January 01, 1996 by 08

With the unreached peoples vision gaining sharper focus and God's servants grasping that vision in ever-increasing numbers, each of us must reevaluate our role and that of those we serve. There are now new "players" on the scene that could only be dreamed of years ago. In every area of the mission cause, from assessment to mobilization to the non-western mission movement--God is raising up a crowd of new people committed to His Glory and to making it known all over the earth.

These developments have already caused us to change our purpose statement from "to foster the growth of a frontier missions movement" to"foster the growth of the frontier missions movement."

So, what course is the USCWM charting from here?

Focus on Peoples

Thinking in terms of peoples and the mission breakthroughs they need isn't new at all. It will remain central to our vision. But, given that foundational focus on unreached peoples, how do we recognize our role in His purposes amidst the emerging global players.

One of the amazing facts at the Global Consultation on World Evangelization in May of 1995 was the depth of interest in the idea of taking the gospel to peoples who haven't heard. Since then, a two- pronged emphasis has developed within the AD2000 and Beyond Movement. One is the National Initiatives and the other is the Joshua Project 2000.

1. The National Initiatives focus on what the body of Christ can do within their country, surrounding nations and the world--all depending on the strength of the body in that country. Many of the national plans include activities that work up to and beyond the year 2000.
2. The Joshua Project 2000 is focusing on the largest clusters of "least evangelized" people groups--1685 of them. (A draft list was printed in the Nov.-Dec. 1995 issue of Mission Frontiers.) These groups are larger than 10,000 in population and less than 5% Evangelical. By focusing on these peoples, the AD 2000 Movement is seeking to make an impact on the largest groups. For that we are thrilled.

Of course, as the charts in this issue show, there are many peoples smaller in population than 10,000--some of which we don't know anything about (and neither does anyone else it seems). These groups need research--perhaps even more than the larger ones (some of which have have been fully researched, and don't need any more). Among the questions we are asking are:

Who is going to get information about the peoples on the larger list, especially the groups for which we have NO information? There are 1823 peoples on the full list about whom we don't know anything beyond their name and a rough population figure.

Can we find families from these groups in other lands-- like here in North America or in other countries? This may be the best doorway to reaching a people in their homeland.

That last question links various concepts together, including AD2000's Joshua Project 2000 and the National Initiatives. It caused me to think more about...

Peoples Among Us--A Door to Their Homeland

For years Christians have said that we need to realize that the "nations" are coming to us. But most of our outreach has been limited to very mobile student populations. In the last 5-10 years, populations of refugee immigrants have become so well established that you would think that by now the body of Christ in the U.S. would have a handle on who is where and what is being done to reach them. Yet we know very little. Most of our knowledge is more personal--when someone we know reaches out to Uzbeks in New York, or Kurds in Nashville.

Apparently we have underestimated how helpful it would be to know where else there are Susu from Guinea, or Sundanese from Indonesia. If the body of Christ here and in each country of the world knew where every population group was, we could coordinate outreach to them in a culturally relevant way.Let me summarize this vision as a trial balloon (give me your feedback), we (in the U.S.) need to: ...gather information (data) on every representative ethnic group in the U.S., in order to develop and or network cross-cultural ethnic ministries toward strategic outreach.

The long-term goal of this effort is reaching to the heartlands of these groups.

Let me give an example of how this can work.

Representative families of the ABC people have settled over the years in Dallas, Texas, and culturally sensitive people reached out to them and drew some to faith in Christ. Meanwhile, field missionaries in the homeland of the ABC people have built a foundation through faithful service. Because of difficult circumstances, one of the new believers in Dallas took his family back to the homeland, where the door to faith has consequently been opened much wider. This is what the missionaries have been praying for.

As a ministry, we are committed to multiply this process in any way possible and could use the help of EVERY church in the U.S. and EVERY ethnic ministry outreach.

Not This!

Let me first say what we are NOT talking about. We don't need church people to try to do evangelism among these populations without training. Effective outreach to these groups must include cultural elements of which the average believer has no idea. Given the fact that someone else may be better equipped to do the outreach means that the key role for a typical church member is alerting another ministry of the existence of peoples nearby with whom they are able to work. Ministries that have the expertise to do the job, may simply need to know the location of the strategic doorways. Or they may provide training to help local lay-people to do the ministry.

What we are proposing is a new level of focus on the refugee/immigrant populations in the U.S. that are representative of Unreached Peoples, especially those on the larger Joshua Project 2000 List.

There is already much effective work being done with long-term ethnic "minority" populations here in the U.S. among whom there are already Christians. The Southern Baptists and others have done a great job among such groups. It is time for such groups to be mobilized with mission vision (if they haven't been already). We have spawned and host several ministries focused on this mobilization like the Latin American Division, the Korean American Center for World Mission (both a part of our ministry) and OM and OMF Korean American Ministries, OMF Chinese Church Mobilization, etc.

What remains to be done is to determine what populations are present in each locality and then network experienced, culturally sensitive ministries with the informed and motivated local church. Then, not only will outreach be more effective locally, but longer-term strategies to reach back to the homeland of the people are more likely to succeed.

Research Among Peoples

In the U.S.A.--

Information for the Task

As we look at the information available today through the Internet, research libraries, schools and global level researchers, our first impression might be that we know more than we can use.

While this may be true for certain (usually larger) cultures and ethnic groups, there are thousands of peoples in our cities and on our blocks about which we know practically nothing.

The 1990 census data is helpful, but too broad and dated. Listing a country of origin is insufficient in the almost universal situation that that country contains more than one people group. Knowing that someone is from Cambodia tells you that the person is 85% likely to be Khmer, but even then there are several tribal groups. Usually, the relation between country and people group is not even that simple.

Thus we need help to network or initiate research efforts throughout the U.S. that will track people down to specific addresses, block by block.

Joshua Project 2000 teams are preparing to go out to learn more about people groups all over the world, gather visuals and pray. We believe this will also be helpful in several ways: to the team members, for the information they gather, and for prayer to mention a few.

In any case, we hope to further the research of teams by helping in several ways:

• We believe we need to gather basic research on the peoples represented in the U.S. We will pursue these as a priority.
• We have sent teams outside the U.S. and will continue to do so. Our regional offices and the Korean American Center have effectively trained and fielded teams. They have been longer-term teams ranging from 2-6 months.
• The Korean American Center is planning to send several longer-term teams in the next few years. We are planning to link these teams and their research with the same people groups here in the U.S. (where possible) before they go to the homeland of the people for in-depth research. We would love to see multiethnic teams doing this work where possible.

Does this interest you? Which of the following ways could you contribute?

• Work in my home city/area to mobilize research to discover what people groups are represented there.
• Come to Pasadena and:

1. Help coordinate U.S. based networking and research or the training and sending of teams through various ministries.
2. Work with agencies on the deployment of skilled workers to strategic peoples here.
3. Work with churches wanting to adopt and help reach these peoples.

• To go on a research team: --In the U.S. --For two weeks --For one months ,, --For more than 4 months
• Internationally --For two weeks --For one months --For more than 4 months
• Help to recruit people to go on U.S. or international research teams.

As you can see, we need help to follow through and "chart the course" ahead. If you are interested, you can use the response form in the front of the magazine, call, write, or email ([email protected] )