LOST SHEEP, LOST COINS, LOST PEOPLES

One day Jesus’ companions, the tax collectors and sinners, crowd around him to listen: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them… Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one…” (Luke 15). This crowd doesn’t have any trouble understanding Jesus. They know what it means to be lost.

Years later, in stunning visions revealed to him on the island of Patmos, the Apostle John sees a Lamb, looking as if it has been slain, standing in the center of the throne in heaven. Spontaneous worship breaks out: “You were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5).

The purchase price of blood has been paid, and in the heavenly vision Jesus is receiving the worship due him. The work is already done. Or is it?

How did Jesus intend for all these lost people, from every tribe, language, people and nation, to discover that He has already paid the price for them? In his stories about lost sheep and lost coins, Jesus reminds us that the most natural thing to do when something is lost is to go looking for it. Even if, in the case of sheep, it means leaving ninety-nine others behind to find the missing one. Jesus even tells us that the Shepherd is “happier about the one than about the 99 that have not strayed” (Matthew 18:13). Has that truth really gripped us?

The diversity of peoples around the heavenly throne in Revelation 5 compels us to ask:

If such rich diversity is the Church’s destiny in eternity, how is it that so many peoples are still missing from the picture John saw in his vision?
What impact does their absence have on the rest of us? Have we ever stopped to wonder what we in the global church are missing because they are missing?
When Jesus’ priorities for the lost and marginalized are ignored by His church, so are almost two billion people. Who is this forgotten fourth of the world’s population?

HIDDEN PEOPLES – THE FORGOTTEN FOURTH

At the historic 1974 Lausanne Congress, Ralph Winter shook the evangelical world by bringing the plight of “Hidden Peoples” to their attention:

Our exaltation about the fact that every country of the world has been penetrated has allowed many to suppose that every culture has by now been penetrated. This misunderstanding is a malady so widespread that it deserves a special name. Let us call it “people blindness”—that is, blindness to the existence of separate peoples within countries. (2)

These “separate peoples” are mostly Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist, and include significant urban populations. They have been described as unreached people groups, least-evangelized, least-reached peoples, and in what is possibly the most accurate and unsettling description of all, ignored peoples. Dr. Winter and others after him have tried to generate a global movement of the Church toward these peoples. Yet despite all the papers and discussions and conferences, today, 36 years later, this forgotten fourth without access to the gospel still makes up over 28% of the world’s population (3) and 41% of the individuals in the world are members of a people group with no viable church. (4)

To put this in perspective, Bill Gates had just graduated from high school and was about to enter Harvard University when Dr. Winter addressed the first Lausanne Congress in 1974. That same year the first advertisement for a personal computer appeared, with 1K of programmable memory, for $565. Today there may be as many as 2 billion computers in use, operated in the remotest of locations, with at least a million times as much memory as that first computer. Who could have imagined such staggering change back in 1974?

Why is it we have not seen a correspondingly dramatic change among Missing Peoples during this same period? What happened? Or more importantly, what did not happen? And why didn’t it happen?

CHALLENGES

Sadly we must admit that the primary reasons for this neglect lie within our global Christian community: we spend most of our time and resources on ourselves, we still suffer from “people blindness,” our priorities are elsewhere, and we are engaged in theological battles among ourselves. On top of this, the personal cost of ministry to these peoples is high, requiring workers to cross cultural, linguistic, sociological and religious barriers. And many of these peoples have been geographically distant as well. We’ll focus first on these and other external challenges.

External Challenges

Orality / Literacy: More than a billion adults in the world prefer to learn through oral means. Some have no other option. They continue to be isolated from the gospel, not by their ignorance, but by the Church’s continued insistence on the written word for evangelism and disciple-making.

Bible poverty: While the Church continues to focus on reaching majority populations that are similar to them, many people groups have yet to hear the good news of Jesus Christ in their own language. Language is not simply a matter of understanding—the identity of many people groups is wrapped up in their language. And where translations do exist, in various formats, distribution is often inadequate, especially outside the Global North.

Culture/Society: Resistance to outside influences helps insulate cultures from exposure to unhelpful intrusions, but also to the liberating truths of the gospel. Further, well-intentioned but poorly trained cross-cultural messengers sometimes end up inoculating their intended audience to the gospel by their methods. What appears to be resistance to the gospel may simply be a reaction to our approach rather than a rejection of Jesus.

Often blinded to our own cultural failings and injustices, focusing instead on the shortcomings of other nearby cultures. We are often unwilling to cross cultural barriers because of our conformity to our own culture, or our prejudice against communities who are different from us.

Political Isolation: Numerous governments restrict or forbid the evangelization of their citizens, and persecute believers inside the country. In one Middle Eastern nation, rewards are offered to anyone who exposes a prayer group. And workers are often unable to get to the peoples they wish to serve.

Religious isolation: Individual religious authorities or religious communities often do everything possible to prevent their members from being exposed to Christians and their message. Somali seekers put their lives in danger every time they listen to Christian radio broadcasts.

Geographical isolation: Many groups, e.g. Tibetans and nomads, live in remote locations, and have little communication with the outside world. This makes it difficult to send and support cross-cultural missionaries, and natural conditions like climate often prevent these missionaries from living in an area for an extended time.

Because the usual church mindset is focused on stationary facilities and programs, nomadic peoples pose a particular challenge. In the words of a Somali camel herder in Eastern Africa: “When you can put your Church on the back of my camel, then I’ll believe that Christianity is meant for us.”

Persecution and Terrorism: Terrorism and religious fundamentalism provide massive challenges to the spread of the gospel. Persecution of Christians results in the death of over 165,000 believers every year (500 a day). While many Christians are faithful to their Lord’s call in the face of such persecution, others back down out of fear.

Social Isolation: The caste system in South Asia is one example. Economic poverty is also a two-edged sword: the needs of the people can be overwhelming, and the extreme living conditions create personal challenges for Christian workers.

Migration: Today over 30 million political refugees (equal to the total population of Uganda or Peru) are displaced within their own countries, and over 100 million have fled to other countries. Economic refugees number in the millions.

Internal Challenges within the Body of Christ

In addition to these external challenges, and the internal ones noted above–“people blindness,” lack of priority given to Missing Peoples and the high personal cost of ministry–other powerful hindrances include:

Misuse of God’s resources. Christians still give only about 1% of our money to Christian causes. Of this money given to Christian causes, 95% is spent on the Church. Less than 1% is used to reach 28% of the world without access to the gospel. 90% of missionaries work among the 33% of the world that claims to be Christians. Only 2-4% of Christian cross-cultural witnesses serve this 28%.

Awareness is confused with progress: As the worldwide church has become increasing familiar with unreached peoples, the “10-40 window,” “World A” and date-oriented networks such as the AD 2000 movement, some have wrongly assumed that the needs of these peoples are already met. Others believe the numbers are exaggerated––there can’t be that many Missing Peoples. Still others have simply grown tired of the message and express a desire to move on to something else supposedly more relevant.

A Misunderstanding of “ethne”

Jesus tells us to make disciples of all ethne. The power of ethne (people group) imagery to focus people’s strategic thinking began to be used to re-define all kinds of strata of society as a “people group.” So young people, the disabled, prostitutes, or taxi drivers in certain cities (which are actually segments or a strata of society) began to be defined as a “people group.” But this definition is not really an ethne. A better understanding of the term ethne would correspond to an ethno-linguistic/ethno-cultural people group which includes the various strata of youth, urban, rural, rich, poor, disabled, etc.

“Christian” culture as opposed to Gospel truth

Many writers have illustrated the truth that lost people often reject our trappings for the gospel as opposed to rejecting Christ. Jesus is so hidden in our cultural and theological wrappings (including materialism, phariseeism, denominationalism, etc) that they don’t seem to have any chance to hear the basic gospel. One of the main challenges in reaching the unreached is being willing to let go of our ethnic and Christian cultural baggage as we struggle for a standard of only biblically necessary truth in sharing the gospel and seeking to make disciples of the unreached.

