.005, David Rogers

2. The Great Commission
(Matthew 28:18-20)
Jesus came to them and said: I have been given all
authority in heaven and on earth!
Go to the people of all nations and make them my
disciples. Baptize them in the name of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
And teach them to do everything I have told you. I
will be with you always, even until the end of the
world.

3. In order to make disciples of the people of
all nations...
…it is necessary to overcome
7 barriers.

4. Barrier #1
The
geographic
barrier

5. “Go to the people...”
You must go where the people
are.

6. “Then you will tell everyone about me
in Jerusalem, in all Judea, in Samaria,
and everywhere in the world.”
Acts 1.8
“The Lord’s followers who had been
scattered went from place to place,
telling the good news.”
Acts 8.4

7. Some will have to intentionally
go from places where there is a
relatively high percent of
believers to places where there
is a relatively low percent of
believers.

8. Missionary = Apostle = Sent One
“While they were worshiping the Lord and going
without eating, the Holy Spirit told them,
‘Appoint Barnabas and Saul to do the work for
which I have chosen them.’ Everyone prayed and
went without eating for a while longer. Next,
they placed their hands on Barnabas and Saul to
show that they had been appointed to do the
work. Then everyone sent them on their way.”
Acts 13.2-3

9. Barrier #2
The
language
barrier

10. “In the past God spoke to our forefathers
through the prophets at many times and in
various ways, but in these last days he has
spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed
heir of all things, and through whom he made
the universe.”
Hebrews 1.1-2
“each one heard them speaking in his own
language.”
Acts 2.6

11. “As the soldiers were about to take Paul into
the barracks, he asked the commander,
‘May I say something to you?’
‘Do you speak Greek?’ he replied.”
Acts 21.37
“Brothers and fathers, listen now to my
defense. When they heard him speak to
them in Aramaic, they became very quiet.”
Acts 22.1-2

12. Barrier #3
The
cultural
barrier

13. “Though I am free and belong to no man, I make
myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.
To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To
those under the law I became like one under the law
(though I myself am not under the law), so as to win
those under the law. To those not having the law I
became like one not having the law (though I am not
free from God's law but am under Christ’s law), so as
to win those not having the law. To the weak I became
weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all
men so that by all possible means I might save some.”
1 Corinthians 9.19-22

14. Normally, those who come from
the same cultural context as those
who are going to receive the
message will be more effective at
communicating the message in a
culturally relevant manner than
those who come from another
cultural context.

15. However, there are situations in
which there are not yet enough
evangelists and disciplers from
the local cultural context to
effectively reach everyone.

16. In these situations, the most
effective evangelists and
disciplers (even though they come
from outside of the cultural
context) will usually be those who
best adapt to the cultural context.

17. In any case, in order to reach a
greater effectiveness in the
communication of the gospel, it is
necessary to always transfer the
main responsibility of
communicating the gospel to those
who come from the same cultural
context as much as possible, and as
soon as possible.

18. Barrier #4
The
social
barrier

19. You must win the trust of
the people.

20. Trust is won by way of 4 main
things...
1. Friendship
2. Good works
3. A life testimony consistent with your
spoken testimony
4. The communion of the church

21. Friendship...
“People don’t care how much you know,
until they know how much you care.”

22. Good works…
“For we do not preach ourselves, but
Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as
your servants for Jesus’ sake.”
2 Corinthians 4.5

23. Life testimony…
“Rather, we have renounced secret and
shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor
do we distort the word of God. On the
contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we
commend ourselves to every man’s
conscience in the sight of God.”
2 Corinthians 4.2

24. The communion of the church…
“…that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me
and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may
believe that you have sent me.”
John 17.21
“We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you
also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with
the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ… But if we walk in
the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one
another.”
1 John 1.3, 7

25. Barrier #5
The
spiritual
barrier

26. Spiritual Problems
Indifference
Hard hearts
Spiritual blindness
Spiritual strongholds

27. Spiritual solutions
Prayer
Fasting
Spiritual warfare
Signs and wonders
The power of the Word

28. “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled
to those who are perishing. The god of this
age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so
that they cannot see the light of the gospel of
the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
2 Corinthians 4.3-4

29. “…I will rescue you from your own
people and from the Gentiles. I am
sending you to them to open their eyes
and turn them from darkness to light, and
from the power of Satan to God, so that
they may receive forgiveness of sins and
a place among those who are sanctified
by faith in me.”
Acts 26.17-18

30. “The weapons we fight with are not the
weapons of the world. On the contrary,
they have divine power to demolish
strongholds. We demolish arguments
and every pretension that sets itself up
against the knowledge of God, and we
take captive every thought to make it
obedient to Christ.”
2 Corinthians 10.4-5

31. “Now, Lord, consider their threats and
enable your servants to speak your word
with great boldness. Stretch out your
hand to heal and perform miraculous
signs and wonders through the name of
your holy servant Jesus.”
Acts 4:29-30

32. “But if an unbeliever or someone who
does not understand comes in while
everybody is prophesying, he will be
convinced by all that he is a sinner and
will be judged by all, and the secrets of
his heart will be laid bare. So he will fall
down and worship God, exclaiming, ‘God
is really among you!’”
1 Corinthians 14.24-25

