EMQ » October–December 2020 » Volume 56 Issue 4
By Greg Parsons
Prior to the first Lausanne Congress for World Evangelization in 1974, there was little awareness of unreached people groups (UPG). As researchers began to get better information about the status of world evangelization, it became increasingly clear that, despite successes, there were gaps in mission efforts – especially within cultural blocs where the gospel had made little impact. Lausanne sought to address opposing calls for a “mission moratorium” by calling attention to the need to continue reaching out to the world with the gospel.
Ralph D. Winter’s plenary challenge at Lausanne ’74 was a clarion call to expand mission outreach. God used that presentation and a spirit of change on the hearts of leaders, young and old, to fuel what became a global movement to reach people groups without a viable church. The UPG vision and thinking impacted three groups in particular: students, churches, and mission agencies.
Setting the Stage for a Movement
In the 1970s, new effective ways of digesting and disseminating up-to-date information on the world began to be more accessible. The MARC division of World Vision produced two series of books involving data sets, Unreached Peoples of the World, and the Mission Handbook: North American Protestant Ministries Overseas.[1] In 1976, the first edition of Patrick Johnstone’s Operation World was published, and in 1982 David Barrett made available the World Christian Encyclopedia. Later, a group of creative data-focused mission leaders, fueled by a mostly young group of Caltech programmer-types, caught the Unreached vision. Under the mature leadership and experience of Bob Waymire, they started Data Serve (later Global Mapping International) in 1986. The information infrastructure of the UPG movement was growing.
It was becoming clear that there were both successes and blind spots in the spread of the gospel. Leading up to Lausanne ’74, Ralph Winter, with Donald McGavran and others, had spent eight years helping to train and learn from about one thousand field-experienced missionaries at Fuller Seminary’s School of World Mission (now the School of Intercultural Studies). He was also engaged with the burgeoning mission sending from Asia. In 1973, at the All Asia Missions Consultation, with only a few Westerners present, Winter presented the Two Structures of God’s Redemptive Mission,[2] which explains the now well-known distinction between mission (sodality) and church structures (modality). And, at that same event, Winter also urged that many more missions be established in Asia.[3] Mission structures, both Western and non-Western, would be essential and strategic in the developing UPG movement.
This fed into Winter’s presentation in 1974: The Highest Priority: Cross-Cultural Evangelism.[4] In this presentation, as Lausanne recently posted, “Winter shared the concept of unreached people groups that significantly influenced evangelical mission energies ever since.”[5] “The massive need to take the gospel to unreached people groups, as presented by Winter and illustrated by [Donald] McGavran” is now recognized as one of three major emphases of Lausanne 74.[6]
In the fall of 1974, Ralph and his wife Roberta increasingly felt compelled to do something about this. In 1976, he left his tenured faculty position at Fuller and together they established of the U.S. Center for World Mission (USCWM, now called Frontier Ventures). Their clear and compelling vision: reaching the Unreached. In 1979, that vision was distilled in the watchword: A Church for Every People by the Year 2000.[7] For the vision of reaching unreached peoples to spread, the USCWM would have to be a “soapbox” galvanized three groups: Students, Churches and Mission Agencies.
Students
In the 1960–1970s, God seemed to be using general unrest among young people, reflected in the Jesus Movement and the burgeoning Charismatic movement, to bring a spirit of change. Young people sought to “make a difference” with their lives.
Ralph Winter saw what was happening with these students and tried to engage them for the Kingdom. He had attended every Urbana from the first in 1949, when he was in seminary. In 1970, only eight percent signed the Decision Card, but at Urbana 1973, twenty-eight percent signed, saying they were willing to become missionaries, should God direct. With that year’s record audience of 14,000, that meant almost 4,000 young people had signed the cards![8] Winter got one of his many ideas and bounded into action. He contacted Urbana Director David Howard and convinced him to offer the students an intensive 2-week course to help them go deeper with their commitments. Some six months later in the summer of 1974, students came to a precursor of what later became the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course. Now well over 250,000 have taken the course globally.[9]
There were global gatherings focused on unreached peoples that involved students as well as mission leadership. The USCWM helped organize the World Consultation on Frontier Missions (WCFM) in Edinburgh Scotland in 1980 (E’80).[10] A significant and “novel addition” was a parallel “sister consultation” in Edinburgh, the International Student Consultation on Frontier Missions (ISCFM).[11] ISCFM was composed of 170 students from twenty-seven countries, and grappled with the needs of unreached peoples as well as the challenge of mobilizing a new generation of student pioneer missionaries to hidden peoples.[12]
There were several outcomes of ISCFM. The students adopted the E’80 watchword “A Church for Every People by the Year 2000” and produced and signed a consensus “pledge.” This pledge represented a lifetime commitment to the cause of frontier missions, whether at home or abroad, and to spreading that vision:
By the grace of God and for His glory, I commit my entire life to obeying His commission of Matthew 28:18–20, wherever and however He leads me, giving priority to the peoples currently beyond the reach of the Gospel (Romans 15:20–21). I will also endeavor to impart this vision to others.
