Completed?

Last month we reviewed the remarkable growth of the church here and there around the world: 50,000 sisters and brothers in Mongolia, up from a handful three decades ago; a million more in Nepal; nearly half-a-billion on the continent of Africa; more than 100 million Christians in China, and so on. The numbers can take your breath away.

“That’s terrific!,” a pastor friend of mine concluded. “So now, at long last, the era of Christian missions… is concluded!”

Unfortunately, no.

Our planet is home to approximately 16,000 socio-linguistic people groups, according to the US Center for World Mission. [1] It is estimated that 7,000 remain unreached by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. These are the “ethne” that Jesus had in mind when he sent his disciples into the world. “Make disciples of all nations,” he told them – all the “ethne,” literally, all the people groups of the world (Matthew 28:19). These are the target of Abraham’s blessing – the “families” of God’s loving concern (Genesis 12:3). These will surround heaven’s throne at the fulfillment of all things (Revelation 7:9). “People groups” are what we have in mind at prayer meetings here in Minneapolis, too. We gather to “Ask for the Nations.” (See related story.) But we are asking for the people groups of the world.

“Reached/unreached” is an evaluative concept that is difficult to measure with precision. “Unreached” does not mean the utter absence of Christians: unreached groups may contain some number of Christians. It does not mean the absence of missionary efforts either. Some have suggested a percentage of Christians as a threshold or indicator – let’s say, 20% of Christians in an overall population – but this does not capture the idea so very well either.

The late Ralph Winter insisted that a people group is reached when it has experienced a “missiological breakthrough” – and it remains unreached until the breakthrough has come. “What is needed in every people group,” Winter explains, “is for the gospel to begin moving throughout the group with such compelling, life-giving power that the resulting churches can themselves finish spreading the gospel to every person.” [2] A people group has experienced a “missiological breakthrough” when the church among its population has developed the vision, resources, breadth and depth of faith sufficient to reduplicate itself in a self-sustaining church-planting movement. It does not mean that everyone has become a Christian! It does mean that everyone will have an authentic opportunity to see and hear the Good News, and respond.

“We can hold this goal as the minimal achievement within every people… to give a realistic opportunity for everyone in that people group to say ‘yes’ to Jesus Christ and His kingdom, without adding cultural barriers to the already steep spiritual demands of the gospel. Jesus commissioned us to accomplish nothing less. We should settle for nothing less.” [3]

This is the focus of our work, everywhere in the world. This is what has led us to the “Bahah” people of the Philippines, the “Aytoo” people of East Asia, the Samburu people of northern Kenya, the Quichua people of the Andes, and so on. Our work takes us to interesting places, obviously: cities and countrysides, jungles and mountains, here are there around the world. But it is people that we have in view. We aim to make disciples among them. Then we hope to partner with the church toward a genuine “missiological breakthrough.”

And this work is not done.

One of our people on the ground in northern India remarked recently, “You could plant your finger on a map of northern India – almost anywhere – and it would land on an unreached people group.” India is home to 2,605 people groups, overall; 2,338 of them are considered unreached. [4]

We have come a very long way in the evangelization of the people groups of the world. There is a long way still to go.