Summary Report: Unreached Peoples Resource Network

Dear AD2-Announce Reader:

As the AD2000 & Beyond Movement moves towards its final closure date of early 2001, all of the movement's Tracks / Resource Networks and Task Forces have been requested to provide an overview summary of their specific realm of experience over the 5 - 10 years of their operational existence. These reports have been prepared for compilation of a "lasting record" of this movement and for all to see, as they are interested!

Please see the attached report on The Unreached Peoples Resource Network prepared by Patrick Johnstone and John Robb. It is very encouraging to read the report and discover, as they even state in the report, "the wonders God did and continues to do through all those associated with our network and the AD2000 Movement as a whole." Praise God and special thanks to Patrick and John for their leadership in this worldwide effort of greater awareness and effectiveness in reaching the unreached.

These reports will all be included along with other historical reports and data of the AD2000 & Beyond Movement, including the AD2000 website, and much more on a CD-ROM being produced for distribution at Celebrate Messiah 2000. Further distribution of this CD-ROM will also be made after the conference. Please email [email protected] if you<> are interested in purchasing one of these CD-ROMs.

NOTE: Celebrate Messiah 2000 will be held in Jerusalem and Bethlehem 27 December 2000 - 2 January 2001. Registration invitation is still open to those so interested. Please contact Lauri Dennis, Registrar, at [email protected] for more information.<>

The AD2000 International Office will be closing early in 2001. Click here for more information.

Thank you for your interest in the AD2000 & Beyond Movement and its outworkings into the 21st century. Please continue to pray for the movement until our closing day! Thank you!

That all may hear!

Luis Bush
International Director
AD2000 & Beyond Movement

Unreached Peoples Resource Network

After the Lausanne II Unreached Peoples Track which they coordinated, Patrick Johnstone and John Robb were asked by Luis Bush to provide leadership for the AD2000 Movement's Unreached Peoples Resource Network, Patrick to serve as chairman and John as international coordinator. Our goal was to contribute toward the movement goal of "a church for every people" through catalyzing the formation of ministry and prayer networks for the neediest peoples (those less than 5% Christian and 2% evangelical). Approximately 80 (more like 95 if India's state coordinators are included) regional and national coordinators agreed to serve with us. At GCOWE '95 420 leaders from more than 120 countries participated in our track, making plans to reach the unreached in their regions and nations. After GCOWE our network newsletter's constituency reached 750 leaders internationally.

We are grateful for the wonders God did and continues to do through all those associated with our network and the AD2000 Movement as a whole. On the whole it was a very positive and worthwhile experience. The accomplishments of the network were in two broad areas:

Networking of leaders, training of workers and stimulation of vision among God's people:

Hundreds of ministry networks focused on specific people groups (often sociological subgroups within ethnolinguistic peoples) were formed and ministry efforts were undertaken by grassroots workers who took part in national and regional unreached peoples seminars, consultations and conferences in more than 80 nations. Prayer initiatives and research efforts were launched in many of these countries which also raised the profile of unreached peoples and stimulated mission efforts. For example, in North India virtually every state now has a network of leaders working together inter-denominationally and tied together through the North India Harvest Network. This network and many others like it were originally birthed in AD2000 UP Network events held in almost every state in India in the 1990's.
Up to 10,000 Russian and other nationals from the former Soviet Union made professions of faith at 20 mass evangelism rallies and other events.
Several peoples such as the Turkmen, Wolof, Parsees and others were adopted by Western churches.
We partnered with YWAM to produce the video, "The Challenge of the Unfinished Task", which has been used widely to focus attention on the neediest 2000 unreached peoples.

