This month on The Upstream Collective blog, we’re focusing on the missiological concept of people groups. Now, before you get that glazed-over, “Here-we-go-with-the-missiological-concepts-again” look, consider this: “people group thinking” could radically change the way you do ministry in your context.
It used to be that missionaries were sent to minister to the people of a given country. China, India, Chile–you get the idea. These days, however, we recognize that all people in the world group themselves and identify with communities that may not necessarily conform to (sometimes random and often disputed) political boundaries. Consider the following definition, taken from peoplegroups.org
A “people group” is 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. Usually there is a common self-name and a sense of common identity of individuals identified with the group. A common history, customs, family and clan identities, as well as marriage rules and practices, age-grades and other obligation covenants, and inheritance patterns and rules are some of the common ethnic factors defining or distinguishing a people. What they call themselves may vary at different levels of identity, or among various sub-groups.
The idea is that people group themselves in such a way as to create commonality with some people and (therefore) distinction from others. Now, I say “people group themselves …” but really, most of us are born into a group and stay in the group our whole lives. Because these groups create our ways of understanding and relating to the world around us, leaving one group for another is very difficult, if not impossible.
Most missionaries these days are sent to engage a people group with the gospel. They usually start by researching the group’s culture and history, and examining that group’s interactions with other groups. That’s how we know, for example that even though the Basque people group resides on both sides of the France/Spain border, they are one ethnolinguistic people group. This is good information to have when we’re trying to coordinate the work among the Basque people. Under the old paradigm, we might have assumed that they were two groups and assumed that one ministry would suffice to engage the entire “country.”
People group research also allows for the necessary contextualization of the gospel. As we seek to somehow coordinate mission work around the world, we want to be sure that every people group has a gospel ministry in its own language and appropriate for its culture.
The idea is that each category of mission field requires a different amount of attention, personnel, and resources, depending on the priorities of the sending body. To further aid in the organization of missionary efforts, people groups are categorized:
- Reached, with a thriving church presence. These are considered missionary sending fields.
- Reached, with a developing church presence. These peoples may still need outside help as they work to shift from receiving missionaries to sending them.
- Unreached, with outside missionary engagement. These are the “frontiers” of mission work–where missionaries from outside the people group have taken spiritual responsibility for the establishment and propagation of an indigenous church.
- Unreached, with no known gospel engagement. These unreached, unengaged people groups have no evangelical witness that we’re aware of. Much of the focus of missions is put on these peoples.
The biblical basis of people group thinking has been well established by missiologists such as the late Dr. Ralph Winter, Donald McGavran, and Dr. Jim Slack. We see throughout the Old Testament and clearly in Acts 2, Matthew 28, and Revelation 5:9 that cultures are not something to be ignored, (or, as some might have you believe, fought), but something to be redeemed. The missionary task is not to convert people to a “Christian culture,” but to spread a gospel that has the power to radically change people so that they come to glorify God within culture.
How does this apply to you? Consider the cultures and subcultures you work among. Are you equipping your people to act as change agents within culture or as lifeguards to save them from it? Are you preaching against culture or are you drawing attention to those (however few) aspects of culture that point to the Creator God? Are you sharing the gospel across cultures, or are you exporting your cultural expression of Christianity?
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