A Report and Request from Doris Wagner on Reaching the Unreached People Groups!
Dear Sowing Ones:
What you sow comes back to you! Many times we do not see the fruit of what has been sown in difficult ground. However, this special report from Doris Wagner on praying through the 10/40 Window will give you vision for the harvest ahead. I encourage you to listen to this short video, and then read her update and request on reaching the remaining 290 Unreached People Groups.
God greatly brightened my day recently when I received a newsletter from John Robb. We (Peter and I) worked very closely with John during the time when we led the worldwide prayer movement back in the 1990s. Also, our close friends and co-laborers Chuck Pierce, Cindy Jacobs, Luis Bush and the heads of many mission and evangelism organizations were very involved. Seemingly everyone we invited to join us in mobilizing a major prayer effort to reach the 1,739 largest unevangelized people groups anxiously and enthusiastically joined in this prayer effort.
All these groups were researched and one church in Louisiana produced a pamphlet describing each group. Then we asked churches to adopt a group and fervently pray for their evangelization.Some churches sent teams to the people group to “pray onsite with insight.” Some churchesworked with mission organizations and sent missionaries to evangelize. At that time, it just seemed as though people here were very anxious to help, and by the way, everyone carried their own expenses. At one point in time, my husband estimated that 50 million intercessors were taking part in this enormous task. We held many training seminars to help equip these wonderful volunteers in intercession and spiritual warfare. The enthusiasm was great and the cooperation was thrilling to see.
This program was purposely set to continue in motion for ten years, with the understanding it would be carried on by its own momentum. Three years ago, I asked the folks who still were working with the evangelization side of things how many people groups had been adequately evangelized so that the church could then carry on by itself. I was thrilled to hear that the number had been lowered to about 550.
But then I got John Robb’s letter last month and it turns out we are coming in the home stretch and are down to 290 unreached people groups of a million or more inhabitants per group who do not yet have a church strong enough to carry on alone. Of course, these are in the hardest to reach places due to geo-political barriers. But we have such a wonderful group of workers available from so many nations in the world that we can figure this out. In the meantime, we can all pray and make a huge contribution in that way. Let me quote John’s letter directly to you:
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Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Thanks for your interest in the adoption prayer initiative we in the Unreached Peoples Task Force are undertaking. I am also grateful that Doris Wagner, with whom I worked in the AD2000 and Beyond movement in the 1990s, is helping to get the word out. Here is some more information for you as well as a few attached resources I hope will be helpful to you and any others you are in touch with who would like to engage in this effort that we hope will be shared around the world by many ministry leaders and intercessors.
Many of us in the prayer and mission movements believe that we may well be in the run-up to the return of our Lord Jesus Christ! He told us to watch for the signs of the times to know when that will be and perhaps the most important sign is that the ethne, the ethnic people groups, mentioned in Matthew 24:14 and 28:19 are now within the possibility of being reached with the Gospel even by 2030. What a time to be alive and to serve the returning King of Kings!
We need to greatly multiply and expand both the prayer and mission efforts to ignite movements for Him in every one of the Frontier People Groups, those most unreached groups with less than one per thousand who follow Jesus. Of the several thousand Unreached People Groups, there are 290 Frontier People Groups, each over one million in size, that are called “frontier” because they are the least reached, making up about 1.6 billion people. Joshua Project maintains the list of all the FPGs https://joshuaproject.net/frontier/4 These largest 290 are the most strategic people groups to reach first because as they respond to the Gospel, movements for Christ that develop within them will likely overflow out to the smaller FPGs in proximity as the powerful momentum of disciple-making church planting movements is unleashed.
The prayer and mission movements need your help! We are seeking to get churches, prayer groups and children’s ministries worldwide, through their denominations and networks, to systematically adopt each one of these 290 by this year’s end. Jesus commanded that we pray to the Lord of the harvest to send workers into His harvest field (Matthew 9:37-38). Prayer is the powerful supernatural way that mission is enabled to happen, even in the most resistant and unreached places and people groups! When each of these 290 are adopted for ongoing prayer that specifically focuses on them in an in-depth manner by multiple ministry entities, it will result in an explosive, synergistic leap forward in seeing Jesus’ command to reach the ethne accomplished in this decade. The attached brief video, “Understanding the Remaining Mission Task” provides a helpful overview on where we are in completing this all-important mission of the Lord. https://youtu.be/IYwcmPoByhg
Here attached are the 290 prayer cards for these largest FPGs. They can be enlarged to be placed on the wall of a church or prayer group’s meeting place or given out as bookmarks for members’ Bibles to remind them to pray regularly for the raising up of workers and movements for Christ in the people group they have adopted. Joshua Project www.joshuaproject.net has many wonderful resources to help them find out more about their people group. Also, adopting entities can always do their own research and seek to network with others who have the same FPG as their focus. Soon, a new web platform will enable the formation of digital prayer communities to connect those with the same FPG in ongoing prayer that will also accelerate and multiply mission engagement.
We would deeply appreciate your help in getting this challenge out to any churches, prayer groups, youth and children’s ministries you are in touch with. We have found through experience that usually it is best to assign just one of these FPGs to each ministry entity, including one of the attached prayer cards with your request, so that hopefully all of these 290 Frontier People Groups will then be covered by one or more churches or prayer ministries as their responsibility. They can be asked to pray for the coming year and then to renew that commitment or shift to another people group after that if they like. Please also ask each adopting entity to let you know they have made that commitment so we can track what is happening. Some tech people will help to track each adoption, connect them with field teams where possible and communicate how their prayers are being answered.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Yours in Christ,
John Robb
Unreached Peoples/Adopt a People Task Force Coordinator
Additional Resources• Largest Frontier People Handout• Largest Frontier Peoples Poster• Largest Frontier Peoples Presentation Slides• Joshua Project Prayer Cards of Unreached People Group• John Robb Bio
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Help us reach our goal of 2,900 churches and Christian organizations to faithfully pray for the lost. It would bring enormous joy to this old lady to see that job brought to completion. Please feel free to forward this to prayer groups. There is an enormous amount of research here that may look overwhelming at first, but if your Bible study class or Sunday School class or church or group could join in this effort, it would be a blessing to you and to the unreached.
Please adopt a group and let’s work together to finish the task of world evangelization.
May God bless you, and thank you very much,
Doris Wagner
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Blessings,
Chuck D. Pierce