Oct 2008 version of the list of unreached people groups that have yet to be engaged by the missions force. The call2all congresses are highlighting these peoples around the world to try and get mission agencies and church denominations to commit to these overlooked peoples. Click here to view the list.

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Term	Definition and Scripture Reference
A Church	A congregation of disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ who seek to obey His commandments as recorded in Scripture and extend His kingdom throughout the Earth.
AAP	Adopt a People
AD2000 & Beyond Movement	A worldwide movement of organisations and individuals dedicated to the goal of "a church for every people and the gospel for every person by the year 2000." While remaining committed to doing everything possible to achieve this goal, the movement is not predicting "closure" or the completion of the Great Commission by end of the year 2000.
Adherent	A follower of a particular religion, church or philosophy. This is the broadest possible category of such followers and includes professing and affiliated adults and also their children (practicing and non-practicing) who may reside in a given area or country.
Adoption (of an unreached people):	Making a commitment to an unreached people until there is an indigenous, reproducing church established among them. Aspects may include prayer, research, and networking toward church planting. Sometimes called "people group adoption" or adopt-a-people.
Advocate	People group advocates are individuals who have committed themselves to one specific people group (ethnic group), to learn about them, their environment, culture, demographics, status, etc. They pray about how churches can be established among them. They may network and partner with others to encourage their involvement.
Affinity Bloc	Families of peoples related in aspects such as religion, culture, history, politics, and geography. In nearly every bloc there are widely dissimilar and unrelated linguistic minorities, but often there is one particular culture that is dominant.
Alliance	A strategic Alliance is a partnership between churches, agencies, and national works formed to strategically accelerate global evangelization. An alliance helps nationals in the following ways: 1. Motivates them to greater involvement. 2. Accelerates their efforts toward the goal. 3. Concentrates their efforts upon the unreached.
Alliances	A group of people and parties that join in common objective and similar goals, around a particular UPG or city. They form once teams are on the ground.
Beliefs	What is considered "true" within a culture. A distinction should be drawn between operating beliefs (those which affect values and behaviour) and theoretical beliefs (those which have little practical impact on values and behaviour).
Bicultural Bridge	The set of relationships between missionaries and their counterparts in the culture they seek to reach. These relationships affect the missionary’s ability to communicate effectively to that culture.
Biculturalism	The ability to move between two cultures (birth culture and adopted culture) and live in either without experiencing culture shock.
Bonding	The attachment and sense of belonging normally established between the parent and child at birth; by analogy, the attachment of missionaries to their host culture following entry and contact. This initial attachment for missionaries can be enhanced by effective entry strategies and language learning techniques.
Bridges of God	Naturally occurring networks of kinship or group ties, which can be used for transmission of the gospel.
CPers	Church planters
Church planting	Missionary role of evangelism, discipleship and training of leaders for the establishment of a body of believers, or a church. Does not refer to a physical building.
Closed Country	Countries that limit or prevent Christian ministry by expatriates as missionaries. Alternatively they are called creative-access countries, restricted access countries, closing countries, restrictive countries, sensitive countries.
Closure	A commitment to setting definite goals and developing specific means to complete world evangelization. Closure works toward accomplishing the task of MT 24:14, seeing the gospel presented to every people group in a way that it allows it to be extended throughout that group.
Cluster	Grouping of peoples within each affinity bloc which are closely related peoples and, for strategic purposes, may be clustered together. These relationships are often based on a common identity of language and name, but sometimes on the basis of culture, religion, economy, or dominance of one group over another.
Collaboration	To combine forces to meet a common goal.
Comity	The practice of designating a particular mission agency to be responsible for the evangelization of a specific geographical territory, to prevent overlapping of mission programs and personnel. Comity was planned to reduce waste and increase effectiveness but it tended to produce "denominationalism by geography."
Concept fulfilment	Identifying useable redemptive analogies within a culture, which could effectively present Biblical truths and demonstrate them as the fulfilment of cultural expectations.
Conglomerate church	A church which is made up of people from several different segments of society who have been converted through one-by one decisions out of various tribes, castes, and levels of society. It may be a committed and dedicated congregation but it is seldom able to effectively evangelise the surrounding community.
Contextualised	Presenting the Gospel in ways which consider the worldview of the respondent culture. Adapting the Biblical message into forms that are true to the Scriptures but appropriate to the local culture and society. (def. W.W.P)
Contextualization	Adapting something (a biblical concept, mission method, etc.) to make it understood within the context of an ethnic culture.
