Definitions

Church

A church is comprised of baptized disciples joined together by the Holy Spirit who regularly meet together for doctrine, fellowship, communion, and prayer (Acts 2:42). 

Practically speaking, for a new gathering to be called a church, at least six baptized disciples are required; however, specific location, meeting frequency, and designated pastor are not—though those normally develop as an indigenous church matures in the five “selfs” (self-propagating, self-governing, self-supporting, self-theologizing, self-missionizing).

A church-planting movement is a multiplication of indigenous churches planting churches that includes at least four streams of four spiritual generations together totaling more than 1,000 persons.

People Group

A people group is an ethnolinguistic group who perceive themselves to have a common affinity for one another based on language, culture, religion, and worldview. From the viewpoint of evangelization, it is the largest possible group within which the gospel can spread as a viable, indigenous church-planting movement without encountering barriers of understanding or acceptance. 

An unreached people group (UPG) has approximately 2 disciples or fewer out of 100 (≤ 2%) and lacks the capacity to establish indigenous churches without cross-cultural assistance.

Within the overarching UPG category are the following people groups in descending levels of engagement:

1. Under-Engaged. An under-engaged people group has approximately 1 disciple or fewer out of 100 (≤ 1%). More church planting teams are needed to increase fruitful engagement.

2. Frontier. A frontier people group has approximately 1 disciple or fewer out of 1,000 (≤ 0.1%) with no confirmed, sustained movement to Jesus. These groups are often geographically isolated with little to no access to the gospel; thus, pioneer work generally must begin with nonbelievers.

3. Unengaged. An unengaged UPG (UUPG) has no known believers or a tiny few (effectively 0%) and lacks the four primary levels of effective engagement:

   • Apostolic (pioneering) effort in residence

   • Commitment to work in the local culture and heart language

   • Commitment to long-term ministry

   • Sowing the gospel in a manner consistent with the goal of seeing a church-planting movement emerge

Broader engagement includes important contributing components that can be done by nonresident partners, including intercessory prayer, Bible translation, compassion/disaster ministry outreaches, media reach, mobilization efforts, leadership training, and work among diaspora.