The National Geographic/Roper Public Affairs 2006 Geographic Literacy Study paints a dismal picture of the geographic knowledge of the most-recent graduates of the U.S. education system. They discovered that graduates between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four were woefully unaware of global matters:

• fewer than three in ten graduates think it important to know the locations of countries in the news, and just 14 percent believe that speaking another language is a necessary skill
• 66 percent could not find Iraq or Saudi Arabia on a map; 75 percent could not point out Iran or Israel; 45 percent couldn't find any one of those four countries
• 88 percent of those questioned could not find Afghanistan on a map of Asia
• 47 percent could not find the Indian subcontinent on a map of Asia
• nearly three quarters incorrectly named English as the most widely spoken native language
• six in ten did not know that the border between North and South Korea is the most heavily fortified border in the world; 30 percent thought the most heavily fortified border was between the United States and Mexico

The final report concluded, "Taken together, these results suggest that young people in the United States … are unprepared for an increasingly global future."

Possible Preaching Angles: Great Commission and Global Missions—It is difficult to heed Jesus' command to preach the gospel throughout the whole earth if we're completely ignorant about our world. Followers of Christ are called to be "World Christians," people whose vision of the world embraces people from every nation and people group.