The Assemblies of God World Missions (AGWM) has announced what leaders are calling its largest initiative in more than seven decades, pledging to expand missionary efforts to reach the world’s unengaged and unreached people groups.
The plan was unveiled during the 2025 Assemblies of God General Council, held Aug. 4–8 in Orlando, Florida. Leaders described it as a renewed global commitment to “answer an urgent, worldwide hunger for God” by focusing on populations with little or no access to the gospel.
AGWM Executive Director John Easter said the vision represents the most significant mobilization since the organization’s founding. “This initiative represents what we believe will usher in the greatest spiritual harvest our generation has seen,” Easter said in a Sept. 5 media announcement.
According to AGWM, 42% of the world’s 8.2 billion people remain unreached by the gospel, including 500 million within Europe alone. Within this population, more than 202 million belong to 2,085 unengaged unreached people groups (UUPGs) that have no churches, missionaries or known believers. “They have not rejected the gospel; they simply have no access to it,” AGWM said.
Easter said he felt the burden of this challenge when he assumed leadership in 2023, seeking God’s direction on how to address the 42% statistic that has persisted for two decades. The conviction grew during a gathering of hundreds of superintendents and missions directors in Nairobi, Kenya, in October 2024.
“This frustration just emerged in my heart,” Easter said. “I said to everyone, ‘Forty-two percent. We’ve heard this for 20 years. When are we going to take the 42% and step out, commit ourselves, and make it 41%? What if we took the 42% and made it 40%, 39%, 38%?’”
Assemblies of God General Superintendent Doug Clay, also vice chairman of the World Assemblies of God Fellowship, joined Easter in prayer at the Nairobi event. He said he also sensed a prophetic call to renewed urgency in evangelism.
“It’s not just an AGWM thing. It’s not just a World Assemblies of God thing. It’s an Assemblies of God USA thing — a Bible-engaged, Spirit-empowered, missions-participation Church that’s going to raise up sons and daughters to go to these places where there is not an adequate presentation of Jesus,” Clay said.
“We discerned that the Spirit of God was saying this is where He is already redemptively moving,” Easter added. “The issue is whether we will follow.”
Easter shared the vision with AGWM leadership teams, who agreed that decreasing the number of unreached required a significant shift of focus and resources.
According to the media release, AGWM has set a goal to increase its missionary force from 2,569 to 4,000 by 2033. “With the gospel access vision in mind, AGWM will intentionally direct its missionary efforts toward the populations with the greatest spiritual need, closing the gospel access gap and establishing the church among the most spiritually desolate,” the statement said.
“All AGWM global workers, no matter how or where they serve, will carry God’s heart for the unengaged and embody this organizational shift in focus,” the release added.
The 42% figure, AGWM leaders said, will decrease with each new national church partnership, church plant, small group and individual conversion. “We pray for the greatest generational response to the call of God that we have seen in the history of our Movement,” Easter stated.
AGWM NextGen Strategist Jacob Jester emphasized that Generation Z must play a central role in fulfilling the mission. He said local churches must raise up the next generation of missionaries to reach those who have never heard of Jesus, from remote Amazon tribes to Muslim families in the Arab world to Buddhist communities across Asia.
“Gen Z is the largest generation in history,” Jester said. “We believe that if we can begin to walk with this generation from the point of the calling to the place of the calling, we’re going to see this mobilization force that begins to go into those places that nobody’s ever gone before.”
The AGWM release acknowledged the efforts of previous generations of missionaries but noted the scale of the current vision may seem daunting. Still, leaders at the Orlando launch said the sense of unity and enthusiasm gave them confidence.
Sarah Jump, AGWM’s mobilization and development director, said the event inspired hope: “The sense in the room was: This is not impossible. This is absolutely something we can get behind and we can do. This is something that we hope to do for our generation.”
