Boss Speaks on Engaging the Nations During Chapel Oct. 6

Jacob Boss, affinity leader for the European peoples with the International Mission Board (IMB), delivered the chapel message Oct. 6 in Raley Chapel’s Potter Auditorium. Boss spoke about his missionary experience and the state of the gospel in the modern world.

Specifically addressing Paul’s message and ministry in Romans 15, Boss called believers to be like Paul and, “take the gospel where the gospel has not been.”

Boss pointed out the shocking statistics regarding how much of the world’s population hasn’t yet been reached with the gospel.

“There are literally millions and millions and millions of people in the world who have never heard the name of Jesus,” Boss said.

Out of the 800 million people living in Europe today, Boss said only slightly more than one percent are evangelical believers. Thus, Europe is in desperate need of gospel evangelism and ministry.

“Europe is the most strategic advance for the gospel today,” he said.

Because of the radical scale of population growth in the past decade and the travel restrictions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for evangelism is greater than ever and the means for evangelizing are more difficult to obtain than ever.

“God is going to have to do work on a scale that we’ve never seen in history before,” Boss said. “God is setting the stage and I’m excited. I’m excited about what God is doing.”

He then challenged the audience members to consider what God is asking them of them. He then challenged them to pray, because only the Lord knows what the future holds for each and every person on Earth.

“Jesus came and died on the cross to save the souls of the nations,” Boss said. “And there are countless people…around the world who just need to hear the love of Jesus.”

Boss is the affinity leader for the European peoples with the IMB. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in intercultural studies from Southwest Baptist University and a Master of Divinity from Luther Rice. He was originally sent by his church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to serve in Asia in 2008. He then served the IMB by equipping believers to engage lostness among Muslims, Hindus and urban youth. In 2012, he was appointed to serve as vice president of global training for Meridian, where he developed and implemented simple, reproducible theological tools to see healthy multiplying churches across the “10/40 Window,” the rectangular area of North Africa, the Middle East and Asia approximately between 10 degrees 40 degrees north of the equator.

Boss rejoined the IMB in 2014 when he moved to a large city in Asia to engage global cities with the gospel. His family then moved to London, England, in January 2017 to continue engaging the global cities of the world. Jacob, along with his wife Elisabeth and their four kids, have served as affinity leaders for Europe since August 2019.