The concept of unreached people groups is a helpful way for Christians to organize their efforts toward global disciple-making. Around the world, people group themselves along certain lines- lines that also present significant obstacles to the spread of the gospel from one group to another. Ethnography, the practice of studying and categorizing groups of people, provides the mission with a [...]

Most missionaries see themselves as having been sent to a particular people group or population segment. This makes sense, as each subculture requires a unique methodology to church and gospel translation. Most missionaries establish themselves as advocates for their people. They promote their work by highlighting the needs, both spiritual and physical, of the group. They present statistics demonstrating their [...]

This is my 9th post in a series on developing a new missiology. Previously: Access Isn’t Everything The truth is, our missiology comes down to our understanding of who God is and how active He is in the spread of the gospel. What is the goal of missions? For some, it’s a crusade against other world religions; the Christianization of [...]

This is my 8th post in a series on developing a new missiology. Previously: A Global Wave Many have taken to using “access” to the gospel as the criteria for missionary engagement. From their perspective, people groups who do not have access to the scriptures, need more of our attention and resources than those who do. Starting with concerns about [...]

This is my 7th post in a series on developing a new missiology. Previously: Yeah, But… In the Old Testament, we read about Noah and his sons. Through a violent global flood, God reset humanity by destroying all but this one faithful family. Then, through this same family, God repopulated the Earth and kept His promise to prosper the Hebrew [...]

This is post #6 in a series on developing a new missiology. Some of you, upon reading my last post, Callsourcing the Mission, might have disagreed with my proposal that we use a crowdsourced report of God’s calling, rather than people group taxonomies, as a foundation for our missiology. You may have seen some shortcomings of my theory, some holes [...]

This is post #5 in a series on developing a new missiology. Human-sized hamster ball. Dunkin’ Donuts locations. Double Rainbow.  At any given point in time, web analytics can show us what topics are “trending” in social media. An uptick in Google searches might indicate breaking news or a YouTube video going viral. Twitter trends give a real-time glimpse into [...]

This is post #4 in a series on developing a new missiology. In my last post, I summarized the origins of the current popular understanding of missions. People group thinking, as I call it, hasn’t been all bad. But neither has it been all good. This, I suspect, is due in large part to the fact that is isn’t entirely [...]

Most of the people who call themselves “missionaries” will tell you about their passion for the unreached people group they’re working with. Algerian Berbers. The Dong people of Nigeria. The Bondo Poroja of India. People you’ve never heard of. Dark-skinned people in funny hats, living in places you couldn’t find on a map. The missionaries have grown to love their adopted [...]

My last post was about the Board’s current missiology; specifically, Jeff Lewis’ study posted on the imb.org website. I need to start by saying that I’m questioning the Board’s philosophy here. I don’t have anything against Jeff Lewis, and I don’t want to offend anyone. Again, I’m just looking for people who will discuss the questions I have. Now, most [...]