The ISCFM established a mechanism for ongoing “communication” of the frontier mission vision. Under the leadership of Brad Gill, the resulting International Journal for Frontier Missions,[13] launched in 1984,became the official journal of the new International Society for Frontier Missiology (ISFM). Soon, this was a vibrant network, meeting annually, including younger leaders, scholar-practitioners, mobilizers and field workers. It has facilitated fresh thinking, prayer focused research, theologizing and praxis related to frontier missions.[14]
The challenge of mobilizing students was picked up by new initiatives like Caleb Project, founded by four Penn State University students who took the first extension “Perspectives” course in the early days of the USCWM. These passionate “senders” and “go-ers” embraced the challenge of mobilizing their generation of students, promoting the Edinburgh ’80 ISCFM pledge – renaming it “The Caleb Pledge” – to make Christ known, “giving priority to peoples currently beyond the reach of the gospel,” based on Romans 15:20–21.[15]
Many other tools, people and ministries could be included here. In 1980, a student magazine was launched called Today’s Mission (later renamed World Christian Magazine). Teams of students on the way to the field, circulated among college and university campuses with a God-centered missions appeal to challenge students to follow them. Raising up young people with purpose and direction spread vision not only on campuses, but also in churches, and helped redirect the energies of mission organizations to the Unreached.
Churches
Winter knew that local churches were critical as the “home base” of the mission movement. Giving, awareness, prayer, mission education, and sending are grounded in the church. To reach unreached peoples, that home base would need renewing with frontier mission vision and biblical understandings of God’s heart and purposes for all peoples. UPG thinking and vision began to impact churches, not only in North America, but in other parts of the world.
Unlike today, the idea and role of a mission “mobilizer” was not well understood. Winter was calling young people who joined him to raise a ministry support team and then stay in the U.S. – in order to encourage others to go to UPG. The reasoning behind it was simple: Why go alone when you can stay back and find others to go with you? One popular way of illustrating this was the notion of “Waking sleeping firemen”: If a person sees a burning building, he/she can choose either to get a bucket and try to put it out alone (meaning: go to the field directly), or go and wake up one hundred sleeping firemen for the task (meaning: take others with you to multiply the effort!).
Effective mobilization requires ideas, resources and examples to fuel pray and action. In 1974, Winter helped former Xerox executive Don Hamilton establish a “professional network” for church missions committees called the Association of Church Missions Committees. ACMC was all about “churches helping churches” to plan, prioritize and structure their mission efforts.
In 1979, the publication of Mission Frontiers magazine (MF) began as a “bull horn” for these ideas. Mission leaders in local churches began to engage with key field issues in a new way. Agencies sought to lead the way while also keep up with the students pushing to reach the unreached.
David Bryant, an effective student mobilizer with InterVarsity Missions called people to gather in serious “concerts of prayer.”[16] The USCWM produced the Daily Prayer Guide (later renamed the Global Prayer Digest). It was modeled after Walk Thru the Bible’s monthly resource, but with a prayer focused “walk thru the world.” It includes specific unreached people groups for each day of the month. The goal was and is to “invade” people’s minds, hearts and devotional lives with prayer for the unreached. The thinking behind it: only what you do daily will dominate your life. It has been in continuous production since.[17]
People also needed to pray together in their churches, so the USCWM created the Frontier Fellowship. This would give an outlet for churches to reach specific people groups by encouraging both specific prayer for unreached peoples and collect funds they could send to their denominational mission or preferred mission agency. The Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship (now www.frontierfellowship.com) raised millions of dollars from its churches for work among the unreached.
Other programs were designed to equip churches and spread the vision. A Hidden Peoples Sunday kit had sample sermon outlines and resources for churches to have a special Sunday emphasis. Other video and study resources for awareness and teaching were later “packaged” together into a “Year of Vision” mission renewal and education emphasis.