Theological battles among ourselves: Differing views about evangelism and eschatology have led to misunderstandings and divisions in the Christian community, draining off energy that could be going into ministry. Most mission practitioners agree that “word” and “works” must go hand in hand. (5) But in the absence of dialogue that might have led to mutual understanding, differing beliefs about what this should look like in practice have generated unhelpful caricatures (6) from all sides of the conversation.

What does it mean to bear witness to the Good News? Those focused on the urgency of presenting a verbal salvation message are often characterized as promoting an overly simplistic, truncated gospel. And those focused on the priority of justice and social renewal are seen as detracting from the chief task Jesus gave his followers to present the message of personal salvation.

Differing views on eschatology follow in the same vein. Some take Matthew 24:14 as their primary framework for building a theology and strategy of mission: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” For them the fundamental question is: What can we do to evangelize the world most quickly and hasten the Lord’s return? Others are wary of what appears to be shallowness in theology and ministry, questioning the belief that we can hasten the Lord’s return by our efforts. They also wonder whether big strategies to evangelize the world are led more by the Holy Spirit or by an entrepreneurial spirit. Some cannot imagine doing ministry without the correctives of theological reflection and contextualization, while others question whether all that theory ever results in action.

A WAY FORWARD

If urgency is only related to time and evangelism is restricted to verbal proclamation, surely it is inadequate. Or if urgency relates only to matters of justice and social concerns, and evangelism is restricted to deeds, it is equally inadequate. But there is a way forward that provides a meaningful synthesis, built on the following beliefs:

Matthew 24:14 is both a statement of what God will do and of what will happen when Christ’s body is obedient. God is looking for people who will be on the front lines with Him as He fulfills this. But our disobedience can delay its fulfillment. Israel experienced this with the 10 spies and the 40-year delay caused by their disobedience, bred of timidity and rebellion.

Thus, obedience-based discipleship is essential. Unless reproducing congregations of obeying disciples emerge to help transform their society, then our efforts are not only inadequate, they are counterfeit. Jesus’ command is to make disciples of people groups (ethnê), not create clubs that meet on Sunday.

While this discipleship process is always costly and takes a lifetime to develop fully, real change can begin to happen quickly, as followers are taught to obey in word and deed in their community. Actual movements have emerged in China, South Asia and Africa that are rapid, deep, and transformational. (See below)

The Spirit calls us to follow him on a macro-level even as each of us serves locally. God is a God of order and he is equally able to lead in both micro- and macro-planning. Yet any plans, if not inspired by the Holy Spirit, are useless.

Most importantly, the fact that the forgotten fourth are missing the joy of knowing and loving Jesus for even another day must create in us a sense of urgency. Our urgency comes from the fact that we are so in love with Jesus that we want to introduce every people group to Him as soon and as fully as possible––to give people access to abundant life in Jesus and enable them to escape their powerless, futile lives outside of him, now and in eternity (Ephesians 4.19ff).

Lessons Being Learned

The challenge of reaching these Missing Peoples is huge. But it has compelled some to rethink radically their approaches and to pray fervently for breakthroughs that would lead to discipleship that is deep, transformational and community-wide. Some of the lessons being learned from new approaches to ministry among least-reached peoples are counterintuitive and defy conventional missiological wisdom (7).

1. Those who look like the wrong people to start with may be the right people

Go slow to go fast.
Focus on the few (or one) to win many.
No personal evangelism so that many will hear. No mass evangelism so the masses will hear.
Share only when and where people are ready to hear.
A new/inexperienced insider is more effective than a highly trained, mature outsider.

2. Trust the Scriptures to speak (even among people who have no Bible background)

Start with Creation not Christ.
It’s about discovery, not preaching or teaching.
Obedience is more important than knowledge.

3. Trust ordinary people to do extraordinary things

Disciple to conversion, not convert to make disciples.
Focus on ordinary people not professional or vocational Christians.
Let the lost lead the Bible studies.

4. Expect reproduction through multiplication, not addition

The best time for a church to plant a new church is when it is new.
Buildings kill church planting.

5. Expect the hardest places to yield the greatest results

Reflecting on these lessons could enable us as representatives of the global Body of Christ to be catalysts for effective ministry among the world’s Missing Peoples. As we consider our own contexts, which of these counter-intuitive lessons might we adapt and apply to the ministries we are already involved in?

Transformational Movements to Christ

As a result of putting such lessons into practice, amazing things are happening among least reached peoples, especially in China, South Asia and Africa. God is raising up multiplying groups of Christ-obeyers who are changing their communities, unencumbered by programs, buildings or administrative overhead. Over 100 such movements have emerged in recent years.

These Christ-ward movements, also called transformational Church Planting Movements (CPMs), blend all aspects of the gospel—encompassing social transformation, verbal sharing of the Gospel, obedience-based discipleship, miracles, worship and more. For example, in parts of Latin America, cell churches have stepped in to provide health, welfare and education where governments have failed to do so (Jenkins, The Next Christendom).

Three characteristics of such movements are reproducibility, synergistic mesh of ministries, and sacrifice and difficulty (see Garrison, Church Planting Movements). As cross-cultural witnesses enter a group and people respond, new congregations of disciples emerge, often meeting in homes. These congregations are taught to obey the Scriptures, to start new congregations and to minister in their community and beyond. Emerging disciples are trained to be leaders in the congregation and in the community, and to train immediately other leaders who will train other leaders. For more information on the characteristics of transformational church planting movements that have been documented in a wide variety of different contexts across the globe, see the following articles:

“Church planting movements defined”
“World A, B & C”
“Church planting movements: 10 universals, 10 common elements, 7 killers”
“Church planting movements then and now”
What God is doing in the Hindu World (2622 Missing Peoples, 987 million individuals (8))

Nepal: The strong breakthrough in Nepal that crosses caste lines throughout the country is one of the amazing works of God. In 1950, there were no known believers. The first church was formed in 1959 with 29 believers (9); there were an estimated 7,400 Christians in 1970; (10) by 1985 there were about 50,000 believers. At the climax of persecution in 1990 there were 200,000; (11) 574,000 in 2000; 904,000 in 2010. (12)

India: In a place historically known as a “missionary graveyard,” a church planting movement among the Bhojpuri people over 20 years resulted in more than 80,000 new churches and over 4 million baptized, obeying believers. (13)

Madhya Pradesh State in India: a church planting movement produced 4,000 congregations in seven years. (14)

What God is doing in the Buddhist World (575 Missing Peoples, 617 million individuals) (15)

Mongolia: In 1989 perhaps four former Buddhist believers could be found. A church planting movement in the 1990’s in Outer Mongolia produced more than 10,000 followers of Jesus while a subsequent movement in Inner Mongolia has resulted in more than 50,000 new believers. (16)

Thailand: In central Thailand a worker started with community and economic development and continued with intentional church planting, leading to the beginning of transformation in the local community.

What God is doing in China

In 1949 there were some 1.5 million Protestants in China. Now there may be more than 100 million or more Christians (17) who have grown in number through sacrifice and commitment in sharing their faith, prayer and worship despite persecution.

In Henan Province Christ-followers grew from a total of a million to more than five million in only eight years. (18)
In southern China a church planting movement produced more than 90,000 baptized believers in 920 house churches in eight years time. (19)
In 2001 a newly emerging Church Planting movement yields 48,000 new believers and 1,700 new churches in one year. (20)
What God is doing in Africa (21)

Over the past century, the number of believers has grown from nine million to more than 360 million.
Each month an estimated 1,200 new churches are started in Africa.
In eight months, 28 Ethiopian evangelists led 681 persons to Christ and started 83 new churches.
Today, after years of resistance to the gospel, some 90,000 of Kenya’s 600,000 Maasai are followers of Jesus Christ.
What God is doing in the Muslim World (3354 Missing Peoples, 1.46 billion individuals (22))

Turkey: In 1960 there were 10 known believers. In the year 2000, there were an estimated 2,000. In 2010 the World Christian Database shows 14,000 believers. (23)While many see openness, there is still a long way to go.