Covenants	Documents of agreement with the Lord God at key points in our history regarding vision and strategies.
CP	Church Planting
CP Coach	A Church Planting Coach trains church planters through both pre-field training in schools and church planting seminars, and through the regional coaches themselves, as they meet with team leaders on the ground.
CP Movement	A rapid multiplying of indigenous churches planting churches within a given people group or population segment. Where multiplying churches are planted in large numbers impacting every segment of society. Donald McGavran: a cluster of growing congregations in every segment of mankind. A segment meaning an urbanisation, development, caste, tribe, valley, plain or minority population.
Culture	The concepts, habits, skills, instruments, civilisation, etc. of a given people in a given period of time. Culture must be learned by each generation. Culture is constantly changing. Definitions: KWAST - The patterned way of doing things within a particular society which binds people together and gives them a sense of identity and continuity. HIEBERT - The integrated system of learned patterns of behaviour, ideas, and products characteristic of a society. The symbol systems that people create in order to think and communicate. HESSELGRAVE - Folkways, models, and mores, language, human productions, and social structures of any given people.
"Culture" Christianity	A Christian message distorted, weather knowingly or unknowingly, by the culture of the person presenting it.
Culture Shock	The sense of confusion and perplexity produced by a psychological disorientation most people experience when they move for an extended period of time into a culture significantly different from their own. It can result in homesickness, depression, resentment, hyperirritability, and even physical symptoms of psychosomatic illness.
Deputation	Commonly refers to the prayer and financial support rallying that career and short-term missionaries do before leaving for the field and during furloughs.
Double Cultural Imperialism	Imposing our own culture on others and despising their culture.
Dynamic Equivalence	This approach seeks to convey to contemporary audience’s meanings equivalent to those conveyed to the original audience, by using appropriate cultural forms. This can be applied to the translation of Scripture or to the formation of a local church. Contrast with Formal Correspondence.
Dynamic Equivalent Translations of Scripture	Translations in which the meaning of the text or concept is preserved in transmitting it to another culture, even if it is presented in a different form.
E-0 evangelism	Bringing the church members to renewal or repentance.
E-1 evangelism	Sharing the gospel with members of one’s own culture, near-neighbour evangelism.
E-2 evangelism	Sharing the Gospel with those of somewhat different cultures; may involve learning another language or culture for effective communication.
E-3 Evangelism	Sharing the gospel with those from a culture very different from the evangelist; will certainly involve learning one or more languages, and another culture for real effectiveness.
Ecclesiastical ethnocentrism	The view that the way things are done in one’s own church or denomination is the only right way to do them. This considers all other churches to be wrong wherever their rituals, beliefs, or practices differ from our own.
Epochs of Redemptive History	Periods of 400 years duration which give useful methods of evaluating the ways in which God’s kingdom was extended from the days of Abraham to the present.
Ethnocentrism	The belief that one’s own culture, race, nation, is superior to all others; the view that one’s cultural ways of doing things is the correct and only way; the tendency to judge the behaviour of people in other cultures by values and assumptions of our own. All cultures are naturally ethnocentric. Effective cross-cultural workers must struggle to overcome their normal tendency to assume superiority of their own culture.
Ethnocentrism	The belief that one’s own culture, race, nation, is superior to all others; the view that one’s cultural ways of doing things is the correct and only way; the tendency to judge the behaviour of people in other cultures by values and assumptions of our own. All cultures are naturally ethnocentric. Effective cross-cultural workers must struggle to overcome their normal tendency to assume superiority of their own culture.
Ethnolinguistic People	An ethnic or racial group speaking its own language. A people group distinguished by its self-identity with traditions of common descent, history, customs and language. Also known as a people.
Evangelicals	The subdivision of Protestantism which generally emphasises: 1)       the Lord Jesus Christ as the sole source of salvation through faith in Him; 2)       Personal faith and conversion with regeneration by the Holy Spirit; 3)       A recognition of the inspired Word of God as the only basis for faith and Christian living; 4)       Commitment to biblical preaching and evangelism that brings others to faith in Christ.
Evangelism	Sharing the good news that God has provided a sacrifice for sin through the death of His son, Jesus Christ, and inviting all people and nations to enter into that liberation from sin and death, through repentance and believing. The activity of reaching out from an existing church to those within the culture who have not had an opportunity to hear the message.
