Chapter
3
New Focus
A
third dynamic is shaping the new directions at the
International Mission Board. It's a new focus. The
focus is on people groups. I thought we always focused
on people! you might reply. Well, this is true,
we have always emphasized the importance of persons,
of individuals making decisions for Jesus Christ.
But people groups are different.
Returning
to the Old Testament passage in Habakkuk, you'll
recall God's promise that He was going to do something
amazing among the nations. This Hebrew word for
nations is goyim, sometimes translated in English
as "gentiles." The New Testament Greek
word that corresponds to it is ethne, from which
we get our English word "ethnic." The
idea of ethnic people groups comes closer to the
biblical understanding that can be seen throughout
the Bible from the Genesis 10 table of nations (peoples)
to the heavenly image of every people, tribe and
tongue depicted in Revelation 7:9.
People
groups refer to groups of individuals, families
and clans who share a common language and ethnic
identity. Originally, they may have been nothing
more than a single extended family. Over the centuries
and millennia, however, they--like the children
of Abraham--came to represent numbers so vast that
they could scarcely be counted.
Increasingly,
the International Mission Board is looking at these
ethnolinguistic people groups as it formulates its
strategies and plans of action. Why are we doing
this? There are at least four reasons.
First,
it's biblical! God often refers to the peoples of
the earth as the object of His saving purpose. To
Abraham, He vowed: Through your offspring all peoples
on earth shall be blessed (Gen. 22:18).1 The psalmist
highlights God's salvation among all peoples as
the primary purpose of His blessing us (Psalm 67:2).
Jesus, too, seems to have had the diverse peoples
of the Earth in mind when He taught us that this
gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole
world as a testimony to all peoples, and then the
end will come (Matt. 24:14).2
Secondly,
it's how the world sees itself. In 1989, the Foreign
Mission Board was trying to determine whether or
not a people-group focused strategy was appropriate
for the newly opening country of Yugoslavia. At
the time, we didn't know much about Yugoslavia.
The government of Yugoslavia had an official position
that there was no ethnic diversity in the country.
Everyone, they said, was a Yugoslavian. It was tempting
to accept this superficial impression.
Within
two years, however, the country had unraveled to
reveal its true ethnic diversity. Once this occurred,
it was clear to everyone that a strategy to reach
Croats would have to be distinguished from a strategy
to reach Serbs and both would differ from a strategy
to reach Bosnian Muslims. While not every country
is as ethnically divided as the former Yugoslavia,
it is natural for people to group themselves into
us and them categories. This is most easily seen
when there is a difference in language. Other defining
people-group factors include race, religion, heritage
and even socioeconomic differences.
A
third reason for our people-group focus is that
it allows for more strategic and effective use of
our resources. Developing and implementing a mission
strategy aimed at a church-planting movement is
a costly process. It requires deployment and support
of missionaries, translation of Scripture, training
of leadership and multiplication of churches. By
ensuring that each of these endeavors is language-specific
and worldview-specific, we are able to maximize
the chances of their being understood and accepted
by the people we are seeking to reach. A Jesus film
produced in the Kermanji language, for example,
has much greater receptivity among Kermanji-speaking
Kurds than the same film in one of the surrounding
languages of Arabic, Turkish or Russian. Likewise,
a Kermanji-language radio broadcast or Scripture
translation has a unique appeal to all Kermanji-speaking
persons wherever they reside.
Missiologists
have long noted that church-planting movements are
a distinctly homogeneous phenomenon. This means
they tend to sweep through a common ethnolinguistic
people group. Every church-planting movement we've
identified thus far has erupted among a people who
share a common language and ethnic identity. Likewise,
the missionary efforts which launched these church-planting
movements were language-specific and worldview-specific.
In short, they were people-group focused.
Finally,
a people-group focus ensures that we don't miss
anyone! Everyone in the world can be linked to some
ethnolinguistic group or groups. This is why regional
strategists are busy segmenting their regions into
individual people groups. If the people group is
still too large to be manageable, they are further
subdividing it into homogeneous population segments.
As we pursue church-planting movements among people
groups and homogeneous population segments rather
than randomly ministering among the lost, we stand
a much greater chance of reaching all the lost of
the world.
How
is this new people-group focus impacting the way
we do missions? It is giving us a much sharper focus
on the fields we are seeking to reach. With people-group
specific strategies, we can look more closely at
a country and see all of the diversity within it.
We can determine which groups are reached, yet remain
in need of discipleship ministries; which ones are
unengaged, calling for mobilization of missionaries;
and which ones are particularly responsive. This
sharper focus is helping our missionaries develop
new ways of ministering to the people to whom they
are called. Growing numbers of missionaries are
demonstrating this new perspective as they sense
the necessity of learning the people group's heart
language rather than the more generic trade languages.
This
people-group specific focus also is leading missionaries
to go the extra mile to develop ethnographic studies
of their assigned people groups in order to better
understand their worldviews. This enables missionaries
to identify issues that are unique to the culture
and to devise ministry models which account for
these distinctives.
One
of many illustrations from the field that highlights
the importance of a people-group specific worldview
study comes from Kenya. Two people groups in northern
Kenya shared the same language and origins. They
appeared identical to outside observers, except
that one group inhabited the lowlands while the
other resided in the adjacent mountains. For years,
missionaries had used the same approach to both
groups with mixed results. The lowlanders had responded
well to the gospel, resulting in many churches.
The mountain dwellers remained unresponsive. A key
part of the missionaries' strategy had been to partner
with itinerant evangelists from the more accessible
lowlanders to take the gospel into the mountains
to reach their resistant cousins. Despite several
efforts of this nature, the mountain dwellers showed
little interest in the gospel.
After
doing only rudimentary worldview studies on the
two people groups, missionaries discovered the reason
for the mountain dwellers' lack of response. Their
studies revealed that in previous centuries the
lowland tribes had served as slave traders, often
conducting slaving expeditions into the mountains
to prey on their unwitting cousins. This history
of victimization had left an indelible impression
on the worldview of the mountain tribes. They could
not receive good news from the lowland tribes. Once
the missionaries identified this peculiar historical
barrier, they were able to surmount it by using
other channels to take the gospel to the mountain
dwellers.
Jesus
said, If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto
me (John 12:32). The challenge for missionaries
is to lift Jesus up in a way that is not obscured
by cultural barriers that would prevent all peoples
coming to faith in Him. Focusing on people groups
helps missionaries identify those barriers and better
present Christ to each of those peoples.
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