Bangladesh: From 1998 to 2003, the Isa Jamaat Movement produced more than 250,000 Muslim background believers worshiping in an estimated 8,000 contextualized churches. (24)

The Arabian Peninsula: Progress has been slow in this area since Samuel Zwemer’s efforts beginning in 1890. Key prayer focus upon this area since the 1990s has resulted in some beginnings. Despite the challenges, there are an estimated 74,000+ Arabian Peninsula believers. (25)

STOP SPIRITUAL INJUSTICE

While these stories are encouraging, over one quarter of the peoples of the world still have no opportunity to hear the message of God’s love or see it demonstrated in action. Dare we call this lack of response on our part, which leads to needless suffering and hopelessness on their part, anything less than “spiritual injustice?” Today these Missing Peoples have virtually no choice with respect to the gospel. They have yet to follow the One who said, “Follow Me,” not because they have rejected His call, but because they have never heard it.

Whenever someone goes missing, especially children and youth, the whole community quickly mobilizes to search for them. Why hasn’t that happened with all these Missing Peoples? What does it say about our priorities as a global Church when 3% of workers and less than 1% of the finances given to mission go toward seeking out these Missing Peoples?

Most people come to faith through a relationship with someone they know and trust. Yet over 8 out of 10 Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists do not personally know a single Christ-follower. What are the implications for the Kingdom? Every day which passes without reaching out in friendship to these Missing Peoples means they miss out on the opportunities we all take for granted—to know Jesus personally, to be filled with his joy and peace, to have his Spirit in us, to experience abundant life and have his power to help change society.

Imagine the impact if, rather than simply continuing to justify our own arenas of ministry, we invested our collective energy in addressing this spiritual injustice, and said, “Yes, we as a worldwide church are not going to allow this to continue.”

LOST AND FOUND? NOT YET!

Remember the Apostle John’s vision of the slain Lamb? Later he saw another vision of “a great multitude… from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb… They serve him day and night in his temple, and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them. Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” (Revelation 7:9-17)

What a beautiful picture. But have we missed the trauma that makes the triumph in this vision so powerful? These peoples have been hungry and thirsty. They have not had enough food or clean water. The sun has beat down on them with scorching heat. They have lacked protection from the elements. They have had no shepherd to lead them to fresh water. They have had much to weep over. How powerfully that describes the Missing Peoples in today’s world.

Listen again to Ralph Winter’s words to the first Lausanne Congress in 1974:

We must have radically new efforts of cross-cultural evangelism in order to effectively witness to 2387 million people. And we cannot believe that we can continue virtually to ignore this highest priority. (26)

We cannot allow ourselves the luxury of continuing to ignore these people. Yet this is exactly what has happened. Here we are thirty-six years later, and many of these same groups are still Missing Peoples.

At the most recent major Lausanne gathering, the 2004 Forum in Pattaya, Thailand, the participants affirmed that:

Major efforts of the church must be directed toward those who have no access to the gospel. The commitment to help establish self-sustaining churches within 6000 remaining unreached people groups remains a central priority. [bolding ours]

What does it tell us today if our “commitment to help establish self-sustaining churches within 6000 remaining unreached people groups” has made so little impact on our behavior or on these communities?

What will it take for us to make this central priority truly central to the mission of the Lausanne movement and the worldwide church? What are we willing to commit ourselves to—individually, organizationally, regionally, and collectively?

What will it take for us to re-allocate the resources available to us so that these Missing Peoples no longer have to face a hopeless, Christ-less life now and in eternity? What relationships, skills, capacity, intercession and influence are we willing to bring to bear?

And finally, what will it take for us to make this the last Lausanne Congress where we need to highlight Missing Peoples? Not because we’ve given up and turned our backs on them, but because they are no longer missing and have taken their places around the throne as priests to serve our God.

The two billion people who make up these groups don’t know they are missing. But Jesus does. He knows every one of their names. And he is inviting us to join him in places like India, Pakistan, China, Nepal and Bangladesh where the highest concentration of unreached peoples live—reaching across culture and language, discomfort and danger, and often great distance, to befriend them and share the good news of the Kingdom.

Why should we do this?

Not because it is our duty,

though it is.

Not because it will bring eternal life to many,

though it will.

Not because it will improve the living conditions of the poor,

though it will.

Not because it will improve stability in the world’s institutions,

though it will.

Not because it will improve environmental stewardship,

though it will.

Not because we will be rewarded,

though we will.

We should disciple the nations because Jesus is worthy to receive their honor, glory and praise.

(Revelation 5:12 and 7:9) From Joshua Project, “Status of World Evangelization – 2004”

© The Lausanne Movement 2010

Pseudonym
“The New Macedonia,” Lausanne Conference on World Evangelization, 1974.
David B., Todd J. and Peter F. C., “Status of Global Mission, 2005, in Context of 20th and 21st Centuries,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Jan. 2005, p. 29.
Joshua Project defines an unreached or least-reached people as a people group among which there is no indigenous community of believing Christians with adequate numbers and resources to evangelize this people group.
And many would add a third “w”—“wonders.”
Caricatures are created when the distinctive features or peculiarities of an issue are exaggerated to produce an obviously foolish or grotesque effect.
These counterintuitive statements from various Church Planting Movements around the world have been compiled by David Watson. We hope to have a fuller document available soon: “Counter-Intuitive Lessons Learned from Least-Reached Peoples.”
Joshua Project (www.joshuaproject.net/great-commission-statistics.php)
Operation World (www.operationworld.org/country/nepa/owtext.html)
World Christian Database
Operation World (www.operationworld.org/country/nepa/owtext.html)
World Christian Database
A Survey and Analysis of the Bhojpuri Church Planting Movement in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, Northern India, October 2008. This was an extensive joint research project by x and other local partners.
David G., Church Planting Movements, How God Is Redeeming a Lost World, (Midlothian, VA: Wigtake Press, 2004), 36.
Joshua Project (www.joshuaproject.net/great-commission-statistics.php)
Garrison, 68.
World Christian Database reports 114 million Christians in China in 2010.
Garrison, 53
Ibid., 49
Ibid.
Ibid., 85
Joshua Project (www.joshuaproject.net/great-commission-statistics.php)
World Christian Database
Kevin G. Camel Training Manual, (Midlothian, VA:Wigtake Press, 2004), 12
World Christian Database
“The New Macedonia,” Lausanne Conference on World Evangelization, 1974.

Source: http://conversation.lausanne.org/en/conversations/detail/10535#article_page_9

~B

Hello Everyone, we have discussed the possibility of using new terms over the years. Unengaged as well as least-reached. I think we have been discussing all this since 2005.

I feel that we have worked very hard to help Latin America understand the one term unreached. And still many millions of Christians in Latin America have not yet heard the term unreached. So to add any new terms will be going backwards or confusing the few that understand and know what unreached is.

From a researchers standpoint, we UPG researchers have not even gotten a good handle on how many people groups are unreached. So until we do, should we be trying to track unengaged or least reached?

You can track these things when you have a small people list like Paul does. Paul made no error, we did by running with a term he uses in his movement.

*******UPG NUMBERS****5000 UPGs******

Depending on which database you look at you will get a different number for people groups and unreached people groups. The last time I did a deep comparison of people group databases was 2009 for the Ethne meeting in Colombia.