Expatriate	One who has taken up residence in a foreign country.
Field	The location where ministry, church planting, and evangelism takes place.
Field-based	Strategy determined by those on the field, rather than from those at the "home," sending, or resource base.
FMD’s	Frontier Mission Directors
Formal Correspondence	Relating to either Bible translation or church formation, this implies a slavish imitation, either in translating a word or forming a church model. It is usually ineffective and confusing. Contrast with dynamic equivalence.
Frontier	Pertaining to unreached areas or peoples.
Frontier missions	Cross-cultural evangelism by a worker from a different culture where no missiological breakthrough has taken place, ie. within an unreached people group
GC Business	Great Commission Business
Goers	Those World Christians who respond to the Mission Mandate by leaving their home country and taking the Gospel to another culture.
Grassroots	People who are living it daily and who do the real work.
Great Commission	Matthew 28:18-20. Jesus' final instructions to his followers to go everywhere to make disciples among every people.
Group Process	The normal way of decision making in non-Western societies and peoples, whereby decisions are made jointly by all members of a particular group. This is in contrast to the individual decisions commonly made in Western societies. An understanding of the group mind and group decision making is vital to the facilitation of people movements.
Harvest Field	All who are not true Christians; not part of the Body of Christ.
Harvest Force	Those of the Body of Christ who are involved in a direct or indirect way in helping to bring in the harvest of souls.
IFMD	International Frontier Missions Director
IFMLT	International Frontier Missions Leadership Team
Incarnational Identification	Sacrificial identification on the part of the missionaries with the culture and the way of life of the people they seek to reach.
Indigenisation	Presenting the Gospel in a way that is consistent with the principles and assumptions of the indigenous culture while remaining authentic to the foundations of Scripture.
Indigenous Church	A congregation of believers who live out their lives, including their Christian activity, in the patterns of local society, and for whom any transformation of society comes through the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the principles of Scripture.
Indigenous peoples or persons	Those individuals or groups who originate from a particular area; a national, a native.
Intercessors	Those world Christians who respond to the Mission Mandate primarily by sustaining the extension of Christ’s kingdom through serious, committed, on going prayer.
Inter-ethnic paternalism	One people group dominating another in the church planting process.
IWT	Impact World Tours
Joshua Project 2000 Unreached Peoples List	A listing of "country-distinct" peoples each over 10,000 in population that were chosen by their ethnolinguistic distinction and their status of being less than 2% Evangelical and less that 5% Christian adherents.
LAUSANNE COMMITTEE ON WORLD EVANGELIZATION	An integrated system of beliefs, values, customs, and institutions, which binds a society together and gives it a sense of identity, dignity, security, and continuity. - A general understanding of the nature of the universe and one’s place in it.
LT	Long Term
Mandate	The non-negotiable responsibility of all those who are recipients of the blessings to Abraham to work for the extension of those blessings to all families of the earth, as revealed by God (Gen 12:1-3).
Martyr	A Christian believer who dies in a situation of witness as a result of human hostility.
MC	Member Care
Micro-enterprise	Small business, loans and repayments on a very small scale involving small amounts of finance to help people move from poverty to settlement.
Misology	The study of missions and mission strategies; the theology of missions; how and why we do missions.
Missiological breakthrough	The establishment of a viable, reproducing church within an otherwise unreached people group. This is achieved by undertaking a frontier missions outreach.
Mission	The loving work of God to bring humankind to himself as the Church. Secondarily, the overall ministry of the Church for world evangelization.
Mission Agencies	Organisations of people who have banded together in a commitment to the Lord and to one another to make special efforts to cross cultural frontiers in order to evangelise and disciple those who would not otherwise have an opportunity to hear the Gospel.
Mission agency	A Christian organisation helping to further God's work in the world. "Mission board" and "sending agency" are virtually the same thing.
Mission Station Approach	A strategy whereby missionaries live in a compound separate from the surrounding culture. Converts are often encouraged to join them on the compound, thus separating them from the families and friends they might otherwise reach (gathered colony approach). It produces educated and often committed Christian individuals, but seldom a multiplying cluster of reproducing churches.
Missionary	One who is sent with a message. The Christian missionary is one commissioned by a local church to evangelise, plant churches and disciple people away from his home area, often among people of a different race, culture or language.
