This is an article from the March-April 1991 issue: In 1979 the Wall Street Journal Lost Its National Sales Manager but the Unreached Gained Pioneers

How Goes the Harvest?

How Goes the Harvest?

Mission Frontiers Samples Six Denominational Boards Known to have Activities Among Unreached People

In the early 1980's as a result of a new emphasis on the still- unreached from many sources, more and more mission agencies began to stress once again the necessity to become involved in pioneer mission work, going to peoples where the church had not been planted. The Lausanne movement, MARC of World Vision, Patrick Johnstone and his Operation World books, David Barrett and the USCWM were some of the key movers behind what could now be called a "movement to the frontiers."

Out of this came a rather simple yet exciting new concept--that of encouraging local churches to "adopt" an unreached people group in cooperation with their chosen mission agency. In adopting it, the congregation would covenant to do all it could to help that group be reached as soon as possible. This would involve study, intercessory prayer, personnel recruitment and their financial support.

This concept has spread around the world. By now, a number of agencies, already committed to this same goal, actively welcome inquiries from churches and fellowship groups who would like to "adopt a people." Thus they are the key link between the Christians among reached peoples to the 12,000 unreached groups with no church.

Before missionaries can be sent to evangelize such groups, the mission agencies first have to identify who and where they are, ascertain the proper approaches to begin work among them, recruit workers qualified to pioneer in those situations, and link them up with the churches eager to help with their support.

How are they doing? Mission Frontiers recently did a sampling of a few of the denominational boards which are involved in an Adopt-A- People type of program, asking, "How goes the harvest?" Although this sampling is very incomplete, it does give some indication that God is doing great things in our day. "The harvest indeed is ripe," as Jesus said, "but the laborers are [still too] few." No two answers are the same, but interesting insights have surfaced.

In the chart below, you will see the results of this preliminary sample. Several boards began by targeting a specific number of unreached groups, usually ranging from 50 to 300. (Out of roughly 12,000 groups to be reached, a reasonable adoption goal for all North American agencies is 3,000.) Some agencies are still in the planning stages, trying to be realistic and yet full of faith about what God might have them do.

How did these few on whom we are reporting arrive at their particular numbers? The Southern Baptist Board has 3,000 unreached groups in its database and a large number of supporters in the States, so it seemed that 300 was not too many for them to target, requiring 600 workers. Since they planned to add 1,200 new workers by the year 2000, one half the increase will go to new fields.

Deploying half the total to Unreached Peoples certainly represents a departure from the way most mission agencies allocated personnel 10 years ago, when the ratio of all agencies together was more like 10% to the unreached and 90% to established fields! But of course it is hard to blame agencies for turing earlier unreached peoples into well- established beachheads! In fact for existing missionaries to encourage the Christians among whom they work to become mission minded is one of the most strategic things that could be done.

Instead of simply deciding on how many unreached groups they want to target to reach, some agencies look first to see what groups are contiguous to the fields where they are already working. Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA) strategists have already done initial research on 118 such groups. Fred Smith of that board indicates that their field directors have been asked to target the most promising of these and set dates for sending in workers.

The Evangelical Free Church board is also looking first at unreached groups within their present areas of work. Speaking for them, Ben Sawatsky says that "Later this year, Country Leaders will be able to target these peoples, probably 20 to 25 groups." Following that step they intend to do additional research in parts of the world where the "E. Frees" are not now working.

Progress Made

Each one of these agencies recognizes that setting goals is far different from accomplishing them. Yet it seems clear that the only way the Great Commission will be obeyed is if evangelicals of every persuasion can somehow coordinate their efforts to see it completed!

The Southern Baptists now have 30 teams assigned to unreached groups. That is only 10% of their goal of 300, but during the first two years they had to develop a prototype training program for their new missionaries going to unreached fields. They have found it necessary to make some mid-course corrections, but should now be able to place units more rapidly and feel confident that they will reach their goals! Because much of their work, especially among people who seem to be resistant, involves so-called non-resident missionaries (who direct their efforts from outside the country where a particular people is mainly resident), they cannot, for security reasons, be specific about the numbers of churches they have planted. However some Scriptures have been translated and radio broadcasts made.