The first column is the Database Name – Word Christian Database, Global Status of Evangelical Christianity, Joshua Project, Harvest Information System, Etnopedia.org
The second number is People Groups Across Country figure – counts the people for every country they live in.
Third number is People Groups In country figure. Peoples are counted only once – not counted every time they are in two or more countries.

WCD 13,601 8,699
GSEC/IMB 11,601 8,313
JP 16,304 9,763
HIS n/a 10,609
Etnopedia n/a 10,478

The unreached numbers very even more, because every effort has a different definition of what is unreached and/or use different sources.

But for those who are looking for a round number, the average between all the Databases above is about 4,800 unreached people groups.

I always say 5,000 UPGs because we still do not know how many people groups there are.

Joshua Projects people group number has grown to about 10,000 now, 250 more than in 2009. So the lists are growing, they are not complete.

Take care!

I was recently at a missions conference and had the privilege to spend a few days with fellow unreached people group researchers. One was with the International Missions Board and the other was from the U.S. Center for World Mission.

After talking for a few hours about collaboration, I suggested that we all put a date by our scales. This is needed in order to communicate to other mission movements. It does not require that other research efforts accept my scale. It does not require that I be allowed access to sensitive data. It is a simple year date hand entered next to the reached status or scale.

• Aimaq, Jamshidi; Reached status: Unreached [2008] – This year date next to a reached status scale is the last time someone closest to the people group confirmed that the group was unreached.
• Aimaq, Jamshidi; Reached status: Some Progress [2011] – This year date next to a reached status scale is date that this scale was changed.

Here are some suggested guidelines.

1. The year date should be changed by hand and not a formula.
2. This information comes from someone closest to the people group.
3. If we do not know the date is should be [xxxx].
4. Dates can and should be changed even when the scale remains the same if that scale is confirmed in that year. This shows the mission movement the most recent data as well as where we need to do more research.
5. Do not change your old dates, they are good for the research and mission movement.
6. The tendency is to complicate something simple or to automate it. This should not be made more complicated or automated.

I began doing field research in Mexico in 1999. I began putting the dates on the scales the year that visited the people group. I also put dates on the scales the year the information was gathered from other research efforts. We still have dates on people groups from [1992]. You can do a search on this page for 1992 to see what our research priority would be in Mexico. http://es.etnopedia.org/wiki/index.php/México

If a church or agency wanted to adopt a people group that was unreached, they would be more likely to choose an unreached group that had a recent data, say [2008] or [2011].

To this day, the date helps us prioritize field research. In 2010 and 2011 we began to visit tribes that had old dates on their scales. We visited three Zoque tribes in Chiapas as their dates were from [1992]. Now they are [2011].

When a field missionary or a reliable source has been in a group and confirms or changes the reached status, we put the current year. E.g. [2012]. Our rule is that we database administrators, must have first hand information in order to change a date or a reached status. A field researcher who knows his or her network well, may be able to make changes with solid second hand information. Personally, when we are updating “unreached peoples” we only use first hand information.

An example of first hand information would be a database administrator updating that information while talking directly to a field missionary or a reliable Christian source that has personally been in the people group. The database administrator, or field researcher is simply doing the work of updating. The information comes from the field.

We have tried for years to get people to update the information on their people group(s) and have had little luck. Database administrators and field researchers are still needed. The field missionaries do not see the need to communicate to the rest of the world the state of their people groups. Where there are no missionaries, that is where the field researcher has to go to the people group to find out. This data is not perfect but it is the best data we have to offer the mission movement.

I remember the first time I printed the people group list for a missionary conference. All the people groups were in a photo copied book with populations, scales and the date. I will never forget the reaction of a few people. They said, “Look at these dates, they are embarrassing!” I being the person in charge of research, should have been the one embarrassed, but I commented that I need to see those dates in order to know how good my information is.

I have recently thought that we need to put the most accurate dates on all our people group lists. This data may not be possible to get. So you were to put at least [2010], in just a few short years you will begin to see the age of your scales. Currently Etnopedia has [2008] on most of its scales. This is the year that we moved all our profiles from a Spanish only system to a Multilingual. It was the last year that we checked a reliable Christian source.

Sourcing your dates and scales is also recommended but we don’t want to ask too much of a research effort. You have enough work to do.

We cite the sources where we get our scales (and the date [2012]) on the discussion page of each people group on the English Etnopedia. Click the discussion tab.

At this point we have updated our scales (changing the date to the current year) when we check a major research effort. I am not sure this works, but it is the best data we have available to us and it tells us the last time we checked a major source. I have spent many hours thinking about if this is the thing to do, and so far it is the best I feel we can.

Here is another example of how dates can help on Etnopedia: An IMB field missionary updates their reached scale in the CPPI/GSEC to 2012. Someone from the Etnopedia team updates the date on that people profile on the English portal. Then the German portal team updates their people profile. The Spanish portal team, the Russian portal team, the Indonesian portal team all update their profiles. Different missionary movements are now able to see this new data.

The Proposal

This is a proposal to all major and minor unreached people research efforts to hand place a year data next to your reached status scale.

If you will add this simple field, other research efforts and mobilization efforts will be able to update their information with more accuracy. It won’t be easy to see all those old dates or blank dates on your data, it could even be a bit embarrassing but it will push us all to get up-to-date information. It will also force us to build a stronger network where we have none. It will help prioritize field research and most of all, it will help missionary senders make better decisions.

(Unreached and unengaged peoples) – The heart of God longs that all people should have access to the knowledge of God’s love and of his saving work through Jesus Christ. We recognize with grief and shame that there are thousands of people groups around the world for whom such access has not yet been made available through Christian witness. These are peoples who are unreached, in the sense that there are no known believers and no churches among them. Many of these peoples are also unengaged, in the sense that we currently know of no churches or agencies that are even trying to share the gospel with them. Indeed, only a tiny percentage of the Church’s resources (human and material) is being directed to the least-reached peoples. By definition these are peoples who will not invite us to come with the good news, since they know nothing about it. Yet their presence among us in our world 2,000 years after Jesus commanded us to make disciples of all nations, constitutes not only a rebuke to our disobedience, not only a form of spiritual injustice, but also a silent ‘Macedonian Call’.

Let us rise up as the Church worldwide to meet this challenge, and:

A) Repent of our blindness to the continuing presence of so many unreached peoples in our world and our lack of urgency in sharing the gospel among them.

B) Renew our commitment to go to those who have not yet heard the gospel, to engage deeply with their language and culture, to live the gospel among them with incarnational love and sacrificial service, to communicate the light and truth of the Lord Jesus Christ in word and deed, awakening them through the Holy Spirit’s power to the surprising grace of God.

C) Aim to eradicate Bible poverty in the world, for the Bible remains indispensable for evangelism. To do this we must:

Hasten the translation of the Bible into the languages of peoples who do not yet have any portion of God’s Word in their mother tongue;
Make the message of the Bible widely available by oral means. (See also Oral cultures below.)
D) Aim to eradicate Bible ignorance in the Church, for the Bible remains indispensable for discipling believers into the likeness of Christ.

We long to see a fresh conviction, gripping all God’s Church, of the central necessity of Bible teaching for the Church’s growth in ministry, unity and maturity. We rejoice in the gifting of all those whom Christ has given to the Church as pastor-teachers. We will make every effort to identify, encourage, train and support them in the preaching and teaching of God’s Word. In doing so, however, we must reject the kind of clericalism that restricts the ministry of God’s Word to a few paid professionals, or to formal preaching in church pulpits. Many men and women, who are clearly gifted in pastoring and teaching God’s people, exercise their gifting informally or without official denominational structures, but with the manifest blessing of God’s Spirit. They too need to be recognized, encouraged, and equipped to rightly handle the Word of God.
We must promote Bible literacy among the generation that now relates primarily to digital communication rather than books, by encouraging digital methods of studying the scriptures inductively with the depth of inquiry that at present requires paper, pens and pencils.
E) Let us keep evangelism at the centre of the fully-integrated scope of all our mission, inasmuch as the gospel itself is the source, content and authority of all biblically-valid mission. All we do should be both an embodiment and a declaration of the love and grace of God and his saving work through Jesus Christ.

