Lately I’ve been meditating on how I can align myself with Jesus’ priorities. His teachings make this plain, but we get additional insight from his final instructions to his apostles. All four gospels end with a variation of the Great Commission, instructing us to make disciples among ta ethne (in the Greek), all tribes, nations, peoples, and languages as it says in Rev. 5:9.
This is not some abstract, theological idea, it is a revelation of Jesus’ heart to gather a family to enjoy for eternity, one that has a representation from each of the 17,000 ethnic groups on the planet. See, missions is really about God’s longing for family.
When our hearts are stirred by Jesus’ passion, our minds turn to those people groups who have never heard his name, the ones no one has engaged, and there is no one on the horizon to do so. Many of them are in closed countries where we can’t send Western missionaries. They are left fending for themselves, worshipping idols or false religions that leave them in despair. Sadly, there are still 1573 of these unengaged people groups waiting for someone to give them an invitation to follow Jesus.
There are innovative methods employed to reach the unengaged such as social media platforms, or deployment of non-Western neighbors. But there is also another way: God is sending hundreds of people groups from overseas to our American cities, called the diaspora. If we can disciple them and plant churches conducive to their own culture, they can use their phones and devices to disciple and plant churches back in their homelands and among unengaged peoples.
This is why we are mobilizing the Church to collaborate in reaching the diaspora, starting with the Greater Houston Diaspora Coalition, and now the Dallas-Ft. Worth Diaspora Coalition. Having this experience has prepared us to help other American cities to start similar coalitions.
Friends, this is a doable task. When we started Completion Global in July 2018, there were 3206 unengaged people groups, and now it’s down to 1573. We can engage those final ethnic groups if we work together. We’re halfway there! I am presenting a workshop at the Missio Nexus missions conference on September 29, so please pray that other cities will launch a diaspora coalition toward completion of Jesus’ Great Commission.
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