In 1980, early USCWM Director of Mobilization, Len Bartlotti, proposed that churches Adopt-A-People to enable churches to partner with agencies in order to “adopt” or focus on a particular people group for ongoing prayer, concern, and potentially, sending. The focus was not on the “adopting” missionaries and workers, but on the specific unreached people group – with the long-term goal of a viable, indigenous church planting movement among them. Today, there are entire denominations, especially in Latin America and Asia, which have taken up this challenge, multiplying fervent intercession for specific UPG.[18] In the U.S., denominations like the Evangelical Free Church, Foursquare, Presbyterian, Southern Baptist, Assemblies of God, and others have turned their attention and considerable resources – some quickly, others more slowly – toward UPG and frontier missions.
Mission Agencies
Missiological discussions were already happening all over the world.[19] A number of agencies and denominational missions realized they needed to refocus their efforts on unreached peoples. They knew that the UPG vision would require (1) reaching into new cultures with the gospel, (2) crossing new barriers, and (3) recruiting new global workers. The early days of the UPG movement included a lot of brainstorming and interaction at the USCWM, with conferences and meetings between a variety of people, church, and mission leaders from around the globe.
New sending organizations were started, such as Frontiers and Pioneers, with an exclusive or priority focus on pioneer church planting among Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or Tribal peoples. Other agencies looked to their roots and renewed their historical commitment to frontier work. The associations that brought together mission leaders from denominations and faith missions also turned their attention to UPG.
In 1980, MF included an article on the Foursquare denomination’s plans “to establish mission coordinators at each local church and seek to reach 100 UPGs.”[20] In an article for Wherever magazine, published by TEAM, Winter noted that “All the major mission agencies are aware of the new era. The Sudan Interior Mission has a full-time man investigating new fields. The African Inland Mission is rapidly retooling. TEAM has been constantly reaching out to new fields. So has the Regions Beyond Missionary Union.”[21]
In the mid-1980s, in a strategic move into the practical realm, the USCWM hosted summer training modules on reaching out to local Muslims. The Zwemer Institute, founded 1979 and led by Don McCurry, brought together veteran missionaries and scholars for research, study, mobilization, and the training of multitudes of workers going into the Muslim world. After serving in diverse Islamic nations, some of these students are now themselves professors training another generation of young people.[22]
Non-Western sending agencies were also getting involved. The Latin world came on the global scene in 1987 with a gathering called COMIBAM,[23] and with leaders like Luis Bush,[24] along with other international efforts.[25] In the Chinese world, Thomas Wang led the way and in the late 80s, both Wang and Bush helped to launch the AD2000 Movement, which mobilized globally and fulfilled its purpose up to its planned ending in the year 2001.[26] Winter estimated that eighty-five percent of the missionaries worked among groups already reached with the gospel. Only fifteen percent served among the Unreached.[27] So while evangelicals recognized we needed more missionaries, now there was pressure for them to more carefully consider where to send them.
As the UPG movement grew in influence, debates swirled around UPG thinking, theology, missiology and praxis. The USCWM made a point never to push for the “redeployment” of missionaries from established fields to UPG, as some did. They argued that an established missionary working in a reached group was in the best position to mobilize that “national” church for work among new UPG.[28] Still, some local churches began to question existing missionaries on long-established fields about their work. Over time, some workers were redeployed by their agency; other ministries shifted or ended.In reaction, some ministries felt existing mission fields were being abandoned. The issues were discussed in several articles in EMQ during the 1980s–1990s – and more recently.[29]
Other objections were raised. Even as early as the ’74 Lausanne event, there were those who felt the focus on specific people groups created churches divided along ethnic lines. This debate circulates and has been argued from many angles on the pages of EMQ,[30] the IJFM and other journals. Some argue that the church should be diverse. However, while this may appear ideal, it is hard to find models of “conglomerate” or multi-ethnic churches that are not dominated by one group or language – often English, or even Arabic (e.g. among Berbers in North Africa).[31] Other suggest that that scriptures point to the beauty of different cultures expressing God’s creativity and glory in new ways, and that “unifying” the church squelched that dimension. Another aspect of the debate over the Unreached, focused on the lost among “reached” nations, arguing that these people should not be overlooked.[32]
In addition to the Lausanne Movement, groups, such as the World Evangelical Alliance,[33] have also furthered the collaboration, networking, and significant discussions on a range of church and mission issues. Non-western founded groups such as the Asian Missions Society[34] (founded in 1975) and the Asian Society of Missiology[35] (founded in 2003) have added their voices to the movement. More recently, a new U.S. based network called Alliance for the Unreached was established in 2015.[36] It is seeking to catalyze a movement that unites churches, organizations and individuals around the cause of reaching every unreached people group on earth with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Ironically, despite the continuing great “imbalance” in mission sending and funding, with the majority going to peoples and places with existing churches, there is still resistance by some to a focus on UPGs. Recently, several organizations have refocused efforts on those UPG with less than 0.1% Christian of any kind and no movements to Jesus. They have been labeled Frontier People Groups and are considered high priority.[37] This suggests that UPG rethinking, discussion and research should continue to help us grow in our understanding and effective field practice.
