We love answering this widely asked question. The story of Cafe 1040 is a display of God's hand working in our history. Find out all the details of how Cafe 1040 came to be.
Founded in 2000, Cafe 1040 exists as an answer to several hard questions our founder asked as he began to struggle with the knowledge and reality of Christian missions throughout the world.
Chuck, our Executive Director was on staff with North Point Community Church and was working through a pastoral training course that required a missions credit to finish. During his studies, he attended an elective course on the state of the world—Perspectives on the World Christian Movement.
What started as a pursuit for course credit ended with a realization that rerouted his entire life and led to the creation of Cafe 1040. With a background and experience in extensive international travel and an understanding of Christian history, he began to see and learn that the entire Bible is about one narrative—God bringing all people groups to Himself.
The reality is that there are 2.9 billion people in the world who have never heard the name of Jesus. 85 percent of these people live in one area—the 10/40 Window—and only 3 percent of missionaries live inside the 10/40 Window.
Chuck began to wrestle with the questions: Why is this true? Is it even true? What can we do about it? Do I understand the situation correctly?
At the same time, Chuck was on a team organizing the first Passion OneDay Conference – a gathering of 50,000 college students coming together to worship and pray. At the event, John Piper was speaking about unreached peoples, offering a call to college students to commit to long-term work to share the gospel with those who haven’t heard it. He asked for those feeling a sense of this call to stand for prayer. Expecting a few hundred to respond, Chuck looked out over an open field with thousands of college students on their feet praying. At this moment, Chuck heard God say in his heart, “This is the solution.”
He traveled the country with a marketing statistician performing dozens of focus groups uncovering basic principles that would build the essence of what Cafe 1040 would be all about. He learned that the millennial generation wants to change the world and complete the Great Commission, they have what it takes, and they have a set of common obstacles that holds them back.
To this day, Cafe 1040 exists to lead this generation to tell the story of Jesus where it has never been told.
Cafe 1040 is an answer to why there is a disparity of workers and how this generation can change that. It is an approach that values the experiential learning processes of the millennial generation and their need for practical, forward-thinking mentoring.
As a trusted organization in the missions industry, Cafe 1040 is a perfect first step toward a life of missions for some, an intermediary step for others, and a trusted friend and advocate for all. But for everyone whose story we are privileged to intersect, we hope to remain a trusted friend and an advocate.
The present and future lives of 2.9 billion who remain unreached with the story of Jesus hangs in the balance.
