People Groups: A Missional Priority or a Problematic Paradigm?

By Chris Clayman, Executive Director for Joshua Project

Ralph Winter’s presentation at the 1974 Lausanne Congress was a watershed moment in missiology that presented cross-cultural evangelism as the most urgent missions task. At a time when some Christian leaders from the Global South called for a moratorium on missionaries from the West, Winter showed 60% of the world’s population lived in cultures outside the influence of existing churches.[i]

The Shift to People Group Focus

Whether the frontier missionaries came from the West or elsewhere, Winter argued that more mission sending was needed not less, and that these missionaries should focus on breakthrough churches within every culture that would mature to take on the task of evangelizing their own people.

The shift of sending missionaries from a geographical focus to a people group focus ensued. Today, less than 25% of the world’s population belong to people groups who do not have a significant breakthrough of churches, a remarkable progress from the 60% reported 50 years ago.

However, according to Joshua Project’s list, two-thirds of the world’s unreached peoples are still frontier people groups, awaiting significant breakthrough of churches that would need to be catalyzed by cross-cultural missionaries or near-culture movements.[ii]

Debates on People Group Priority

Should people groups still be a priority?

Even at the 1974 Lausanne Congress, opposing voices were raised that evangelism was taking precedence over holistic or integral missions that emphasized a more comprehensive social and transformational dimension of God’s mission.

Especially in areas where Christians from multiple ethnic groups existed side-by-side without unity, critics were concerned that people group thinking could perpetuate racism instead of Christian unity.

Missiologists in favor of people group thinking explained that justification comes before sanctification and that this focus was needed to usher initial breakthroughs into God’s kingdom within every people group so the Spirit’s work towards unity could commence.

These debates are largely the same today, with one stance angled from where the church is not, and the other angled from where the church is, or how it should function.

The Rise of a Globalized, Urban, Migrant World

A newer wrinkle to the people group debate is the rise of a globalized, urban, migrant world, in which traditional, self-sustained cultures are on the decline and even people within remote villages or nomadic tents are interconnected with cities and other ethnic groups through cell phones, satellites, and relationships.

The working forces of traditionally rural peoples mass migrate to cities. Cultures mingle. Hybrid identities emerge.

Young, urban, globalized people sometimes feel more affinity for each other than their parents, regardless of their ethnicity or language.

The notion of ethnicity is influenced not only by one’s traditional kinship, language, and religion, but also national pressures to conform and society’s pressure to adopt identities that provide economic or political advantage.

Furthermore, some younger generations in the West, as well as Global South Christian leaders, view the people group focus as neo-colonial or managerial missions that reduces complex notions of ethnicity and the nature of God’s mission into oversimplified task-driven checklists.

Within younger generations in North America, there is a particular discomfort with mission mantras like finishing the task, completing the Great Commission, and reaching unreached people groups.

While large swaths of the missions world continue to find motivation in such phrases, there is a trend to shift vocabulary away from humanity’s effort in God’s mission toward all families of the earth being blessed and God’s glory being known among all peoples.

Strategic Evangelism Question

It’s complicated. Where does all this lead?

People group thinking is linked to a strategic evangelism question: “What’s the largest group within which the gospel can spread as a church planting movement without encountering barriers of understanding and acceptance?”

It’s concerned about groups of people who are not being influenced by existing churches.

Categories of People Groups

While unreached people groups are often equated with ethno-linguistic people groups, at least four categories of people groups were originally in mind.

There are mega-blocs of people that highlight global overview needs. South Asian Hindus and Muslims, for instance, make up large blocs in which many peoples do not have a culturally proximate church.

There are ethno-linguistic peoples, which are definable due to shared language, kinship, and culture.

As a result, and because of the perceived biblical congruence of all the world’s families, ethnicities, languages, peoples, and nations represented in heaven through the blessing of God’s salvation, this view dominates people group lists.

Winter coined the term “unimax” peoples for smaller sets of people that match the evangelism-focused definition above (i.e., a unified maximum group for the spread of the gospel, with the unifying factor variable).

This definition influences Joshua’s Project’s list of South Asian people groups, in which acceptance between castes and communities have historically proven larger impediments to the gospel than language.

A much smaller group is “sociopeoples,” peer groups that form around activities, vocations, or interests.[iii]

These groups are dynamic but can hold significant influence for spreading the gospel across ethnic group boundaries.

People group thinking has always allowed for more nuanced groupings than ethno-linguistic people groups.

People group lists, such as Joshua Project’s, offer a slice of reality and will increasingly listen to the global Church for fresh vocabulary and nuance needed among people groups.

Missionaries and the Global Church

Missionaries and the global church should be concerned about people groups, however defined, who are culturally distant from the influence of any church.

Missionaries and the global Church should also aim to see peoples united in Christ, breaking down racial, social, and ethnic prejudices in the name of Christ.

The complexity of the world today should awaken missionaries to the nuance of people group missiology that has existed from the beginning.

[i] Ralph Winter, “The Highest Priority: Cross-Cultural Evangelism,” Lausanne 1974, p. 232, accessed from https://dev.ralphdwinter.org/Lausanne_1974/Lausanne_1974.pdf on May 25, 2024; and Ralph Winter, “The Highest Priority: Cross-Cultural Evangelism,” Let the Earth Hear His Voice, p. 213, accessed from https://lausanne.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/0213.pdf on May 25,2024.

[ii] See resources at https://joshuaproject.net/frontier.  

[iii] For more description of these types of people groups, see Ralph Winter and and Bruce Koch, “Finishing the Task,” in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement: A Reader.