Conclusion
Growing out of Lausanne ’74, a new vision of the unreached has impacted students, churches and agencies right up to the present. The fruit of their labor can be seen in the advancement of new strategies, new sending, and new fellowships among formerly unreached peoples. We press on in prayer and service, seeking to reach those who are not yet reached, that they may be reconciled to God.
Greg Parsons, along with his wife Kathleen, joined the staff of Frontier Ventures (formerly USCWM) in 1982. They have two children and three grandchildren. For the first twenty-seven years Greg worked with Ralph D. Winter, serving from 1990–2010 as General Director. Greg currently serves as Director of Global Connections – learning from and connecting with missions & church leaders globally. Greg writes a regular column in Mission Frontiers magazine. He has a ThM from Dallas Seminary and PhD from the University of Wales.
Notes
[1] Unreached Peoples Directory, (1973) MARC, Monrovia. The first published survey of North American missions was in 1953. The Missions Advanced Research and Communication Center or MARC took over the publication of this book in 1973 from John R. Mott established Missionary Research Library. The North American Mission Handbook is now published by MissioNexus.org
[2] Winter, R. D. (1974), “The Two Structures of God’s Redemptive Mission,” Missiology 2(1): 122-139.
[3] Chun, C. (1975), The All-Asia Mission Consultation. School of World Mission, Pasadena, Fuller Theological Seminary, MTh Thesis, 399. See pages 7–8.
[4] Winter, R. D. (1975), The Highest Priority: Cross-Cultural Evangelism in Let the Earth Hear His Voice, J. D. Douglas, Minneapolis, World Wide Publications: 213-241. In my thesis on Ralph Winter, I explain the insightful way the ’74 Lausanne Congress sought to engage delegates months before the meeting. The consultation provided for a unique, pre-conference global input, in that each plenary speaker submitted their paper six months ahead of time, and then based on that input, revised them for their presentation at Lausanne. Ralph Winter’s presentation was completely different than what he first submitted.
[5] Accessed on May 4, 2020: https://www.lausanne.org/tbd/lausanne-connecting-point/remembering-dr-ralph-winter
[6] In the lead up to the third Lausanne Congress in Cape Town in 2010, Lausanne.org summarized three major outcomes from the 1974 meeting. The other two were (1) the “Lausanne Covenant,” and (2) “The clear recognition and need for evangelicals to focus on social issues.”
[7] Editor (1979), “Today’s Crisis Tomorrow’s Challenge,” Mission Frontiers 1(4): 3-7. Much has been written about the value of this goal, what was achieved, and whether it cause a “let down” when it wasn’t completed? See www.MissionFrontiers.org after the year 2,000 for some of the follow-up evaluation, as well as EMQ and other sources during the early 2,000s.
[8] Parsons, G. (2012). Ralph D. Winter : Early Life and Core Missiology, Pasadena, WCIU Press, 225.
[9] https://www.perspectives.org/
[10] “Edinburgh 1980 Momentum Grows,” Mission Frontiers 2(4): 3 (1980) and “Edinburgh 1980 Reports,” Mission Frontiers 2:12 (1980), accessed June 26, 2020.
[11] Information on ISCFM was provided by Len Bartlotti, who attended Edinburgh 1980 and participated in both WCFM and ISCFM.
[12] The latter goal was inspired in part by the Student Volunteer Movement, launched in 1886, which mobilized university students for the cause of world evangelization.
[13] Now the International Journal of Frontier Missiology, https://www.ijfm.org/index.htm
[14] Email to the author from Len Bartlotti, June 2, 2020.
[15] For background on Caleb Project, see Mission Frontiers, August 1988. Caleb Project and its companion ministries (e.g. the Perspectives-like text and course Encountering the World of Islam) are now associated with the agency Pioneers.
