Accelerating the Reach of the Gospel Depends Upon People Willing to Go
This article is the second from Larry Brown, Ethnos360’s CEO, discussing the vision that is driving Ethnos toward planting maturing churches among every unreached people group in this generation.
As Jason Swanson travelled from village to village, he asked various Siawi believers to share their testimonies.
Again and again he heard, “Christ has opened the way to God.” It was a phrase from a skit the missionaries presented years earlier. They hung a sheet to symbolize the curtain in the Temple that set apart the Holy of Holies. The sheet was ripped in two, demonstrating that Christ has removed all barriers to knowing God.
“I had no idea that skit had firmly cemented things for so many people,” Jason said. Today, faithful Siawi men lead and teach the Siawi church, and the New Testament, a product of more than 25 years of ministry by Jason’s co-worker Linda Krieg, is going through its final format before printing. This has been accomplished by ordinary men and women who are responding in obedience to Christ’s command to go into all the world, and through the gifts of people like you.
God could have given His angels the task of reaching the world. I’m sure they would be much more impressive than you and me. But He didn’t. He gave this work to us. He told you and me, His people, His church, to “make disciples of all nations.” (Matthew 28:19)
He entrusted you and me with this awesome “ministry of reconciliation,” and made us “ambassadors for Christ.” (2 Corinthians 5:18-20) God invites us all to be “workers together with Him.” (2 Corinthians 6:1)
The task of establishing churches among thousands of unreached people groups can seem daunting … unless we remember Who gave us this work and why. You and I have an incredible opportunity to actually see the task of reaching the last people group in this generation completed. I believe it is doable!
Evidence that the last unreached people group can be reached in this generation
Already, in partnership with people like you, Ethnos is reaching a new people group every 45 days. And Ethnos is just one avenue God is using to glorify His name among the world’s unreached people groups.
Because you and Ethnos are working together to see the last unreached people group reached in this generation, we’re hearing testimonies like this:
“This is God’s talk,” said a Biem man who heard the climax of foundational Bible lessons late last year. “See, it’s just one story, from the Old Testament to Jesus. There is no other road but Jesus. God meant it this way from the beginning.”
We’re seeing transformed lives: Shatito, a Mwinika boy, was a troublemaker in the community. But once he started coming to hear foundational Bible teaching, he made sure to get to every lesson. Recently, missionary Nadia Hattingh saw him in the abandoned, run-down schoolroom, teaching younger children to read and write – even though no one was paying him to do it.
We’re challenged by God’s work among the people we serve: Mesari – a Dinangat woman in a ripped shirt and a patched skirt, living in a grass-roofed hut and eating a steady diet of sweet potatoes and little else – was ashamed when she read 1 Timothy 6:6-8: “But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.”
She responded, “When we have food and clothes, what else do we need? We have God, our Saviour. He is everything we need to live and die!”
Tools to get the job done
He is indeed all we need. He has given you and me these opportunities, and so many more, to glorify His name by making Him known to the ends of the earth. He has given us great tools:
Foundational Bible teaching that lays out God’s story chronologically, building an understanding of who God is and our relationship with Him.
A Maturing Church Model that gives our missionaries a clear target, and a measuring stick along the way.
A training program that lays a solid biblical foundation, builds practical missionary and ministry skills, and then provides on-field help in crucial areas including language learning, Bible translation and leadership development.
Larry Brown
Chief Executive Officer
Ethnos360
Know someone who may be interested in taking God’s Word to an unreached people group?
Opportunities Await at Ethnos
“God is still building His church! Pretty amazing. A weekend away that was very impactful and reminds me what is really important.”
~ Off The Grid 2012 attendee
“Our heart’s desire is to go to the unreached, the remote peoples in Asia. Their chances of ever hearing the gospel is next to none if no one goes to them!”
~ recent Ethnos Training grad
Find out more about Off The Grid and our missionary training centre.
In Canada, we are challenging believers to join God in reaching the unreached
We are putting the tools Larry mentioned above in the hands of men and women – people who have a heart to reach the lost. We are assisting churches with sending their missionaries to the most spiritually needy people on the planet.
To assist with all this, we’re converting an old classroom building into a new multi-purpose building to better serve the needs of our recruiting, training and sending – so that together with you, we can see the last people group reached in this generation.
“Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into His harvest”
You can help more people get involved in cross-cultural church planting. In order to facilitate large-group gatherings, this new multi-purpose building is needed. An existing building is being renovated to include:
- A fellowship hall large enough for campus-wide times of fellowship.
- Temporary additional classroom space for Ethnos Training.
- A kitchen for preparing and serving meals to visiting church groups and work teams.
This large building has housed the Missionary Training Centre for 45 years, and this $200,000 upgrade will serve the campus for many more years to come.
Please pray with us as we take a step of faith with this project. This year’s goals range from $17,000 for building permits, to $30,000 for exterior upgrades and $80,500 for the interior of the building.
Please pray about what God might have you do to help recruit, equip and send people to reach people groups and transform lives.
Just last summer, a first time visitor to our campus said, “I wanted to do missions already and hearing about all the invitations for missionaries has opened my heart even more to reaching the unreached.” They are ready to go; let’s be ready to help them!
Tim Whatley
Executive Director
Ethnos Canada
Help Increase the training capacity at Ethnos Training
A clear, quality translation underpins church planting efforts
Jaspa apologised to missionary Ralf Schlegel.
“I’m really tired because I stayed up most of the night reading my new Bible,” he said. “It was just so sweet I couldn’t stop.”
Work on Bible translation for the Dinangat people began in 2006. Six people have worked together tirelessly during those years to translate portions of God’s Word. Last summer, Ralf said, “We were able to hand out all the Scripture portions which we have translated and consultant-checked so far in one bound book.”
The book contained portions of Genesis and Exodus, as well as Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, most of Romans and all of Ephesians.
“There are altogether about 1,700 verses that are printed in this edition,” Ralf explains. “There are still another 6,000 verses that need to be translated before we can hand out the whole New Testament.”
But handing out this bound edition of Dinangat Scripture was a triumph that was well summed up by Felix, a Dinangat believer: “When we got those Bibles, I was so happy that I wanted to cry.”
Ralf says that the Dinangat people kept shaking the missionaries’ hands and thanking them for giving them God’s Word in their own language.
“Now that the believers have at least part of God’s Word in their own language,” Ralf said, “they can feed on it anytime that they want to and hopefully by doing that, they will live more and more according to truth and will grow in their love for their Saviour and in doing so, will glorify God through their lives.”
The Bible is the foundation for your life and mine. This is why Ethnos Canada is recruiting, training and sending believers to bring it to unreached people groups. Reaching people groups, transforming lives.