33. “But this kind does not go out
except by prayer and fasting.”
Matthew 17.21

34. Barrier #6
The
communication
barrier

35. You must communicate the
message of the gospel.

36. “God was pleased through the foolishness
of what was preached to save those who
believe.”
1 Corinthians 1.21
“How, then, can they call on the one they
have not believed in? And how can they
believe in the one of whom they have not
heard? And how can they hear without
someone preaching to them?”
Romans 10.14

37. You must communicate the
message in a way that is
understandable.
“But the one who received the seed that fell on
good soil is the man who hears the word and
understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a
hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”
Matthew 13.23

38. You must communicate clearly...
The message of reconciliation
more so than how to get to heaven, the gospel is
about how to mend our broken relationship with our
Heavenly Father
The message of grace
a “gospel” that leaves room for trusting in good
works is not an authentic gospel
The message of repentance
the prerequisite for receiving the gift of grace is a
sincerely repentant heart

39. According to the Great Commission,
the work of making disciples is
made up not only of “baptizing them
in the name of the Father, of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit,” but also of
“teaching them to obey everything
that Jesus has commanded us.”

40. “If we ever have to choose
between how much Bible is
understood or how much Bible is
obeyed, my prejudice is in favor
of obeyed truth.”
Carl George, The Coming Church
Revolution

41. This task of “post-conversion
discipleship” normally is best
carried out in the context of a
local church, with a personalized
methodology, either one-on-one
or in small groups.

42. If we are able to overcome
these first 6 barriers, almost
certainly, we will have at least
made some disciples.
But...

43. …the Great Commission will still not have been
fulfilled.
In order to do this, there is
one more barrier that must
be overcome...

44. Barrier #7
The
logistic
barrier

45. We must have a strategy of
multiplication.

46. Multiplying disciples,
multiplying disciple-makers.

47. “But he said, ‘I must preach the good news of
the kingdom of God to the other towns also,
because that is why I was sent.’”
Luke 4.43
“This went on for two years, so that all the
Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of
Asia heard the word of the Lord.”
Acts 19.10

48. Multiplication models...
Cell churches
the “G-12” model
the “5 x 5” model
“Simple” churches or house churches
“Pioneer Evangelism”

49. The key...
Training, mobilizing, and
multiplying evangelists, disciplers,
and “lay” leaders

50. “The main limiting factor in the
part of the harvest that
corresponds to the church, is,
very probably, the lack of trained
leaders.”
Carl George, The Coming Church
Revolution

51. “Learn to develop cell-group
leaders. That is the most
important single thing that you
need to do as a leader of a
church.”
Carl George, The Coming Church
Revolution

52. “No church can reach everyone on its
own. Therefore, it will be necessary to
multiply the amount of available units
to serve a greater quantity of
demographic segments and different
communities within a general
population.”
Carl George, The Coming Church
Revolution

53. “The secret of the expansion of the Christian
movement is the mobilization of more
workers. The key is not just new churches, but
also new units. It is a model based on
harvesters. The more units there are, the more
harvesters there will be who can be effective.
The best way, then, of preparing for a greater
harvest is training more leaders who will be
able to care for people.”
Carl George, The Coming Church
Revolution

54. There will never be enough
“pastors,” “missionaries,” or
“full-time workers” to reach all
the people that need to be
evangelized and discipled.

55. Also, many times, the most
effective evangelists and
disciplers are those who work side
by side with non-believers and
have more natural opportunities to
win their trust.

56. However, it is not sufficient to
train “lay people” to evangelize
and disciple, without giving them
specific structures to put into
practice the training they receive.

57. The problem with many
missionary models...
They focus on overcoming one or
some of the barriers to the fulfillment of
the Great Commission to the exclusion
or near exclusion of the rest.

58. For example...
“Good works” ministries that do not
emphasize the need to verbally
communicate the gospel
“Evangelistic” ministries that do not
emphasize the need to win the trust of the
people by way of “good works”
Ministries that underestimate the
importance of prayer and spiritual warfare

59. It doesn’t make much sense...
To pray without evangelizing
But neither does it make sense...
To evangelize without praying

60. Many times we cannot make any
significant progress towards the
goal of making disciples among
all the nations as long as there are
still some of these barriers left to
overcome.

61. At times, some barriers must be
overcome in a certain order.

62. For example...
It doesn’t make much sense to try to
win someone’s friendship, if you don’t
speak their language.
Neither does it make much sense to try
to communicate the gospel with
someone who doesn’t trust you as a
person.

63. In some places and contexts,
overcoming some of these
barriers will take on a higher
priority at a given time than
overcoming others.

64. For example...
In a postmodern context, overcoming
the trust barrier will be a very important
priority.
In a so-called “harvest field” context,
giving immediate attention to the
communication of the gospel will take
higher priority.

65. Although efforts to overcome
each and every one of the 7
barriers are important and have
their place, it can sometimes be a
bad stewardship of resources, and
even counterproductive, to work
too much on certain barriers
outside of their proper order.

66. This is one of the main problems,
for example, with many short-
term projects. They focus on
overcoming only one of the
barriers independently of a
broader strategy for addressing
all of the barriers in their
appropriate time and order.

67. In one way or another, the job of the
missionary strategist is to analyze the
situation at hand in order to determine
what are the main barriers that are
standing in the way of the fulfillment
of the Great Commission in a given
context and time, and propose adequate
strategies for overcoming those
particular barriers.