\u201cHow to Make The World Add Up\u201d is a book about how to look at statistics and how we might be able to navigate the sea of numbers that bombard us every day. We often make significant decisions, based on the numbers, so it\u2019s helpful to have a framework to work with that can help us assess them. I did struggle with how basic these 10 rules were. Honestly, when making a life-altering decision or major directional decision, I would probably want more expert help to interpret the data. I’m not so sure that I would trust the ten rules alone.<\/p>\n
We have a friend, that we support, named \u2018Z\u2019 who left her career in Canada to serve an Unreached People Group (UPG) in Asia. She has a real name, but we don\u2019t share it publicly because she works in a creative access country. She works among people who have never been exposed to Christianity or the gospel. At the start of COVID, she had to return to Canada, leaving all her possessions in her tiny, cell-like apartment. A colleague of hers was just recently allowed to return to collect belongings and take them to the new country \u2018Z\u2019 is working in. She lives on the margins of the world we know. She drifts across borders, never fitting or belonging anywhere. Unlike most ministry leaders, she would never have the obligatory social media platform to promote herself and her work. She sends old-school letters in the mail, and she returns to Canada once every 4 years to connect with those who support her. She works as a teacher by day and during her \u201coff hours\u201d she builds relationships, shares the gospel, and does bible studies with local people. She has witnessed people coming to faith in Christ and has daringly baptized new believers in a country where there is no visible Christian witness.<\/p>\n
The Alliance Canada<\/a>, the denomination I work with, has deployed international workers primarily among UPGs. My friend \u2018Z\u2019 is one of these. They serve in 13 out of the 50 most dangerous countries in the world to be a Christian and where following Jesus is restrictive, illegal, or dangerous. \u00a0213 Alliance Canada International workers are engaged in 65 UPGs in the world. Through strategic pathways of church development, relief & development, and in the marketplace, they are sharing the gospel to reach new believers, plant new churches and transform communities.<\/p>\n The Joshua Project<\/a> research group defines a UPG as, \u201ca people group among which there is no indigenous community of believing Christians with adequate numbers and resources to evangelize this people group without outside assistance.\u201d<\/a>[1]<\/a><\/p>\n Some interesting, and rather overwhelming, numbers from The Joshua Project website:<\/p>\n The numbers are staggering and based on these types of statistics, and the eternal realities they represent, people like \u2018Z\u2019 have responded to the call of Jesus to sacrificially go and share the Good News in these difficult and dangerous places. Based on these types of statistics, denominations like the one I belong to have intentionally re-directed mission resources to the least-reached people in the world.<\/p>\n Numbers must be taken seriously but how can we trust them? How can we be sure we’re not being duped? How can we know that we are not simply giving in to an emotional response when we see staggering numbers? There are many cautionary tales of people who have invested large sums of money into a “sure thing” only to lose their savings.<\/p>\n \u201cHow to Make the World Add Up” <\/em>provides a good starting point to help make sense of the stats rather than avoiding them, treating them with cynicism, or getting fooled by them. The purpose of his book is to help the reader learn how numbers might help shed light on issues that we might normally be unaware of. Numbers, understood properly, help make sense of the world as we know it and without statistics we can live in the dark. He is convinced that, while we might be deceived by statistics, it is just near impossible to see the truth without them.[2]<\/a> However, Harford notes that many people avoid the data because of the anxiety it could create.[3]<\/a> This common behaviour is known as \u201cThe Ostrich Problem\u201d.[4]<\/a> This problem occurs when people intentionally avoid negative information to avoid discomfort. Think about those times when we don\u2019t want to step on a scale after a vacation, or when we don\u2019t want to check our credit card statements after Christmas. I remember a high school report card that took me days to open because I didn\u2019t want to see the \u2018D\u2019. Sometimes it\u2019s easier to bury our heads in the sand than to look at the numbers because the numbers can be hard to face. I wonder if this is the case with UPGs and other uncomfortable truths about global matters like poverty, hunger, and human trafficking.<\/p>\n Perhaps if more Western Christians saw and reflected on UPGs, and other global stats in context, we might need to draw different conclusions about the stewardship of our lives.<\/p>\n This book is helpful regardless of where we come to land on UPGs, other global issues, and the implications for Western Christians. Harford encourages us to take a more curious, rather than a gullible or cynical, approach to numbers. Statistics should be met with a deeper look and a host of questions.[5]<\/a> To do that, Harford provides 10 non-technical rules, and the overarching golden rule of curiosity, for how we might evaluate numbers without being a math expert. If you\u2019re like me, you breathed a sigh of relief. I was thrilled that none of these rules required math skills but rather provided a framework to scrutinize the numbers that required nothing more than a curious mind. I don\u2019t love math, but I can ask lots of questions.<\/p>\n As much as I struggled with the simplicity of these rules, when faced with complex decisions, I still think that they are a beneficial starting point and provide us with some help as we wade through the maze of data available to us. Perhaps, we may want a deeper and more thorough analysis, though, when we\u2019re making major life and organizational decisions.<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> \u201cThe Joshua Project,\u201d accessed January 17, 2024, https:\/\/joshuaproject.net\/help\/definitions.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Tim Harford, How to Make the World Add up: Ten Rules for Thinking Differently about Numbers<\/em> (London: The Bridge Street Press, 2021), 19.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Harford, 27.<\/p>\n\n