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People Groups/Adopting People Groups/Church Planting Movements University Baptist Church Intro to Missions – Session 6 FUSION People Groups/Adopting People Groups/Church Planting Movements People Groups In our effort of discovering and reaching every tongue, tribe and nation on the planet, it is important to recognize who remains to hear the gospel. Who are the people groups that still need a movement of indigenous or local followers of Christ who can disciple their own people? Understanding terms is important if we are going to be strategic in our efforts to finish the task of the great commission in world evangelization. What is a people group? In 1982, the Lausanne Committee in Chicago defined people groups as “the largest group within which the Gospel can spread as a church planting movement without encountering barriers of understanding or acceptance.” Joshua Project defines a people group according to the highest of the two barriers (understanding and acceptance). Understanding In the majority of the world, understandability acts as the main barrier and therefore it is appropriate to define people groups primarily by language, with the possibility of sub-divisions based on dialect or cultural variation. If understandability is the most important barrier, than a linguistics, or an ethno-linguistic, approach is used – making it so that one people group doesn’t speak more than one language, although more than one people group can speak the same language if cultural or dialect differences warrant. In most of the world, this approach is used. The barrier of understanding suggests that language is always important when defining a people group. If in a particular situation the understanding barrier is more important than the acceptance barrier then defining people group by language, perhaps exclusively by language, is appropriate. And this seems to be the case in most cultures and situations. However, if “people group” was defined strictly by language, a person would have to take into account that some castes speak 50-60 languages and therefore, there would be over 16,000 people groups in India alone! This would be an overwhelming and daunting task for church planters. If groups were only divided by language, church planters would be attempting to plant among castes and tribes that mistrust or hate each other. People may understand each other, but do they accept each other? Therefore, there must be another exception. Acceptance In some parts of the world, acceptance is a greater barrier than understandability. In these regions, caste, religious tradition, location, and common histories and legends may be used to identify the primary boundary of each people group. Language can be a secondary boundary. However, where the cultural/relational (acceptance) barrier is more important (ie South Asia), then the caste/tribe is the first criterion for separation. With this approach, one people group may speak more than one language, and again, the same language can be spoken in other groups. 1 University Baptist Church Intro to Missions – Session 6 FUSION This compromise (allowing one people group to speak more than one language) is a way to present a simplified picture of the church planting task, at the risk of over-simplifying the understandability barriers within people groups. Understandability and Acceptance Situations where Situations where Ministry Objective understandability is the acceptance is the highest highest barrier barrier Language-based outreaches such as Bible translations, audio and (I) Focus on linguistic groups, (II) Focus on linguistic video recordings, radio, TV, not ignoring local ethnic groups, not ignoring local Internet, mass evangelism issues ethnic issues campaigns. (III) Focus on linguistic Planting, establishing and growing (IV) Focus on ethnic groups, groups, not ignoring local the church within its local culture not ignoring language ethnic issues According to Joshua Project, in a perfectly ideal world, a people group would always mean: (a) all individuals in the group understand each other reasonably well; and (b) cultural/relationship barriers do not seriously impede the transmission of the gospel. But this isn’t a perfect world! How many people groups are there? Depending on how a people group is defined will determine how many people groups there are. Different definitions yield different counts. Some say 27,000. Others say 16,000. Some suggest 12,000. Still others say 10,000. Which numbers are correct? Could they all be correct? Here is an illustration to help us understand why this confusion exists. Suppose someone innocently asks, “What is the largest country?” What is the answer? It all depends on what is meant by “largest.” The answer is Russia if largest refers to geographic land area. The answer is China if largest refers to population. The answer is the United States if largest means financially. All are different, yet are correct answers to the same simple question. The underlying issue is the definition… what is meant by “largest?” So the core question is what is meant by the