The 10/40 Window is “the rectangular area of North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia approximately between 10 degrees north and 40 degrees north latitude.” The actual term “10/40 Window” was coined by the Argentine-born evangelist Luis Bush in 1989. Home to about two-thirds of the world’s total population, the 10/40 Window is particularly important to the mission of the church when we consider the global scope of that mission.
The 10/40 Window and the Unreached
A majority of the world’s unreached people groups live in the 10/40 Window. Here’s what it means to be unreached:
Unreached peoples and places are those among whom Christ is largely unknown and the church is relatively insufficient to make Christ known to its broader population without outside help.
According to the Joshua Project, 5,978 of the 8,697 people groups in the 10/40 Window —approximately 3.3 billion people— are considered unreached. These statistics should be especially significant to Christians in light of the Great Commission. Jesus commanded his disciples to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19), and that word “all” includes the nations, or peoples, within the 10/40 Window. For a variety of reasons, many people groups and places in the 10/40 Window are hard to reach.
The 10/40 Window and World Religions
The 10/40 Window is home to the majority of the world’s Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists, as well as many who identify as non-religious (including, for example, a significant portion of the Chinese population). Christians are in the minority in most places in the 10/40 Window in terms of their religious beliefs. They face the challenge of living out their faith in places and within cultures where false religions have been deeply ingrained for generations and centuries.
The 10/40 Window and Persecution
According to Open Doors’ World Watch List, the places that are most resistant and hostile to the gospel around the world are found within the 10/40 Window. Identifying as a follower of Christ is dangerous and costly in many of these places, as Christians may lose their social standing, their means of employment, and, depending on the location, even their life.
This kind of environment makes it difficult for the church to thrive and make new disciples. We ought to pray that Christians in these persecuted areas would persevere in faith and count Christ worthy of any suffering that they might face for confessing his name.
The 10/40 Window and Poverty
Nearly 8 out of 10 of the poorest of the poor in the world live in the 10/40 Window, according to Joshua Project, which means there is “a remarkable overlap between the poorest countries of the world and those that are least evangelized.” This kind of poverty presents a barrier—though, by God’s power and grace, not an insurmountable one—to missionary work.
It is not easy or comfortable to live and serve in many places within the 10/40 Window. At the same time, the extreme physical needs in this region can provide Christians—from within and from without the region—to serve non-Christians in tangible ways, even as they seek to meet people’s greater, spiritual needs.
The 10/40 Window and Spiritual Warfare
Satan may use a variety of factors to thwart the spread of the good news of the gospel, including false religions and persecution. At the core, though, spiritual blindness is a result because Satan has “blinded the minds of unbelievers” to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of Christ (2 Corinthians 4:4).
The 10/40 Window is the rectangular area of North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, home to some of the hardest-to-reach people groups.
In places where there is little or no access to the gospel (referred to above as the unreached), Scripture teaches that unbelievers reject what they do know of God from creation and conscience (Romans 1:18–32) because they are born spiritually “dead” in their sin (Ephesians 2:1). The 10/40 Window, then, is a massive mission field and an intense spiritual battleground.
Gratefully, Christ did not leave his church to carry out the Great Commission in the 10/40 Window (or anywhere else!) by its own strength or wisdom. As the apostle Paul wrote, “The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds” (2 Corinthians 10:4).
Jesus is the one who is building his church (Matthew 16:18), which means believers living and serving in this difficult region are to “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might” (Ephesians 6:10). One day, a great multitude from every tribe and tongue, including those from across the 10/40 Window, will be gathered around the throne to praise God and the Lamb for his salvation (Revelation 7:9–10).
