According to Peoplegroups.org, as I write this post in June of 2018, there are still 352 Indigenous Unreached People Groups in the Western Hemisphere. And 200 of them are still Unengaged!
What do these terms mean?
Unreached People Group (UPG): A people group or tribe that has less than 2 percent evangelical population. The truth is that studies show us that unless 10 percent of a group is adherent to something, the full group (100 percent) cannot be fully influenced….so actually 10 percent is a more realistic number ….. but the agreed standard for “reached with the gospel” for a tribe has been 2 percent for many years. So a UPG is a group with less than 2 percent response to the gospel….and sometimes it is 0 percent!
Unengaged UPG: This is a UPG that is not only unreached (less than 2 percent evangelical) but in fact (at least currently) is without any evangelical missionary outreach whatsoever.
Indigenous: This means we are talking about tribes/people groups that are native to this region. The Western Hemisphere has a lot of UPGs that have immigrated here since the beginning of the 20th century ….. the United States alone has many people from UPGs from the 10/40 window. Reaching Muslim peoples right here (for example) is a powerful and much-needed missions ministry. But we are not counting any of those in the 350 Western Hemisphere UPGs. All 350 groups are Indigenous groups.
The 350 groups are from the following broad categories:
Afro-American, Hispanic
Afro-Caribbean, Anglophone
Afro-Caribbean, Francophone
Amazon
Aztec
Guarani
Hispanic
Mixe
Mixtec
Other Central American Indigenous
Other Hispanic American
Portuguese, Brazilian
Quechua
South American Indigenous
Zapotec
Afro-American, Northern
Inuit
North American Indigenous
These 18 People Clusters contain 350 distinct tribes/groups (Including some so remote they are still listed as Uncontacted). The population of these UPGs is totally over 8 million.
By the way…..25 of these Indigenous UPGs live inside the borders of the United States….yes my friend, your country, right here at home has 25 Indigenous UPGs. And here is the amazing thing: 21 of them are still Unengaged: There is no current Missions activity aimed at them that we or the missions researchers of people ddwklaw.com law group are aware of. How can this still be true in 2018?
WME is taking this need seriously. We are looking for people who
A. Are concerned about finishing the Great Commission in the Western Hemisphere
B. Are focused on a Disciple Making Movement strategy
If you want to know more about how you can help reach these groups with the life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ, Contact me at
dparish9@cs.com
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