GFA Missionaries: Making Disciples of All Nations

Making disciples of all nations was the point of Jesus’s last command before He ascended into heaven. Nations look different today than they did when Jesus walked the Earth, but His command remains. In order to reach as many people as possible, Christians now ask the question: Who are the unengaged people groups?

Instead of focusing on a political or geographical nation or state, Christians now recognize that within any given country there many be several people groups. What are people groups? The evangelical organization People Groups defines them as, “an ethnolinguistic group with a common self-identity that is shared by the various members. There are two parts to that word: ethno and linguistic. Language is a primary and dominant identifying factor of a people group. But there are other factors that determine or are associated with ethnicity.”[1]

Likewise, we need to ask, “What are frontier groups?” This is even more narrow. The Joshua Project defines a frontier group as “an Unengaged People Group (UPG), with virtually no followers of Jesus and no known movements to Jesus, still needing pioneer cross-cultural workers.”[2]

There are an estimated 4,848 frontier people groups, with a total population of 2,007,922,000.[3] According to East-West, “of the approximately 8 billion people on planet Earth, about 3.2 billion are considered [unengaged] or least reached. More than 7,000 people groups are classified as [unengaged]. That’s more than 40% of the total population.”[4]

There are 683 people groups in 11 countries in Southeast Asia with little to no gospel witness. Africa’s massive continent is host to 460 groups that have not been reached.[5] These alone are two massive mission fields needing workers to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ and serve the people with love and compassion. This must be done with intentionality, grace, understanding and sensitivity. The language and cultural barriers alone are enough to stop the spread of the Good News. Yet, Jesus would not have left this command for us if there were no way to fulfill it.

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