November 01, 2002 by

Editor’s note: On pages 9-12 we’ve reprinted (by permission of Dawn Ministries) an article that appeared in the June 2002 issue of Dawn Report. We invited a variety of mission leaders to critique this article; four (including one participant in Table 71) responded, and on pages 13-14 we present those responses. We asked these leaders a variety of questions, including the following:

Q. Steele and Montgomery characterize Table 71’s development of a four-step process as the “most signi.cant missiological breakthrough since 1974”? Do you agree?  Why or why not?  Is this exaggeration? Is this confusing conceptual breakthroughs with advances in implementation?

Q.The authors indicate that Table 71 brings together DAWN and the unreached peoples movement, which had heretofore been running in parallel (but separate) streams. Does Table 71 really “solemnize the union” of these two streams?  Or are the two streams better understood and ap­plied separately?

Q. Have the authors fairly rep­resented the Adopt-a-People move­ment and what leaders in this move­ment have actually said and done?

Q. In answering the question of what needs to be done differently to reach every people, the Table 71 participants point to a “clearly de­.ned” four-step process and propose to entirely do away with the terms “unreached” and “adopted”?  Do you agree?  Why or why not?

Q.Table 71 participants have re­portedly insisted that their four-step process “not be entered upon in any UPG unless there were an indigenous partner from the beginning.”  Do you agree?  Why or why not?
To conclude our cover theme, on pages 15-16 Greg Parsons, Gen­eral Director of the U.S. Center for World Mission, adds his own assess­ment of Table 71, comparing this task force’s work to previous efforts to understand, describe, and minister among unreached peoples.