Doing the Great Commission in Your Community What groupings of peoples live in your community? Are they being engaged with the gospel? Are you looking for them and seeking them with the gospel? New Testament Examples When we look at Jesus Christ s three year ministry we see that He engaged many kinds of lost people. First and foremost, Christ introduced the gospel to His own people, the Hebrews. But the Gospels also record specific kinds of people to whom Jesus introduced the kingdom. Fishermen, tax collectors, Samaritans, rich, poor, lepers, Greeks, prostitutes, the sick, demonpossessed, children, Pharisees, and Sadducees are some that are listed in the Gospels. Christ s three years of kingdom ministry also focused upon the future growth of His bride, the Church. Just prior to His ascension in Acts 1:8, Jesus declared that His followers would witness to all the peoples living in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the world. The rest of the book of Acts describes Christ s disciples taking the gospel to Arabians, Medes, Lyconians, philosophers, artisans, the people of Athens, an Ethiopian eunuch, magicians, the Macedonians, rich and poor, slaves and free men. Places like cities and villages, homes, prisons, and schools are emphasized as conduits for the spread of the gospel. The epistles of the New Testament describe the details of the early church s efforts to obey Christ s commission to His disciples to witness among and make disciples of all ta ethne or peoples. Jesus life as described in the Gospels provides the ideal pattern for believers seeking to live the Great Commission lifestyle. Just as important for our instruction are the examples of people like Paul, John, and Peter, as well as the other believers described in the New Testament. These not only provide us examples for following Christ s pattern of life, but they also point out the areas where we will be tempted to fail in obeying Christ and how we can overcome in the power of the Holy Spirit. North America North American Christians today are just like the Christians of the first century. We have multitudes of lost peoples around us who are followers of many different religions and members of many different cultures and ways of life. Demographers project that the multicultural diversity of our communities will continue to increase in the future. The following statistics from the Pew Research Center point to an increasingly diverse mission field in North America.[i] If current trends continue, the population of the United States will rise to 438 million in 2050, from 296 million in 2005, and 82% of the increase will be due to immigrants arriving from 2005 to 2050 and their U.S.-born descendents. Of the 117 million people added to the population during this period due to the effect of new immigration, 67 million will be the immigrants themselves and 50 million will be their U.S.-born children and grandchildren. The non-hispanic white population will increase more slowly than other racial and ethnic groups; whites will become a minority (47%) by 2050. North American churches have the same commands of Scripture and the same Holy Spirit dwelling within us as did the first century churches. Consequently, we have the same
tremendous Great Commission opportunities and responsibilities in the United States and Canada today. Discovering Great Commission Opportunities Where You Live At this point we must ask ourselves some hard questions. What are our churches doing to make disciples of all of the peoples who are living around us and in our communities? Are we intentionally seeking God s will and ways for introducing all of the peoples to Christ and His kingdom? Are we willing to obey the Great Commission commands among peoples not like ourselves who live next door to us? What would our churches look like if we were? Ultimately, the answers to these questions reside in the heart of the believer and his or her willingness to make disciples wherever the Holy Spirit gives opportunity. However, there are ways we can more effectively avail ourselves and our churches of the Great Commission opportunities that are all around us. Two initial steps for engaging Great Commission opportunities in our communities are briefly discussed below. First, lead the church to see the lost groups of people in the community around them. Churches simply need to take the time to look around them. Most of us tend to overlook many of the peoples living in our communities. This is especially true for those with whom we have few commonalities. We do this to our peril though because Christ specifically commanded us to disciple all the peoples around us. But if we will make an intentional effort to look at the peoples living around us, we will discover groups of people that are not being reached with the gospel. Observing the spiritual condition of people with God s compassion is the key to intentionally engaging them with the gospel. If we do not see them in their lostness, we will not seek to rescue them with the gospel. I believe that Matthew 9:35-38 describes a pattern of Christ that believers and churches can emulate corporately to see their communities with Great Commission eyes. Christ was out among the peoples, and when he saw them like sheep without a shepherd, He was moved with compassion. He declared to his disciples that these sheep are a plentiful harvest. Seeing the peoples in their true lost condition should lead to compassionate action. So new churches, as well as existing churches, must constantly work at seeing the lost peoples all around them who are ready to hear the gospel contextualized to their worldview and life context. Whether you are a church planter, pastor, or a non-staff member of a local church, it is vitally important that you take some time to intentionally interact with the lost people out in the community. You cannot wait until they come to your church to do this. There are too many and too much diversity of peoples for all of them to come to your church. You must go to them where they live and work. Here are three suggestions to help churches identify unevangelized peoples in their communities. I. Use demographics to get an idea about some of the primary groups in your community. The following instructions are taken from the North American Mission Board resource entitled, Peoples Search Survey for the Local Church. The Internet Survey portion of the Peoples Search Survey provides directions for identifying some of the major groupings of peoples in