2. Oral cultures
The majority of the world’s population are oral communicators, who cannot or do not learn through literate means, and more than half of them are among the unreached as defined above. Among these, there are an estimated 350 million people without a single verse of Scripture in their language. In addition to the ‘primary oral learners’ there are many ‘secondary oral learners’, that is those who are technically literate but prefer now to communicate in an oral manner, with the rise of visual learning and the dominance of images in communication.

As we recognize and take action on issues of orality, let us:

A) Make greater use of oral methodologies in discipling programmes, even among literate believers.

B) Make available an oral format Story Bible in the heart languages of unreached and unengaged people groups as a matter of priority.

C) Encourage mission agencies to develop oral strategies, including: the recording and distribution of oral Bible stories for evangelism, discipling and leadership training, along with appropriate orality training for pioneer evangelists and church-planters; these could use fruitful oral and visual communication methods for communicating the whole biblical story of salvation, including storytelling, dances, arts, poetry, chants and dramas.

D) Encourage local churches in the Global South to engage with unreached people groups in their area through oral methods that are specific to their worldview.

E) Encourage seminaries to provide curricula that will train pastors and missionaries in oral methodologies.

Source: http://www.lausanne.org/en/documents/ctcommitment.html#p2-4-1

http://conversation.lausanne.org/en/home/unreached-people-groups

Jesus commands us to go, but we go the other way.  So He carries the burden alone, While His children are busy at play, Feeling so called to stay. Oh, how God grieves and believes that the world can’t be saved, Unless the ones He’s appointed obeys, His command and His stand for the world, That He loved more than life. Oh He died, and he cries out tonight. Jesus commands us to go, It should be the exception if we stay. It’s no wonder we’re moving so slow, When His church refuses to obey, Feeling so called to stay. Oh how God calls, as He stalls the great judgment of fire, So He can gain, His Greatest desire. Cause He knows that the souls of the lost, They can only be reached, through us, We’re His hands and His feet. (would you sing it with me, if you believe it is true.) Jesus commands us to go, It should be the exception if we stay. It’s no wonder we’re moving so slow, When God’s children refuse to obey, Feeling so called to stay.

We have been trying for years to mobilize people toward unreached people groups. I have worked for over ten years in the Adopt-A-People campaign and thought many times that something is missing. I may have finally found what it is. It has to do with a personal encounter with the idea. We truly need to consider going ourselves to an unreached people. It doesn’t mean that we have to go, just that we seriously consider it. In the new Adopt A People movement in Latin America we call it the filter.

Everyone, mobilizers, old folks, pastors, youth leaders, soccer moms, kids, everyone needs to get into the filter.

Last year my wife and I were invited to a Wycliffe event in Orlando Florida. They paid all our expenses to go to a wonderful meeting to see what God is doing in the Bible translation effort. Several New Testaments were presented, live bands played and for three days they motivated and encouraged the assistants to concentrate all our energies on finishing the Bible translation by 2025. All the former presidents of Wycliffe Global Alliance were there. The oldest spoke for about 15 minutes and what he said impacted me. He and his wife began praying over 20 years ago for one of the Bibleless peoples. It is now called the Last Language Initiative. Back then, people just chose a language from the list and commited to do something. Less complicated. The former president of Wycliffe knew that they may not go personally as translators, but they chose a language group and began to pray. He announced during this meeting that after many years, the Bible was in finally in the process of translation. This is what EVERYONE must do,, something. This is a pretty common concept in many things but we can’t seem to do it as a Christian movement in respect to unreached peoples.

Everyone must get into the filter and choose a group.

Your group is yours and you will not cease until a missionary effort is there. It does not mean that you yourself will go, but I think that during the process of your filter, you need to at least consider that you might have to be the answer to your prayers. But you will pray, support, maybe take a short term trip, or give money toward the reaching of that people group.

So what is the filter?

1. Choose your religion.

This may take a while, you are going to research, pray, and get in your mind the religion. Then based on that you are going to

2. Choose your country. 

You will pray, research and wrestle in your heart and mind about the country that you are going to do something about.

3. Then choose your people group. 

Now you will choose the people group that will be your people group. You don’t ever need to tell anyone if you don’t want. This is the people group that you are going to fight for until they have the Gospel among them. Again it doesn’t necessarily mean that you will go but that you will do something. You will be eating, sleeping and dreaming about this people group. You will become the expert on that group and will tell everyone you know about them. You will make entire powerpoint presentations about them. Most importantly you will not stop until Christ is made known among them, in their heart language and a church is established.

The process of going through the filter may take 3 months, it may take six months it may take a year. It doesn’t matter. You are in the filter is all that matters. Being in the filter is where God can speak to you. You may just be the key that opens the door to this unreahced people.

Choose the smallest population that you can find of a people group. This will insure that you are the only one or very few praying. Population means nothing. The people group will not ever hear or know about Jesus without your help. If the country that is on your heart has thousands of unreached people groups, don’t let yourself get confused just pick one.

Once you have your people group chosen you can look for other individuals, churches or organizations that are out there doing something about that group. Maybe you can help a missionary or the missionary candidate get trained. Maybe you can find a church in another country that is preparing missionaries and send finances. It doesn’t matter, you are doing something. The problem with the missionary movement is that we think that the missionary is the only one that is going to do something. EVERYONE needs to be doing something to help fulfill the great commission. If there is no one else doing anything, you have just become strategic. God has placed you in that niche where there is no one else.

The Amdo people in Tibet (China)

Tonight at the dinner table my wife and I were talking about the requirements for someone in the Adopt a People campaign. (a.) They need to be someone who eats sleeps and breathes unreached people groups. (b.) They need to have passed through the filter and (c.) they need to get others into the filter. Then she (being very quick to think as she always is) “So what is your people group?” I said without hesitation “The Amdo in Tibet”. For years they have been on my heart. They are my people group. If someone said today that I have to do to a people group and I cannot do anything else, all the training and expenses are taken care of, where would I go? Well I have an answer because I have passed through the filter. I would say the Amdo. The Amdo people are actually a grouping of many ethnic groups and still several unclassified languages. No one knows how many people groups or languages exist among them. So I would have to say that more specifically my people group is the Amdo, Rongmahbrogpa. [1] [2] [3] [4]

Get into the filter and choose your group. Then you need to promote the filter and ask others, “Have you chosen your people group yet?” Don’t complicate it, just jump in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxm2obArsBs

Kalash / Bashgali 15,000 people

This past week we had the pleasure of having Duane F. of the Joshua Project in our office. Duane is concerned and confirms what I have been hearing more and more;  Individual unreached people groups are too small and numerous to focus on. I have also heard things such as “small people groups need to be merged back into the languages they speak” and ”unknown groups should to be removed from the databases when we don’t have enough information on them.” Consider this. Half of all the worlds known people groups are under 25,000 in population and one quarter of all the worlds people groups are below 2,000 in population. Many of these groups are small and we have little information on them. So what do we do about it?

Many are focusing on people clusters and are not in any way moving away from the individual unreached peoples. However the purpose of this article is to help bring a balance to those who might be losing their enthusiasm or focus on individual peoples. I also want to take the opportunity again to highlight small unknown people groups. Remember that our enemy only wants to divert us one inch so that five years from now we are completely derailed. So if you find yourself less and less concerned with individual people groups this article is for you.

