Making Sense of the 4/14 Window

You’ve heard about the 10/40 Window…but you might not actually know what it is.

The term was coined by Ralph Winters, a missiologist who saw an area of the world that contains the largest population of non-Christians.

Winters brought this to the attention of the delegates gathered in 1974 at the Lausanne Conference on World Evangelization, pointing out a huge swath of the world that extends from 10 degrees to 40 degrees North of the equator, and stretches from North Africa across to China.

It was a catalytic effort to get the Church to embrace the Great Commission and streamline evangelistic work. The concept revolutionized missions.

Another concept recently burst onto the Gospel scene…and it involves not the geography, but the demography. It’s called the 4/14 Window.

The 4/14 Window targets people aged four to fourteen years old, as the most open and receptive to every form of spiritual and developmental input.  

In fact, you could say it’s a new missional focus: the 4-14 Window golden age of opportunity to transform the world. The primary building blocks of the 4-14 Window Global Initiative are national, track, and prayer based initiatives. Africa Inland Mission is part of the movement.

AIM recently highlighted the work of an island outreach team that launched a Good News Club. Sixteen children came to the first meeting. AIM notes that globally, the statistics show that 80 percent of those who come to Christ do so between the ages of four and 14.

AIM’s teams have developed opportunities to work with Africa’s children through education, outreach programs, and through services to orphans and other children at risk.