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

Reaching for the Unreached - Because they Can’t Wait Forever

A Dynamic New Adopt-A-People Brochure from African Inland Mission

Reaching for the Unreached - Because they Can’t Wait Forever

African Inland Mission International has taken a bold new step in promoting the Adopt-A-People Campaign. It has developed a new brochure that promises to be a model for others to follow. Pick one up from AIM and share the vision with a friend or send one of these brochures to the leaders of your denominational or faith mission agency and encourage them to become active participants in the Adopt- A-People Campaign. If you are not sure if your agency is involved, take a look on pages 12-13 of this issue to see if it is listed as a member of the Adopt-A-People Clearinghouse. Ask it to join if it is not. Printed here by permission of AIM is a copy of the text of the brochure.

Help Take Responsibility for the World. The Adopt-A-People Program

Today's mission community is living in a time unlike any other in the 200 year history of the modern missionary movement. Never before have we known more about the world and its some 12,000 "unreached" people groups--those tribes or communities out of the reach of the Gospel message. Never before have we had more personnel and material resources available at our disposal. Never before have we been more effectively prepared to reach the world for Christ. The time has come to take seriously our responsibility for the world's unreached people groups.

AIM's Adopt-A-People Program

AIM has a rich, century old tradition of ministry among unreached people groups. Since it was founded in 1895, we have launched outreach ministry with a single long-term goal in mind: the growth and development of the local church in East and Central Africa and the islands of the Indian Ocean. AIM's primary goal is to plant maturing churches of the Lord Jesus Christ through the evangelization of unreached people groups and the effective preparation of church leaders. And we believe that ministry among unreached people groups plays a vital part in the life of the maturing local church.

AIM is looking to the decade of the '90s and on into the twenty-first century for continued outreach opportunities. As an important part of our ongoing commitment to evangelization, church planting and leadership training, AIM is participating in an innovative outreach strategy called the Adopt-A-People program. It is a program that has the mission community excited as never before about the future of world missions!

The concept underlying the Adopt-A-People program is a familiar one, but it has been introduced only recently as a functional outreach strategy by the Mobilization Division of the U.S. Center for World Mission in Pasadena, Calif. The program is designed to mobilize local churches in the United States and Canada for focused outreach to some 12,000 unreached people groups around the world. This is done by "linking" each participating church group with an identified unreached people group.

Members of the local churches involved in the program choose a tribal group and "adopt" it, that is, they focus their cross-cultural ministry efforts on it and take on the challenge to reach the group for Christ.

Using the Adopt-A-People concept as an outreach strategy, AIM and partner churches throughout North America plan to penetrate 20 unreached people groups with evangelization and church-planting by 1995!

The Adopt-A-People challenge is a way for church groups in the United States and Canada to take the Gospel to the unreached in Africa. AIM is targeting 20 unreached people groups in its 14 fields of service. We invite our partner churches throughout North America to help us in this venture and adopt a people.

As part of the program church members choose one of AIM's 20 targeted people groups and adopt it, that is, they focus their missions efforts on it and take on the challenge to reach the group for Christ!

The beauty of the program is that local churches in North America can get involved in world evangelization in a specific way among a specific people group. Through focused prayer, giving and maybe even sending missionaries from their own church, members can help impact a specific part of the unreached world for Christ...right from their local church!

To those who are part of the Adopt-A-People program, the world's unreached are no longer a nameless two and a half billion. They include a group of people in Africa who have become a very important part of their lives.

Like parents who adopt children into their families, local churches that participate in the Adopt-A-People program understand that "adopting" a people group requires a long-term, even sacrificial commitment.

A Commitment to Pray

Without question the greatest contribution your local church can make toward the evangelization of an unreached people group by 1990 is focused, fervent prayer. This commitment is not kept simply by placing the name of your adopted people group, like the Ndam of Chad or the Kichepo of Sudan, on a prayer calendar. It can be kept only by entering into the diligent work of prayer. Yes, the work of committed, fervent prayer that God would establish a Christian witness among the tribe...committed, fervent prayer that He would anoint and raise up His chosen servants for ministry... committed, fervent prayer that the hearts of the people of the tribal group would be prepared to receive the Gospel message.

"We're hoping that the 'adopted' group becomes not only a prayer item but that it becomes an important part of people's lives," said Mrs. Carol Baker, AIM's Adopt-A-People program coordinator. "Those who 'adopt' a specific people group--who commit themselves to the hard work of prayer-- will be just as much a part of the missionary team as the group ministering physically in Africa," she said. "Perhaps more so."

A Commitment To Mobilize Resources

With your local church's commitment to pray for ''Gospel penetration" by 1995 also comes a commitment to work toward that goal in other ways. A "focused, fervent" effort certainly and firstly means much time spent in prayer. But it may also mean time spent sharing your church's outreach vision with others. Or it may mean time spent writing letters of encouragement to missionaries preparing for cross cultural missionary service. Or providing financial resources to missionaries or for field ministries or other projects among your "adopted" people group.

A Commitment To Go

Perhaps the most precious "resource" you can offer to God is your own family. When you participate in the Adopt-A-People program, you understand that your commitment to prayer and to the mobilization of resources is made with one objective in mind--the expansion of the kingdom of God on earth through the salvation of an entire people group, perhaps numbering in the hundreds of thousands of men and women and children!

To be a World Christian today is to make world evangelism and church planting a personal and corporate priority. It is to take seriously the responsibility given to us by the Lord Jesus Christ for the world and its more than 2 billion unreached people. It is to consider ways of becoming increasingly involved in cross-cultural ministry, perhaps even by making what some have termed "that dangerous prayer of availability": "Lord, would you have members of this local church go and be that Christian witness among our adopted people group? Would you have any of my family or friends go?...Lord, would you have me go?"

The Adopt-A-People Program

"Why Not Me?"

Without question the Adopt-A-People program looks great on paper, but can it deliver in a field situation?

Pastor Cliff Boone, minister of Christian education and youth at Cedar Crest Bible Fellowship Church in Allentown, Penn., is convinced it will deliver. In fact, he and his wife Becky are going to a lot of trouble to see that it does.

In February 1990 the Boones completed AIM's winter orientation program for missionary candidates. They and their young son Samuel are preparing for ministry as evangelists and church planters among the 40,000 unreached Sandawe tribespeople of northcentral Tanzania, the people group "adopted" by their local church only two years earlier. They hope to be joined later by other team members also from the Cedar Crest Church.

"I definitely think the program will be effective," said Becky. "We don't want to enter into spiritual warfare without our local church saying, 'Yes, we confirm God's call and gifting in your lives, and we set you apart for His service with our blessing and prayers.' We believe the Adopt-A-People program provides for that confirmation."

"Pray and expect God to do things," says Pastor Boone to others who want to get more involved in world evangelization. "You don't have to do just as we or as other churches have done.The Adopt-A-People concept can be applied in many ways. Just be aware that God may want you to be that Christian witness among your 'adopted' people group."

Today's mission community is living in a time unlike any other in the 200 year history of the modern missionary movement. The time has come to take seriously our responsibility for the world by reaching for the unreached. Because they can't wait forever.

If you are interested in learning more about how your local church can get involved in the Adopt-A-People program, please contact African Inland Mission International, Attn. Mrs. Carol Baker, Adopt-A- People program coordinator, P.O. Box 178, Pearl River, N.Y. 10965. Call 914/735-4014 or FAX 914/735-1814.

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