Because of the size and lack of information on small unknown people group, I am seeing a trend to move toward focusing only on people clusters. Not everyone, just a few. But these few happen to be very influential people and this is what concerns me. I believe in people clusters and affinity blocs but let’s not go to the extreme. There are good reasons that we need to focus on them but we cannot go as far as marginalizing or removing small individual peoples groups from our data. People clusters are simply a group of many ethnic peoples that share something in common, culture, language, geography. Some examples would be the Kurds or the Berbers or Rajputs. Those people clusters have hundreds of individual people groups within them. So we have some options. We can focus our efforts on clusters, or on large individual people groups or on small individual groups or all of the above. We shouldn’t go to one extreme or the other. Why focus on individual unreached people groups when there are so many?

First of all, There are more small people groups than there are large people groups.

These photos are of an unknown people group called the Kalash or Bashgali. There is confusion about how many people groups there are and what languages they speak etc. See:  [1] [2] [3] [4 video] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] Research is still needed in order for missionaries to reach all the different groups. We need to remember that we have not yet identified all the people groups and languages. The Joshua Project will soon be exceeding 10,000 people groups. The number of people groups is slowly increasing because we are finding more and more. The addition of peoples and languages is discouraging to us missionaries. It is especially discouraging when we are trying to count down to the last unreached people group, or when we have an inner desire to see the Great Commission finished in our lifetime. The latter is not a bad thing as long as we don’t try to hide the real numbers of unreached peoples or Bible translation needs in order to achieve our goals.

Do we need to have every people group in our database? Yes. Some would say it is impossible to have every people group in our database. That is true. However we need to have as many people groups as we can in order to highlight them, profile them, promote them and send missionaries to them. I would suggest that the large peoples, especially those over 100,000 already have something going on, we just don’t know it. It’s because we have highlighted them the most. As a result many missionaries are going to people groups where something is already going on. A people group where I live has two entities translating the Bible for them (two translation efforts).

If you want to go to a people group and be almost for certain that no one else is there, choose a small people group. What is small? Well, half of all the worlds people groups are under 25,000 in population so I don’t know if we can consider those groups small. One quarter of all the worlds people groups are below 2,000 in population. Are they small? I don’t consider them small when they are one quarter of all the known peoples. But for now, we will consider under 25,000 people small. Missionary sending efforts will be continue to be duplicated if we keep sending to the larger people groups, those over 100,000 in population. In the meanwhile those who have never had the chance to hear will be waiting and perishing. We cannot keep duplication from happening but we can lower it by doing two things, keeping the small people groups in our databases and by highlighting them. We need an app called “Small Unknown Unreached People of the Day”.

It is more likely that someone will provide data on small groups if we keep them on the radar. 

It is important that we keep adding all the people groups that we can now. New groups are going to be small. The large groups are already identified. In fact many of the large people groups are not people groups, they are clusters of many people groups. Furthermore, we need to keep small groups on the radar because in many cases, they are not as small as reported. Occasionally it is to the advantage of the government to hide numbers of people groups during a census.

We cannot expect the next generation to go to the small people groups if they are not on the radar. The next generation must be taught to take into consideration people groups of all sizes. We cannot get into the habit of removing seemingly insignificant people groups no matter how little information we have about them. It would do all researchers some good to get out and walk among five or six small unknown unreached people groups. A population of 5,000 people doesn’t seem like a lot when you are looking at a spreadsheet. It is a little different when you get out an walk through their villages. I live three hours from a large cluster of unreached peoples all with small populations. Come down and I will personally take you to them. It doesn’t matter how small or unconfirmed they are. We need to hold on to them. If we do, it is more likely that someone will provide more data on them. 

It is hard to believe that these tiny groups are really all ethnic peoples with specific missionary sending needs until you live and work around them. It took me ten years to believe it. I had travel among them hearing all the missionaries and linguists talk about the realities. A few months ago, Jim C. from the Global Research Department of the IMB came to our office. One of the reasons he came was to verify from researchers, missionaries and linguists that all these small people groups and their languages really exist. It is hard to believe that there are over 170 languages and an unknown number of people groups in our area. He couldn’t believe it just like I couldn’t believe it 10 years ago. It is very common to think that way. There are only five other areas in the world as complex linguistically and ethnically.  We tend to doubt it until we hear it from experts and experience it for ourselves. We also have an enemy and that enemy does not want us to believe that there are so many people groups. Jim was impacted to know from the experts that all these languages and peoples are real.

Some say, we just can’t deal with all the people groups, there are just too many!

This is not correct thinking.  It means that we need to get to work. It is very common to hear about the immense task of reaching the unreached peoples. I wonder how God sees it. God probably cares not about how many groups there are. The task is not quite so immense when you take into consideration the number of up and coming missionary candidates. We may need to stop talking about is as though it is almost impossible.

Let’s look at the numbers. There are an average of 10,000 people groups between all your major people group lists.

POPULATION  —  NO. OF PEOPLE GROUPS
< 1,000,000,000 — 9,200 Which means that there are only 700 people groups over one million in population. The majority of our effort has been focused on only 700 people groups.
< 500,000 — 8,500
< 100,000 — 7,350
< 50,000 — 6,650
< 40,000 — 6,400 This population range is what the Finishing The Task movement is focusing on now. Possibly came to find out that the people groups over 40,000 in population already had something going on. This would make sense as we have highlighted those groups more than the smaller groups.
< 25,000 — 5,800 This is significant. Half of the worlds’ 10,000 people groups contain less than 25,000 in population.
< 10,000 — 4,600
< 5,000 — 3,600
< 3,500 — 3,200 This is the cut off for a people group to get a Bible Translation from Wycliffe. Almost one third of all the worlds known peoples will not get a translator unless smaller translation agencies or individuals go. They are called salvage projects. We pray that they will lower their number.
< 2,000 — 2,600
< 1,000 — 1,900
< 500 — 1,300
< 100 — 450

There are approximately 5,000 unreached people of the known 10,000 groups of the world. I was not going to add the population of these small people groups. This is the general tendency. One might say well, the groups under 25,000 only total up to 31,321,000 of the worlds population. Many will stop reading right here but this is not God’s way nor is it the Great Commission. I am going to tell you the total population of all the people groups under 2,000 as well. But remember that Jesus taught that we go after the one lost sheep. Luke 15:4 “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? (New International Version) The total population of the 2,600 people groups under 2,000 is 1,694,000.

They unreached because we have been ignoring them for the masses, trying to play catch up to the explosion of Islam. They are simply unknown to the Christian church. We don’t pray for them, we don’t research them, we don’t write elaborate people profiles about them. we don’t take photos of them because they are insignificant “in our minds”.

We tend to look at a people list or people group book and are drawn to the groups with higher populations. Now many influential people are calling us to leave this part of the people list behind and only focus on large clusters of peoples. Small people groups are just to numerous?  We have too little data on them? These don’t sound like very good reasons to me. I guess it is time to put on our walking shoes then or do something about it. The numbers of these groups are not going to shrink. And the longer we wait to highlight the unknown people groups, the more of them will parish for lack of a chance to respond to the Gospel.

I took a look at Patrick J’s new book, The Future of the Global Church. One view is that the population of the world will level off over the next few hundred years. This would be great news to the Christian Church. We could possibly catch up to the birth/growth rate of Islam. Another view is that the population will double and then double again over the next few hundred years. If this is true, we will have done better to abandon clusters and focus on unreached people groups.

The Church is in a crisis today because we are unwilling to send missionaries at a pace that can compete with the population growth and the growth of false religions. It only means that billions will parish. I was in a meeting a few months ago with nothing to do so I spent a few hours running some numbers. This is a rough estimate but, if we continue to focus missionary sending to the masses and clusters etc, 16 Billion people will parish every century until the end comes. The last enemy of God is not the Devil it is death. Death seals the fate of those without Christ.