[16] Bryant, D. (1983), “Concerts of Prayer: Waking Up for a New Mission Thrust,” Mission Frontiers 5(3 & 4): 6–11.
[17] https://www.globalprayerdigest.org Also available via an app. and www.joshuaproject.net
[18] See the initial proposal in Mission Frontiers 2:11 (1980). AAP program became the Global Adopt A People Campaign (GAAPC), now based in Manilla, Philippines, led by former USCWM staff member Phil Bogosian. https://globaladoptapeoplecampaign.org/
[19] The largest known school of missiology at the time, was at the University of South Africa, under David Bosch. Fuller’s SWM was probably next in size and larger in influence in North American sending.
[20] Editor (1980), “NewsBriefs: Foursquare Plans to Reach 100 Hidden People Groups,” Mission Frontiers 2(10), 5.
[21] Winter, R. D. (1981), “Some Unfinished Business,” Mission Frontiers 3(5): 1, 4, 6.
[22] Editor (1986), “1986 Summer Institutes at the U.S. Center for World Mission,” Mission Frontiers 8(3): 12–13.
[23] See Comibam.org, there are now more than 15,000 missionaries from Latin America serving around the world.
[24] Winter, R. D. (1988), “COMIBAM ’87 Missions Meeting of the Century,” Mission Frontiers 10(1): 7-8.
[25] Winter, R. D. (1983), “The Explosion of New Missions within the Non-Western World,” Mission Frontiers 5 (1): 6–7. And, Dougherty, D. (1983), “Getting the Whole Story: Researcher Releases Comprehensive Survey of Third World Missions Today,” Mission Frontiers 5(2): 8-11. And, Winter, R. H. (1986), “Luis Bush, Latin America, and the End of History,” Mission Frontiers 8(3): 1, 3, 5.
[26] Bridges, E. (1988), “The Meeting of the Century is Announced,” Mission Frontiers 10(7): 5.
[27] The article by Johnson, T. M. and Tieszen, C. L. (2007), “Personal Contact : The Sine Qua Non of Twenty-First Century Christian Mission,” Evangelical Missions Quarterly 43(4): 494–501, pointed out that this is an interesting, though not direct, parallel with their research that 86% of Muslims, Hindus and Buddhist do not personally know a Christian of any kind.
[28] Ralph Winter observed a blind spot of field missionaries: They did not establish younger missions on the field. Generally, well-established “mission field churches” were not sending out their own missionaries. See: Winter, R. D. (1972), The Planting of Younger Missions, Church/Mission Tensions Today, C. P. Wagner, Chicago, Moody Press.
[29] These critiques continue to be recycled, despite the fact that Winter did not encourage redeployment or abandonment of existing fields. See Darren Carlson & Elliot Clark, “The 3 Words That Changed Missions Strategy—and Why We Might Be Wrong.” The Gospel Coalition, September 11, 2019. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/misleading-words-missions-strategy-unreached-people-groups/ and Mathew Newkirk Should Missionaries Focus on Unreached People Groups? Yes https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/missionaries-focus-unreached-people-groups/ and others.
[30] Hyatt, E. (2014), “From Homogeneous to Heterogeneous Unit Principle,” Evangelical Missions Quarterly 50(2): 226-232.
[31] Parsons, G. (2015), “Will the Earth Hear His Voice? Is Ralph D. Winter’s Idea Still Valid?” International Journal for Frontier Missiology 32(1): 5–18. See pages 14–16.
[32] Severn, F. M. (1997), “Some Thoughts on the Meaning of “All Nations,” Evangelical Missions Quarterly 33(4): 412–419. And, Kendall, G. (1999), “Missions Should Not Target the Unreached,” Evangelical Missions Quarterly 35(2): 180-185.
[33] https://worldea.org/en/ accessed May 5, 2020.
[34] http://www.asiamissions.net accessed May 5, 2020.
[35] http://www.asiamissions.net/partners/asian-society-of-missiology/ accessed June 17, 2020.
[36] https://alliancefortheunreached.org
[37] For more information about Frontier People Groups, see https://joshuaproject.net/frontier where you can download a free prayer guide. For a simple animation of this concept, search YouTube for “Frontier People Groups” or go to: www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVmTU13rgo8&t=2s What this sub-group of the Unreached Peoples shows us, it that the core of the remaining task is concentrated in South Asia.
EMQ, Volume 56, Issue 4. Copyright © 2020 by Missio Nexus. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from Missio Nexus. Email: EMQ@MissioNexus.org.