your community via the Internet. If you haven t already done something similar, this is a good place to begin to discover the Great Commission opportunities in your home community. INTERNET SURVEY The focus of this survey is on gathering census data to quickly identify nationalities, languages, and economic groups who are in your community. This takes about an hour. A. Identify nationalities, languages, and ancestries in the ZIP code area of your church.(you may choose to research ZIP Codes that are different from your church s ZIP code.) 1. Go to www.peoplegroups.info. 2. Click on the Advanced Search button. 3. Select Nationality in the Search Options box. 4. Of the four visible tabs, select the far right one labeled ZIP. 5. Click on your state in the Select State box. 6. Find and click on the ZIP code you wish to study in the Select ZIP Code box. 7. Highlight All in the Select Country box. 8. In the Top Selected choose 25 and click on the GO button. 9. Print out a copy of the findings, once the data is returned beneath the GO button. 10. Create a PEOPLES Search folder, file, or notebook and place a copy of the data in it. You will use this data in the Community Survey. 11. Repeat steps 1-10 for collecting both language and ancestry data. 12. List the top ten by population count for all three categories in the ZIP code. ZIP CODE: # Population Nationality Language Ancestry 1 2 3 4 5
B. Identify locations of race, foreign born, language and economic groups in the ZIP code area of study. 1. Go to the U.S. Census Web site www.factfinder.census.gov. 2. Under Fast Access to Information enter the ZIP code and click Go. This will take you to the Fact Sheet on the ZIP code. 3. For race data and locations look under General Characteristics and look for One Race. 4. To identify locations of a race click on map next to the specific race that you want to locate (e.g., White, Asian, African American). The map will show you the locations of several percentages of the racial group that lives in that ZIP code. 5. When viewing the map, use the zoom tool above the map to identify street locations of the racial group. 6. Print out data and maps and place in your PEOPLES Search folder, file, or notebook. 7. For foreign born and language data and maps, look under Social Characteristics on the Fact Sheet. Repeat steps 4-6. 8. For income group data and maps, look under Economic Characteristics on the Fact Sheet. Repeat steps 4-6. II. Intentionally spend time talking with lost people in a designated area of the community. The following instructions are from the Community Survey portion of the Peoples Search Survey. COMMUNITY SURVEY A. Observe the peoples of the survey area. 1. What racial groups do you see here? (Asian, White, African-American, Hispanic, etc.) 2. What nationalities and languages are evident in this area? (Indicators include ethnic restaurants, grocery stores, artwork, phone cards, flags, etc.) 3. What affinity groups do you see? (Homeless, bikers, gangs, arts, cowboys, college students, etc.) 4. What businesses or occupations do you see? (White collar, blue collar, schools, etc.) 5. What economic groups do you see? (Upper, middle, or lower) 6. What non-christian religious groups do you see? (Islam, Mormon, Hindu, Jehovah Witness, etc.) 7. What types of physical and/or spiritual needs do you see?
B. Interview individuals you meet in the survey area. The following are some questions to help you conduct several interviews. Adapt these as needed. Develop your own style of questions as needed to achieve the goals of the interview. Keep the interview informal and conversational. Record the answers to these questions after each interview is over to avoid unnecessary apprehension by the person with whom you are talking. Introduction: Hello. My name is. I am trying to better understand our community and people who are different than me. I have seven questions. There is no right or wrong answer. I just want to know your opinion. Would you please help me? 1. How would you describe this community? 2. What do you like best about our neighborhood? What do you like least? 3. What are the community s greatest needs (crime, poverty, recreation, etc.)? 4. What languages are spoken here? 5. Who do you go to if you have a deep problem? 6. How do people in this community view God? 7. Would you be interested in discussing spiritual issues with me/us in the future? If yes, ask him or her to give you contact information for follow up. III. List the groups you have discovered that are not being engaged with the gospel. You will write your list based upon prayerful consideration of the demographic data and interviews among the people in the community. Talking with other churches, church planters, and missionaries in the area will give you further understanding about unevangelized groups. This is not a comprehensive list, but simply a list of groups you are discovering. The second step for engaging Great Commission opportunities is to determine which of the newly discovered groups God is leading the church to engage with the gospel. It is relatively easy to have statistical knowledge of the different unevangelized groups living in your community, but it is not as easy to determine the most effective ways to reach them with the gospel. Some groups that we identify will require crossing significant barriers of language and/or culture in order to disciple them. Others though will be culturally closer to us, yet different enough that we will have to have plans for reaching them outside of our normal church patterns of ministry. Finally, there will be those people who are lost but will fit well into our existing churches. These generalizations point out that different peoples will be reached with different methods. The cultural distance between the unevangelized group and the existing church greatly impacts the methods used. A critical step prior to developing contextual plans is that of knowing to which people or peoples God is leading us. The following list provides some questions for churches determining God s leadership for reaching out to unevangelized peoples:
Who within the church has an interest in reaching one of the groups discovered? Who within the church already has connections with one or more of the groups? What is the cultural distance between the church and the groups identified? What resources are needed to engage these groups? What training would be needed for the church to reach these groups? Does this group require a new church plant to reach them most effectively? Are there other churches nearby that could be partnered with to reach these groups? How does our church need to change to be a more effective Great Commission agent in this community? May we be faithful to obey God s Great Commission to us as He gives us opportunities to grow His kingdom among the many unevangelized peoples of our communities! If you are interested in receiving the entire Peoples Search for the Local Church resource, please contact CPGResources@namb.net and request a copy. Written by Van Sanders. Van is a member of the Church Planting staff at NAMB. [i] Jeffrey S. Passel and D Vera Cohn, U.S. Population Projections: 2005-2050, February, 2008, Pew Hispanic Center, a Pew Research Center project, Washington, D.C. www.pewhispanic.org, http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?reportid=85.