1 Corinthians 15:20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 23 But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. 24 Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27 For he “has put everything under his feet.”[c] Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. 28 When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.

Don’t we want to see the end? The end of death? The end of suffering? People say that us unreached people promoters don’t care about the social gospel. We care more than most because we care about bringing the end. Bringing the end will save more lives from hell than by trying to play catch up to the Muslims.

There are not that many unreached peoples if we consider all missionary movements. 

The missionary movements in the global south, are producing thousands of potential missionary candidates and we say 5,000 unreached people groups and say they are just to numerous? I realize that there are more than that. But even if there were double that number it would not be such a huge task if we would just focus. I remember many times when Duane F. and I went line by line through thousands of records in the people group database. We used to say, it’s only 10,000 records. We only need 60,000 missionaries. This 60,000 would take care of all the unknown people groups, clan tribes and castes as well as the missionary fallout.

In the Latin mission movement where I live and minister, there are at least two million Evangelical Christians who know what unreached peoples are. The statistics are that 2% of Christianity know about the Great Commission but only 2% of that 2% will take action. In the Latin missionary movement that calculates up to 40,000 missionaries candidates, 8 missionaries for every unreahced people group. Add in the missionary movements in Africa and Asia and 60,000 missionaries is a drop in the bucket.

So the task is not so immense when you take into consideration the emerging missionary movements. Clusters are a strategic point to land in, but one will have to focus on the people groups in that cluster eventually. So if we still say, “The individual people group is far too small and too numerous” pray about it. We must stay the course and not give up on highlighting and researching the individual unreached peoples. They are depending on us.

Related Article: How Etnopedia Deals With People Clusters

The most important aspect of the course (other than it is a great introductory course on missions) is that you do not need training to teach it. Jim designed it so that you could literally find a copy laying on the street and be teaching it in your Sunday school class the next day. Its simple and this is why it has had so much impact. I remember when people were trying to get him to copyright it and he refused so that it would have more reach. Originally you had to have taken the course and be trained to teach it but he says this did not work well. So he redesigned it to be free and with no requirements. You can even take the COMIMEX logo off and put yours in its place. The course can be taught in a few days. Its purpose is to get the local church warmed up to the idea of sending missionaries to unreached people groups.

My friend and I have developed an unusual relationship over the years. When we get together we always talk about how to save the world. In the past, every time Jim and I got together we would bring large notebooks with the latest articles and clipping about reaching the world, collaboration and UPG’s. We had our own private two-man think tank. For an hour or two we would pretend to be the heads of strategy coordination for the world missionary movement and would go to task on solving problems. As soon as we met together we made copies of the articles the other did not have so that both notebooks were complete.

Yesterday I asked Jim if he brought his notebook, and he said “Neah I don’t think we need them anymore. We’ve done enough theorizing, its time to get to work”. So I guess what he was saying is that after all these years we had finally matured in our thinking and knew what problems needed to be solved. We had also come to a place, at least in our own minds, where we were ready to do the work. So at last we feel we know where we stand on the issues. After all we have been pondering the ideas of some pretty good missiologists for several years. So as much as I will miss the times with our notebooks, I feel its time to go it alone with out our crutch of what other missiologists are thinking on the subject. You don’t find too many articles on unreached peoples and finishing global evangelism anyway.

Have Strategic Coordination Over Coffee

So we had dinner and then took our positions in the living room and began our usual conversation. We talked about the missionary movement and mobilization a little. Then Jim told me of an example of where he is helping a pastor of a 30 church movement in Mexico City. He met with the head of the movement for coffee to warm him up to the idea of unreached peoples. He said that this small denomination is teaching the course in their churches and that he (Jim) wants to nudge them to start a project by helping them pick an unreached people group. He said they can name the project what they want.

We were closing in on a new idea and then it started to happen. Once you get down to making decisions or completing work, a dark spiritual cloud floats gently down over your head and some how it’s meeting over, its break time, the subject is changed, the distractions takes us away. But last night, we pressed through and focused on the new ideas.

Jim also had the idea to create a list of all the small denominations and visit them for coffee. I recently read that there are about 47,000 denominations worldwide. That is a good idea. Jim is no longer the head of adopt a people campaign in Mexico but doesn’t need to be to go do the work. There aren’t any mobilization police that I know of.

The Filter

The courses are taught in as many churches as possible and you then you need to get a consensus of where they want to go. I call this the filter. You could send out a little survey to the churches that took the course. But everyone interested has to go through the filter, (filtro in Spanish). You could also get a consensus by simply asking people to raise their hand. It doesn’t matter. There are no hard rules. Just get them into the filter.

The top of the filter says, choose a religion. Next it says choose a country. Then you choose a people group. Next is a very important key, get training. The last part says IR, which means going to the people group. So at last you come out of the filter on the ground in an unreached people group.

The filter is not a new idea. The idea that everyone gets into the filter is a new idea. I have recently been asked to be the director of the adopt a people campaign in Latin America. I told them yes as long as I was allowed to bring new ideas. In Latin America they call it Alcance Una Etnia  which means Reach A People Group. The decision to change from adopt to reach was made a long time ago. I am glad they did. I think the reach a people value should permeate all mobilization and not be a program with a set of steps.

Everyone has to pass through the filter, be they large mission agencies, denominations or individuals, everyone jumps in. It would be good if the filter become as well know as the 10/40 window and unreached people groups. You jump in with faith and begin falling into a process that will take you on a long ride down until you are finally on the ground making disciples in a people group (ethnê).

For those readers that don’t know, “Eth-nê is the Greek word Jesus used for “nation”—a word which means tribe, ethnic group or people. Our world today has 6.4 billion individuals living in 234 geo-political nations but over 16,000 ethnê, or people groups, by country. Of those ethnê, more than 6,900 groups remain least-reached. This simply means they are a people group lacking an indigenous community of believing Christians with adequate numbers and resources to evangelize their own people group. This means 1 in 4 people still remain without reasonable access to the gospel—the Forgotten One Fourth World.” Taken from the Ethne to Ethne website.

As Jim and I talked on into the night, we refined the strategy. We need keep mobilizing or what ever you call it; intentionally, gradually nudging people toward an unreached people group. After all, they call it Reach A People. You, reach A people. One. You personally take responsibility to reach the one. So its not so much a program as it is a core value that needs to be discipled into everyone in mobilization and the missionary movement. We also need to nudge the candidates toward specialized training. Reaching an unreached people group will in almost all cases require language learning and translating scriptures be it audio or what ever.

As we nudge them, we need be there to answer questions and serve. How are we going to do that? This might be where the adopt a people national coordinator comes in. I am not too fond of the idea of having national coordinators, but I’ll roll with it. Actually he or she need to disciple many others to mobilize. The fact that we have a national coordinator may take away the initiative for others to do the work. Everyone in missionary mobilization needs to be looking for candidates and discipling them toward the mission field. So we need to work together and as much as possible mesh the projects Alcance Una Etnia and Tu Iglesia Puede Cambiar El Mundo Entero. If you happen to work with a movement of churches, do a little survey at the end of your courses and ask the people to jump into a filter. This will help them pick a people group to go to. When I think about this I am always imagining the person in the church who picks the people group. After all they are the one who has to go. Churches don’t reach people groups, missionaries do.

We need to be thinking that someone somewhere needs to raise their hand and say, “We’ll I guess I’ll go if no one else will.”

Small People Group Focus

The unhighlighted and unclassified people groups are the smallest people groups. They are under 25,000 in population. This is another concept I would like to interject into the new adopt a people campaign. Everyone picks a small people group to reach. The smaller the better.

We also must pick the people groups with no access. No access is the heart of the unreached people movement. Unreached, no access call it what you want. The Hebrew word for nations is goyyim, or “heathen” and carries with it a religious connotation rather than political connotation. People that are not reached are separated spiritually from God. They are far from God. Sin has removed them from God. Once you jump over the hurdle of geography, politics, caste, worldview and language, you will still need to lead them back to the Father. You, the missionary can be communicating perfectly in the context of the people and all that and still not get them saved.

