What Makes Someone “Unreached?”
This article will define the term “unreached people group,” explain both its biblical and historical roots, and identify how it’s impacting modern day missions.
Embark commits a percentage of every purchase to missionary teams working among unreached people groups, as well as 100% of profits from select items. This raises an important question—what is a “people group” and what makes one “unreached”? Is this term synonymous with words like “unsaved” and “unchurched”? And how does this concept impact the way mission agencies and missionaries steer their efforts today?
What You’ll Learn Today
A definition of “unreached people groups”
The biblical basis for prioritizing the “unreached”
The historical development of the “unreached” concept
The ways different groups are focusing on the unreached
Definition
A people group is a significant sized group of people who perceive themselves as a unit due to some combination of shared language, culture, history, class, ethnicity, etc. Unreached refers to the degree to which a people group can access the gospel. In other words, whether or not there are members within their people group—or in close proxmitiy to it—who can share the gospel with them. An unreached people group, then, is a community with shared history, language, and culture who have little-to-no gospel access. Some organizations, like Joshua Project, try quanitifying a people group’s relative reached-ness by labeling those with “less than 2% evangelical witness” as unreached. While we appreciate the attempt to provide such clear delineation between “reached” and “unreached,” we recognize this qualification is somewhat arbitrary. Regardless of whether or not we adhere to a strict statistical approach, it is clear that some people groups can access the gospel more easily than others based on the concentration of believers already in their community.* At Embark, we believe it’s imperative that Christians make an effort to evangelize not only within their own people group but also among those who still lack gospel access.
Biblical Basis
Although the term “unreached people group” only entered missions vocabulary within the last hundred years, the concept carried deep biblical roots. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible outlines God’s saving work among all nations. The idea of “people groups” and their need for the gospel can be seen from just a brief survey of three New Testament passages.
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Jesus’s final instruction in Matthew, often called the “Great Commission,” begins with both a main command (”make disciples”) and a defined scope (”of all nations”). While we often think of the term nations as a geo-political category (e.g. the nations of Brazil, Germany, Japan), many have argued against that meaning of the word here. Ethne, the Greek word translated “nations”, instead coincides more closely with our idea of “ethnicity,” people united by shared history, language, and customs.** Jesus was sending the disciples to every ethnicity, not the one hundred and eighty six “nations” of modern politics. For our purposes, this means every modern country can have a church without every nation having a church; the two terms are not synonymous. Papua New Guinea, for example, has many churches and many unreached nations—distinct people groups with no gospel presence. Recognizing this distinction confronts us with the unfinished business of the Great Commission. If Christ calls us to make disciples of every ethne, and there are still ethne with no disciples, then we can assume our work isn’t finished. There are more nations who still need the gospel. The Great Commission itself forces us to prioritize those people groups still untouched by Christ’s good news.
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Near the end of his most rigoruous theological letter, Paul addresses the focus of his ministry. He claims to have “fully proclaimed the gospel” from Jersulam to Illyricum before declaring his life’s great ambition—”to preach the gospel where Christ was not known.” He then reinforces this commitment with an Old Testament citation, quoting Isaiah: “Those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.” Certainly there was more gospel work to be done in the areas between Jerusalem and Illyricum. But the driving force of Paul’s ministry was making Christ known where he’d not been known before. Unlike his protege Timothy, whose ministry took place almost exlusively in Ephesus, Paul’s restless ambition continually brought him to new peoples. The strategy we see Paul using can inform how we think about missions. Some, like Paul, should focus their efforts on those who have never heard; those with no gospel access.
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The final book of the Bible presents a picture of God’s fully fulfilled redemptive work. Within that context we meet a “great multitude” standing before God’s throne singing, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb!” This group, John tells us, has a representative from every “nation, tribe, people, and language.” Again we find the Greek word ethne, paired this time with three additional terms, each compounding on the others to showcase the comprehensive scope of God’s redeemed people.
SUMMARY
Without even mentioning the abundance of Old Testament references to God’s plans for the nations, this brief survey of a few New Testament passages shows the biblical basis for focusing on unreached people groups as an approach to missions that is (1) faithful to the Great Commission, (2) modeled after Paul’s ministry, and (3) reflective of Revelation’s final scene
Historical Development
Prior to 1974 the term “unreached people group” hadn’t yet entered common vocabulary among mission agencies and church leaders. This all changed, however, after Ralph Winter’s landmark address at the Lausanne Conference on World Evangelization. Dr. Winter’s speech advanced insights from men like Cameron Townsend (founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators) and Donald McGavran (father of the Church Growth Movement) about the remaining need within countries already home to established national churches. In the address and subsequent writings, Winter pushed the missions community to focus their efforts on groups of people with minimal-to-no gospel access, rather than the traditional method of focusing on gospel-needing places. Whereas the first two “eras” of Protestant missions had focused on church-planting in new geographies—William Carey initiating a push to the coastlands and Hudson Taylor to the inlands—Winter saw a new stage on the horizon; one in which peoples, not places, would be the focus.
Dr. Winter eventually established the U.S. Center for World Mission (now Frontier Ventures) in order to further research and innovation in missions, with a special focus on work among the unreached. Frontier Ventures is responsible for popular programs like the Perspectives course and Joshua Project, both used widely in the last several decades to spread awareness about the need of unreached peoples.
Ongoing Impact
Despite only 1% of U.S. missions giving going to work among unreached people groups, the UPG paradigm has shaped and influenced many initiatives around the world since its introduction in 1972. Training centers such as Radius International have dedicated themselves to equipping would-be missionaries for the sake of reaching the unreached. Tools like Joshua Project and Stratus exist to collate data about the unreached, giving missionaries and agencies the information needed for strategic insights. Groups like Neverthirst meet physical needs in least-reached areas, opening the door for gospel conversations. Student conferences like Cross Conference exist to raise up laborers for the harvest, especially from the next generation. And grassroot teams, like our Ministry Partners, live and work among unreached people groups to translate the Bible, make disciples, and plant local churches.
Why Embark for the Unreached?
Evangelizing the remaining unreached people groups is not the only worthwhile work in missions right now. Already reached groups still need ongoing discipleship and training, continual equipping so that established churches today don’t sink into syncretism tomorrow. And while we wholeheartedly support such ministries, our hearts—and our resources—are with those who still haven’t heard. Like Paul, our ambition lies with those who live in total ignorance of Jesus, unable to learn about the gospel from anyone in their community. We partner with missionaries working among the unreached because, like John, we want to see heaven filled with some from every language—and someday, because God is working, we will.
*Identifying specific people groups as “unreached” serves us more as a compass than a calculator. Neither Jesus nor John gave us the master spreadsheet with every ethne they were referring to in Matthew 28 or Revelation 7. They did, however, arrest our imaginations with the all-encompassing scope of God’s redeemed people, keeping our eyes on the horizon, inviting us to remain vigilant until every ethne has heard the good news.
***Darren Carlson and Elliot Clark have insightfully critiqued the conflation of ethne with modern, socio-scientific terms like “ethnolinguistic” and “people group.” They propose a definition of ethne drawn from biblical-theological, rather than athropological, categories. While we recognize the merits of their argument, we also agree with their conclusion—that Ralph Winter’s focus on peoples over places was a necessary corrective for his day, and reaching those who have never heard is still an important task to complete.