term “people group”? Even when using the terms understandability and acceptance, there are still multiple definitions for people groups. Varying the Definition of a People Varies the Resulting Lists 2 University Baptist Church Intro to Missions – Session 6 FUSION Peoples Defined By Resulting List Examples Totals Language Linguistic peoples ! Ethnologue ~7,000 Linguistic peoples (Particularly ! Registry of Peoples and Language / Dialect ~11,000 supports language based ministry) Languages ! Integrated Strategic Planning Database ! World Christian Ethno-linguistic peoples Encyclopedia Language / Dialect ! Operation World ~ 13,000 Ethnicity (Particularly supports language based peoples lists evangelistic / discipleship outreaches) ! Original Joshua Project list ! PeopleGroups.org Language / Dialect Ethnic peoples Ethnicity ! Joshua Project Religion ! Registry of Peoples ~ 16,000 (Particularly supports church planting Caste (ROP) outreaches) Culture Language / Dialect Ethnicity Unimax peoples (ie when there are no Religion significant barriers of either Caste understanding or acceptance to stop ! World Christian Culture the spread of the gospel) Encyclopedia estimates Education ~ 27,000 ! US Center for World Politics (Particularly supports church planting Mission estimates Ideology and all types of evangelistic / Historical enmity discipleship outreaches) Customs Behavior What about Country Boundaries? All the above models consider country boundaries when defining people groups. For example, if the Tatar people group are in 21 Central Asian countries, they are counted 21 times. Some hold that in the purest sense people groups should be counted without reference to political boundaries. The suggestion is that modern country boundaries did not exist when the command of Matthew 28:19 “to make disciples of all the ethne” was given. Others suggest that in many cases political boundaries do not distinguish peoples. The “pure peoples” model counts the Tatar living in 21 Central Asian countries as one people group, not 21. The current Joshua Project count for peoples-by-country is 16,256 and the count for pure peoples is 9,833. So what is the Answer? A summary of all of these definitions: a people group is a significantly large grouping of individuals who perceive themselves to have a common affinity for one another because of their shared language, religion, ethnicity, residence, occupation, class or caste, situation, etc, or combinations of these. So after all that, what is the answer to the simple question of how many people groups are there? It 3 University Baptist Church Intro to Missions – Session 6 FUSION depends. If referring to ethno-linguistic peoples about 13,000; if referring to unimax peoples about 27,000; if referring to ethnic peoples about 16,000; or if referring to ethnic (cultural-ethno-linguistic) peoples without reference to country boundaries about 10,000. All are right answers… depending on the perspective. When thinking about definitions, it’s important to think about perspective as well. Because this is a mission class, our perspective will be that of church planting – because, as you may remember from our lesson on missional doctrines, mission involves/is church planting. People Group Adoption Defined One method and strategy gaining popularity through the world, especially in the US and among IMB churches, is people group adoption. The word adoption can be defined in a number of ways: the act of accepting with approval or a legal preceding that creates a parent-child relation between persons not related by blood. Biblically, it has been used to mean “place as a son”. When a person adopts a child, they commit to care for, nurture and prepare that child for life. Similarly, in people group adoption, a church pledges or commits to focus concern on one people group which needs the gospel. A church makes a commitment to an unreached people until there is an indigenous, reproducing church established among them. Aspects may include prayer, research and networking toward church planting. It can also include sponsoring a missionary, funding specific ministries such as Jesus Film distribution, or actually sending lay teams to the people to work in partnership with a missionary already on the field. Adoption is biblical because it is patterned after God, who is calling and adopting sons and daughters from every tribe, tongue, and nation, “He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will” (Ephesians 1:5). When we adopt a people, we are His agents or ambassadors. Adoption is effective because it makes sure that every group has a group of Christians praying for and reaching out to them. Adopting a people is a “do-able” piece of the Great Commission, where each church, large and small, can play a part. Why the emphasis on peoples? When Jesus said in Matthew 28:19, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations,” the word translated nations is the Greek ethne, the basis for our word ethnic. It is not a political or geographical unit, but a people, a tribe, defined by culture and language.
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