Paul Eshelman and the Finishing the Task movement call these UUPG’s; unreached and unengaged people groups. No one is getting them saved. No one is even working among them. They have no access, or no way back to the Father. They just don’t know about Jesus. They probably don’t even know a Christian. So Paul is right. We can no longer send missionaries into people groups that have anything at all going on. The smaller the people group, the less likely that there is anything going on.

If you query the major world people databases, 5,800 of the estimated 10,000 known people groups (across country) are under 25,000 in population. What is more astonishing is that 3,700 of the worlds people groups are under 5,000 in population. One third of all people groups world wide are under 5,000 in people population. This might not be the best time to be promoting people clusters. It’s time to be going into smaller people groups. They might seem small by human standards. You put 5,000 world leaders into a room in Cape Town and it’s called the largest gathering of mission leaders in the history of Christianity. These 3,700 people groups under 5,000 in population in the world people list have been forgotten because of their population.

Jesus had the kind of heart that would leave all his sheep in open danger to go look for one that had strayed. I think we need to be highlighting these small groups. I remember once when Duane F. and I were working on Etnopedia and came to a people profile with one person in Brazil. Population 1. We made the profile. The people in the mobilization need to have a clear vision for no access unreached peoples, no matter their size. These are people, or in this case a person. What if you were that person in Brazil? Call them people groups or any host of other fancy terms. They are people, in need of Christ, without hope in this world. The little missionary candidate who is contemplating going to them is their only hope. Below is an illustration to help understand more clearly no access people groups. Their percentage of Christians is zero, nada, nothing. Should we send missionaries to low percentage groups when there are thousands of groups who haven’t had their first opportunity to hear?

Some movements or campaigns have steered us away from the small groups with the idea that we are saving more souls in large populations. This has some truth to it but, the larger groups are more likely to have something going on, we just don’t know it. The data may show that a group over 1,000,000 for example has nothing going on. It may not. However it is more unlikely that the large group has nothing, especially those groups that have been highlighted and promoted and profiled for years. It is quite possible that can actually reach more souls (or prevent millions of souls from perishing) by bringing the end more quickly.

1 Corinthians 15 New International Version (NIV) 23 But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. 24 Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

If you want to eliviate human suffering, the more quickly we bring an end to this age by reaching all the ethnê, the fewer people will suffer injustice, be sold into slavery, kill their parents to become child soldiers, die in tsunamis, fall pray to the snares of Islam etc, etc. Someone said that I don’t care about disaster relief. I do care. I care more than anyone I know. I want Jesus to come back and put the real enemy under His feet, the enemy death. Death is our real enemy here. The more quickly Jesus comes the fewer people will suffer death from disasters. Missiology has to take into consideration small people groups in all areas of strategic planning. They are the majority. Eventually someone needs to take the Gospel to them.

Pray, Choose, Go

We need to change the way we think about prayer in the adopt a people movement. Many years ago, a man came to preach in chapel at our college. He had a jacket made out of a world map. You may know who I’m talking about. He said, “Don’t ever pray a prayer you are not willing to fulfill yourself.” Those words sunk straight down into my heart. They remain there today. Thousands and thousands of hours of prayer have gone up to heaven on behalf of the unreached peoples, even specific unreached peoples who are still in complete darkness. I will not presume to judge why this is. All I know is that they are still unreached. Is God hearing these prayers? Is he honoring them? I don’t know. But I do know that I want to change what we pray for in the adopt a people campaign. People are still going to pray for the unreached peoples and not do any more about it. To me it is obvious that every Christian should be praying for them, intently and specifically. Every Christian should not have to be told that this is a part of our normal Christian lives. We shouldn’t need a prayer plan or an app to remind us to pray for unreached peoples. What we need is a monthly World Go Digest.

So something must change. In the new adopt a people campaign in Latin America, if you are going to pray, you are going to go. This is not a new idea. Does anyone remember Keith Green? If you pray, you pray to choose your people group you are going to. The catch phrase is, Pray, Choose, Go. You shouldn’t even get involved in the prayer plan if you do not intend to go. If you pray with no intention of going, you are gaining more knowledge of unreached peoples that you might have to give an account for one day. What I just wrote above has gotten me into trouble these past few years but strangely it resonates with they young people.

I also feel that we need to point the adopt a people campaign toward a much younger audience. They are the ones that have time to prepare for mission work. I try to spend as much time with young people and I get the sense that they want to hear this. See Discipling Young Leaders. Young people do not want to hear that they have three options in missions, pray, or give, or go. What ever happened to the concept of obligation in mission? They want to hear someone tell them GO, just like Jesus told the disciples to go. We usually take Matthew 28 as a command. So lets command people go GO in the name of Jesus. 2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (NIV) We have forgotten that we as Christians are allowed to rebuke along scriptural lines. Definition: re·buke/ri’byo?ok/ Verb: Express sharp disapproval or criticism of (someone) because of their behavior or actions.

Prayer is the absolute easiest thing you can do for an unreached people group. It is a little harder to give a percentage of your salary toward missions or support a missionary monthly. I wonder about all the prayer going up for unreached peoples? Again, Is God hearing us? Or is He honoring our prayers? God loves a cheerful giver and a goful prayer. Ralph Winter was right 30 years ago. “Mission means a change of geography.” If the Christian movement had just extended into the unreached parts of the world and then made disciples, we might not be in the crisis we are in today loosing the battle against the expansion of Islam and world population explosion. Adopt a people cannot mean sending missionary candidates into the masses to evangelize. This will not bring the return of Christ. We must go into the ethnê. Matthew 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations (ethnê), and then the end will come.

Squabble over my missiology if you want. Think of the dark unreacehd areas of the world where they have never had the chance to hear of Jesus even for the first time, I think God’s heart goes out to them, even more than those stricken with poverty, more than those who are mass murdered by corrupt governments, more than those hit by tsunamis and earthquakes. At least those have had a chance to hear. The best thing we can do to alleviate and end all the suffering and injustice in the world is go into all the ethnê making disciples as fast as we can. The more quickly He returns the fewer people will be born into darkness and parish.

When you adopt a child, you don’t leave them behind the glass at the adoption agency and go home and pray for them. You don’t send money to the agency to pay for milk. You don’t pray that the agency takes care of the baby you adopted? You take the child home and raise him and help him become a reproducing responsible adult. You don’t leave him to his own way after four or five years. You stay with him as long as it takes to see him become a mature self-sufficient adult. That’s adoption. The Old Testament considers adoption a more serious commitment than fathers have to their natural sons. Maybe there are some pastors reading this that adopted a people group a long time ago and never followed through. It’s never too late to get started.

We need to mobilize people, helping them pass through some kind of filter where by they pray to choose a small people group to go to. Then they need to be intentionally nudged toward highly specialized training; Bible translation. Call it old fashioned but Bible translation gives the people group what they deserve, the Word of God in their language. It forces the missionary to learn the language and get involved in the development of discipleship materials. It keeps the missionary on the field LONG term. And according to the data, it almost always results in establishing stronger church movement. Missionaries are coming home, not because of lack of finances, but because they did not have the training to make an impact. Finally the missionary needs to make disciples in those unreached – no access people groups. Regardless of what we do, there will be many others who will go into the masses, or into low access peoples,  reaching a temporal need in areas that already have workers. So what will it hurt if we nudge as many as we can in the other direction?

By David M.

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Important Links:
http://www.finishingthetask.com
http://www.ethne.net/
http://www.etnopedia.org/
http://www.alcanceunaetnia.org/
http://www.yourchurchcanchangetheworld.org/