Missionary mechanisms	The ways that, throughout history, God moves His people (both with and without their willing, co-operative obedience) to reach those peoples who have yet to hear the good news. Witnesses will go to the nations or God will cause the nations to "come to the blessing." The four mechanisms are: voluntary/go, involuntary go, voluntary come, involuntary come.
Missions Resource Organisation	These agencies support the work of field missions and missionaries by offering information, resources, materials, and mobilisation of the Church.
Mobilises	Those World Christians who respond to Missions Mandate by assisting others in the Body of Christ to become prepared, trained, and released to cross-cultural service and helping each church and each Christian find their role in the process of world evangelization.
Nation	Biblically, an ethnic unit or people group (GK: ethnos; Heb.: gam or mishpahgeh) rather than a geopolitical country. Specifically, this Greek word is used in Matthew 24:14 and 28:18-19. These Scripture serve as Jesus Biblical mandate for world missions. Matthew 24:14: "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all the nations [ethnos], and then the end shall come." Matthew 28:19: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations [ethnos], baptising them in the name of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit."
National	Any person who is from the country to which you are going.
Network	An extended group of people with similar interests or concerns who interact and remain in informal contact for mutual assistance or support.
Non-Resident Missionary	Professional career missionary who is working towards the evangelization of a particular people or cluster, but resides outside the group, usually in a city with good international communications facilities and no surveillance.
Op Locs	Operating Locations
Para-church	Refers to a Christian organisation independent of any church denominational structures.
Partnership	An association of two or more autonomous bodies who have formed a trusting relationship and agreed upon expectations by sharing complementary strengths and resources, to reach their mutual goal.
People Group	A significantly large sociological grouping of individuals who perceive themselves to have a common affinity with one another. From the viewpoint of evangelization, this is the largest possible group within which the gospel can be spread without encountering barriers of understanding or acceptance.
People movements	The process by which whole people groups decide together to become Christians.
Perspectives	A short-term course produced by the US Center for World Mission (Dr Ralph Winter) to train people in biblical, historical and strategic basis for mission.
Prayer journey	A trip to pray on location for the lost. Team members may spend extended time prayer walking, asking God to bring the Gospel to that unreached people group. It does not entail evangelism or mercy ministries.
Prayer walking	Praying "on-site with insight." Taking prayers outside the church walls as we walk through an area. Praying in the very places we expect to see God bring forth His answers. Usually low profile and unobtrusive in appearance.
Praying Through the Window	Prayer initiatives developed for the purpose of worldwide focused prayer for the countries and peoples in the 10/40 Window.
Preaching Point	A location where a missionary preaches to any who will listen. No indigenous leaders direct the group, converts are seldom baptised. This type of gathering is unlikely to reproduce.
Reached People Group	A people group within which there exists a growing, reproducing church movement, able to evangelise their own people.
Reached/unreached	A term that is widely used today to describe people groups and areas that have or have not responded to the preaching of the gospel. The use of the term has continued despite the faultiness of the terminology. Strictly, it should be a measure of the exposure of a people group to the gospel and not a measure of the response.
Redemptive Analogies	Elements within a culture that anticipate aspects of the Gospel. Their God-ordained purpose is to prepare the culture to recognise Jesus as Saviour.
Registration of Churches	The formalisation of the adoption process for churches that have adopted UPG’s in partnership with YWAM.
Regular Missions	Mission work by a different culture worker among a people group where a missiological breakthrough has already taken place.
Rice Christians	People who become Christians simply for the material benefits that this will bring to themselves and their families.
RLT	Regional Leadership Team
Role	A function or office taken or assigned to someone with which certain cultural expectations are connected. In another culture, these expectations and behaviours may be significantly different from what is initially assumed by the missionary.
Senders	Those World Christians who respond to the Mission Mandate by funding and assisting cross-cultural workers who go out to complete world evangelization. It is estimated that it takes six to thirty committed senders to sustain one worker to the field.
SF	Strategic Frontiers
SOFM	School of Frontier Missions
Spontaneous Expansion	The situation wherein new converts are formed into churches which from the beginning are fully equipped with all spiritual authority to multiply themselves without any necessary reference to the foreign missionaries.
ST	Short Term
Status	Position, rank, or standing within a social system related to roles and functions. Expectations as to status will differ within each culture for various roles and functions.
Status	Position, rank, or standing within a social system related to roles and functions. Expectations as to status will differ within each culture for various roles and functions.
Strategy	A plan or action based on an overall approach to reaching a stated goal or solving a specific problem. Strategy, as opposed to tactics, is not concerned with details but with general purposes and intentions.