Research and information:

Earthing a people vision from the Winterian broad strokes of "about 16,000 hidden/URPs" to the present more manageable realities of the Joshua Project List.
Applying the knowledge gained over the past 20 years of research to make a peoples list with measurable components an integral part of the AD2000 and Beyond Movement thrust. The first published list of ethno-linguistic peoples, which gave us the basis for a realistic tackling of the "church for every people". The breakdown into Affinity Blocs and People Clusters gave us a publicity and strategy handle, which many could grasp and provided Interdev with a partnering strategy, which has proved very successful.
The profile of URPs immeasurably raised to be the touch-stone of the unfinished task - what a change to 25 years ago. We provided both the terminology, classifications and much of the data which made the JPL possible. The whole vision statement of AD2000 and Beyond Movement, in some ways, stands or falls on our ability to provide this and measure progress. The on-going work of the HIS Services group to refine and further this is a worthy building on those foundations.
The stimulus of the people vision led to a large increase in national and regional research into the least reached in many, but sadly not all, countries. Notable were the efforts in such lands and regions as China, S.E. Asia, India, Nigeria, Indonesia, Central Asia, North Africa, Mexico, etc. The result is that with these and the global research efforts to give us the first ever reasonably complete picture of the bounds of the unfinished task of discipling the world's peoples.

What were some lessons learned and what might we have done differently?

The pressure of the year 2000 deadline and the urgency it produced, while it was helpful as a rallying point, pushed us to appoint national coordinators who, in a number of instances, turned out to be unsuitable. It was difficult to keep many others motivated and reporting on progress made due to their other involvements. We should have thought and planned for the longer term from the beginning, enlisting and working through existing national leadership structures rather than appointing independent coordinators who then often had trouble relating to these structures.
Better coordination between international tracks like ours and AD2000 national initiatives, which seemed to work at cross-purposes sometimes.
Brilliant and exhilarating leadership by the international office for the first 6-7 years of the movement, including encouraging annual progress meetings, gave way to a more uncertain (perhaps exhausted) stance as the year 2000 deadline neared and its commitment to go out of business loomed. Some network leaders felt disconnected and a bit abandoned before and after GCOWE '97 with the shift of emphasis to national initiatives.
A stronger focus on holistic mission, including such things as caring for the poor, fighting injustice and working for peace and reconciliation in keeping with the Lausanne Covenant would have strengthened the movement and laid a better foundation for mission in the new century. The narrow focus of the movement on church planting and evangelism cut us off from large segments of the Church, such as those mainline Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox concerned for world evangelization.
On the research side, we had to go for a selected list to compile the JPL which brought us into significant problems -loss of the whole picture because we were selective [which peoples should be included or omitted], weird totaling problems [the selected peoples adding up to more than national populations], failing to give a complete picture which meant it was hard to let users assess the relative reachedness of peoples by themselves.
Nationally generated research and motivation [if done] is better than global research for getting good results.
Simplistic definitions of peoples and artificial divisions of the world into the 10/40 Window and non-10/40 Window countries led to over-response and seeming exclusion of such vital countries as Somalia, Central Asia and Indonesia.
The Bethany profile project's results were marginal and info virtually unusable. A wonderful idea, but not realistic in attainability and methodology.
The Adopt a People program has not really taken off to the extent we hoped. Were we too optimistic about the enthusiasm we would find?
The 10,000 population and 5% / 2% Christian / Evangelical helped us to make the JPL viable and was right for the resources and info then available, but it did create too much argument and dismay!

Our recommendations for a new movement:

We need the complete list of peoples to be the basis of future efforts towards closure. We need to pass on the cluster concept for peoples - so many of the smaller populations of peoples are migratory off-shoots of other peoples.
Global summaries for regional and local research rather than the other way round.
Holistic mission partnerships and networks are needed for each of the 3000+ neediest peoples still in the unclaimed or pioneer mission stage. These networks should include business people, relief and development workers, Bible translators and church planters along with the other diverse resources of the Body of Christ. We need to broaden the Great Commission to wider than peoples, but not so dilute the GC so as to be inclusive of everything we do in the Lord's name.
The last 20 years has been a race to find the URPs and start ministry among them. The next 20 years will change the task from quantifying the task, to quality of ministry in the task.
Any future movement should be closely tied with Lausanne, WEF and the new Great Commission Roundtable, not an independent, autonomous effort which duplicates efforts and damages relationships among leaders as happened with the birth of the AD2000 Movement.

Patrick Johnstone and John Robb

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