In the last seven years, the Presbyterian Church in America (P.C.A.) has placed 65 missionaries among 25 formerly-unreached groups and feel they are on target for another 150 groups. They plan to employ a broad range of strategies: using non-resident missionaries, national Christians, tentmakers, partnerships with "Two-Thirds World" mission agencies, Bible translators and church-planting teams. They hope to be proactive, not reactive, in choosing which groups to target since opportunities can suddenly open up. This has happened in recent months in Central Asia.

In 1980, the Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society (CBFMS), which is the primary agency for the Conservative Baptist Association, committed itself to evangelizing 75 unreached groups. A number of these have already been engaged, and of the 50 additional groups recently targeted, preliminary research has begun.

The C&MA reports that they have begun work in 60% of the 118 people groups they have already targeted, mostly within the last decade. But they expect to target still more groups, although that number has not yet been decided, They are taking the challenge so seriously that they have added to their rolls an exciting new category of missionary-- a "researcher-missionary," whose job it is to identify and report on unreached groups within each field. Training in how to do this type of unreached people research is under the direction of Dr. Sam Wilson of the Zwemer Institute.

Recruiting Local Churches

We have yet to find out how well the "Adoption" process is going. Ideally, this process will tie together the local church, its preferred mission agency and an unreached people group. The Baptist General Conference has made great strides in this, as we reported recently. So far as we know the Baptist General Conference is the only denomination which officially, as a denomination declared Unreached Peoples its highest priority.

The Evangelical Free Church will soon be sending their congregations a list of peoples its mission board has identified for mission work, urging the churches to "adopt one or more." Before the board was ready for this close tie, a number of the E.V. Free churches were already inquiring about doing this.

How Can Coordination Take Place?

Although mission agencies have long worked in friendly cooperation together, they often were not well informed as to what each other was doing. As a result, there was overlap, or worse yet, certain people groups tended to be by-passed by all the agencies.

In the past few years a veritable torrent of new investigation has taken place. On the global level we see people like Patrick Johnstone (author of Operation World) and David Barrett (author of the World Christian Encyclopedia). On the national level, many country-wide committees, in Ghana, Kenya, Thailand, etc. have sprung into existence.

As all of this new thrust for knowledge has unfolded, it is probably fair to say that many have been shocked at the number of peoples still unreached--a number widely accepted today is that there are from 2,000 to 3,000 ethnolinguistic clusters of Unreached Peoples totalling close to 12,000.

At the same time we are all pleasantly surprised that the number of agencies--now from non-Western as well as Western countries--which are eager to be involved in the harvest. The job is do-able!

Yet, we needed a clearinghouse, not to direct any agency's work, but rather to keep us informed about each other, to provide a data bank and to aid in research and promotion of prayer support. It was for this purpose that in 1989 the Adopt-A-People Clearinghouse was formed. Among its tasks are the following:

  1. to gather research on the last tribes and peoples where a church movement must still be planted;
  2. to help mobilize the 330,000 North American evangelical congregations to adopt at least 3,000 unreached peoples;
  3. to carve the task of reaching 12,000 groups into "bite-sized pieces" so that 10 or more congregations might unite with a mission agency in adopting one of these peoples for prayer and giving until a strong indigenous witnessing church is established there.

(Note: see The new AAP Bulletin on pages 19-22)

Action Steps You Can Take

Check on pp. 14-15 to see if your mission agency is affiliated with the Clearinghouse. If not, urge it to join. Sawatsky says for the Evangelical Free denomination, "There has been a groundswell of input generated by that office. We are committed to it and have placed a full-time worker there. We are in touch with him continually to get information for us."

If your congregation has not yet acted to adopt an unreached group that your mission agency has targeted, please prayerfully seek out the missions committee chairperson and your pastor and urge them to help finish Jesus' mandate in this way!

OR--if the agency in which you are a worker needs more information on what is involved in affiliating with the Adopt-A-People Clearinghouse, contact Stan Yoder at 1605 Elizabeth St., Pasadena CA 91104 (818) 398-2282.

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