Strategy Coordinator	One who develops and implements a strategy to reach a people group, working with a team or network.
Support	The finances and prayer you will need to ask others to give for your mission trip.
Syncretism	Fusion of differing systems of belief. Mixing Christianity with heresy (ex. Aaron and the Israelites worshipping the golden calf).
Synergy	The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects. Cooperative interaction among groups that creates an enhanced combined effect.
Tentmaker	A cross-cultural witness who works at a paying, usually secular, job overseas. Often they are able to gain entry into "closed" countries which restrict traditional mission efforts.
Tentmaker missionary	A trained, experienced Christian worker who uses his/her secular profession or training as a vehicle for entering cross-cultural ministry, particularly in closed or restricted access countries.
The Church	The Body of Christ worldwide; the community of the Holy Spirit; the people of God from all nations. The Church encompasses the reign of the kingdom and acts as God’s agent in the world in His continuing plan to extend His kingdom to all peoples, nations, tribes, and tongues.
The Great Century	The period from 1792 to 1914 during which the great worldwide expansion of Protestant Christianity began.
Three-self formula	The formula for mission strategy which plans to foster development of churches that are self-governing, self-supporting, and self-propagating
Trans-national	A ministry that is not geographically based, but is relevant and functions all over the world.
Twenty-five Unbelievable years	The period after WWII, from 1945 to 1970, during which colonialism, the most powerful forces in the 19th century, was overtaken by nationalism, clearly the dominant force in the latter part of the 20th century. In 1945, Europeans controlled more than 99% of the non-Western world. By 1970, they controlled only 5%. These years also saw an unexpected upsurge of Christianity in the Non-Western world.
Universalism	The teaching that because God is good, all people will ultimately be saved. Any variation of that teaching which implies that people do not need to accept the sacrifice of Jesus Christ in order to be reconciled to God.
Unreached People	A people or people group among whom there is no viable indigenous community of believing Christians with adequate numbers and resources to evangelise their own people without outside (cross-cultural) assistance.
Unreached people Group (UPG)	A people group which does not have a cluster of growing, indigenous congregations able to reach the rest of that culture, therefore requiring cross-cultural workers until that point is achieved. This people group has no indigenous community of believing Christians able to evangelise their own people.
Values	What is considered "good, beneficial, or best" within a society. Values provide pre-set decisions between choices commonly faced by members of a culture. They define what "should or ought" to be done in order to conform to that culture’s way of life.
Vernacular	The language or dialect of a particular class or group.
Viable church	A sufficiently developed indigenous Christian tradition with the resources and motivation able to evangelise its own people without cross-cultural help.
Visa	Gives you written permission to travel in someone else's country.
Welcomers	Those World Christians who respond to the Mission Mandate by working to complete world evangelization through reaching international populations (i.e. students, refugees, immigrants, military trainees, etc.) whom God has moved to their home territory or place of residence.
World Christian	A Christian who has caught the vision of God’s global purposes and, in obedience to the Lord, has responded to that vision in practical ways. One whose lifestyle has been transformed in relation to that vision and obedience.
World Evangelization	The communication of the Good News of God’s salvation in Jesus Christ until all peoples, nations, tribes, and tongues have an opportunity to hear it in a way that they can understand and to which they can validly respond. The whole Church taking the whole gospel to the whole world. The goal of giving every person the opportunity to hear the gospel in a way they understand, to become disciples of Christ, and to join with others in fellowship without leaving their own culture or people.
World View	A range of definitions offered: KWAST - What is considered to be "real" within a culture concerning the ultimate questions of reality. It forms the core of culture and effects every component of culture. HIEBERT - The basic assumptions people have about the nature of reality and of right and wrong. HESSELGRAVE – The way people see or perceive the world, the way they know it to be.
10/40 Window	The area of the world between latitudes 10 degrees and 40 degrees north of the equator in the Eastern hemisphere, covering North Africa, Middle East and Asia. The window has in view most of the world's areas of greatest physical and spiritual need, most of the world's least-reached peoples and most of the governments that oppose Christianity.

June 2010 edition of our e-zine. Click here to download a copy in MS Word format.

FrontierCom Team

Danny Lehman, Dean of the College of Christian Ministries at the University of the Nations, gives his insights on the interrelationship between justice issues and frontier missions. Read the article below, or click here to download it in PDF format.