Adopting an unreached people group in prayer is God’s supernatural way for mission breakthroughs, in which all of us Jesus followers can and should participate! Not all of us are called to be field missionaries, but we are all called to engage in His Great Commission through prayer.

As Jesus commanded, "Pray the Lord of the harvest that He will send workers into his harvest field." (Matt. 9:37- 38). He also affirmed, "My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations"(Mk. 11:17), with "nations" in His Great Commission of Mt. 28:19 and elsewhere in the Bible, always referring to ethne, meaning ethnic groups and tribes in the original Greek text, not the modern geopolitical countries so often mistakenly substituted for the Biblical prayer and mission focus.

That is also the case in Matthew 24:14 when He said that "this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all "nations" (= panta ta ethne or all ethnic people groups), and then the end will come." If we engage in prayer for specific unreached peoples, we will be doing our part to bring about the climax of human history and the return of the King of Kings!

During the AD2000 and Beyond Movement in the 1990's, many Unreached Peoples conferences, seminars and other initiatives were held that resulted in hundreds of new interdenominational networks focused on specific UPGs in about 80 countries. Those of us forming the International Prayer Council in 2001 and 2002, now called International Prayer Connect (www.ipcprayer.org), also focused on mission for the UPGs as one of our main objectives when we were seeking to develop global and regional networks for the growing international prayer movement. The Lord was strongly emphasizing to many of us how crucial it was to integrate informed prayer with Jesus' mission for all the unreached ethne of our world.

Now, an increasing number of us in both the prayer and mission movements believe that we may well be in the run-up to the return of our Lord Jesus Christ! He told us to watch for the signs of the times to know when His second coming draws near. Perhaps the most important sign is that the ethne, the ethnic people groups, who were earlier mentioned in Matthew 24:14 and 28:19, are now within the possibility of being reached with the Gospel even by 2033, as several world evangelization and Bible translation efforts now predict.

What a time to be alive and to serve the returning King of Kings!

In this possibly short time window, we need to especially multiply both prayer and mission efforts to ignite movements for Him in every one of the Frontier People Groups. These Frontier People Groups are the least reached, with only one person on average per thousand or no known Jesus followers at all. According to the Joshua Project, which has faithfully researched and kept track of the status of the unreached peoples of our world, there are still 4700+ of these Frontier People Groups. They all have little or no Christians and make up about 2 billion people or a quarter of the world's population still needing to hear about Jesus for the first time ever.

The largest 272 of these FPGs, each over one million in size, hold the majority of these desperately lost and largely forgotten people, totaling about 1.6 billion or 20% of world population. What a tragedy that so much of Jesus Christ's world-wide Church does not even know what the Great Commission is! A recent Lausanne World Evangelization report reveals that a majority of the 1,500 global Christian leaders surveyed believe that less than half of the Christians in their region can even define the Great Commission. Unless we pray, how can they be moved to care about such enormous masses of fellow human beings living in abject darkness?

Unless we heed Jesus' call to intercede, they will continue without the salvation and hope He alone provides, not only for this life but also for the age to come?

The Joshua Project maintains the list of all the FPGs at this link: www.joshuaproject.net/frontier/interactive  

Missiologists affirm that these largest 272 are the most strategic people groups to adopt in prayer and reach first. As they respond to the Gospel, movements for Christ developing within them will likely overflow out to the smaller FPGs in their proximity, as the powerful momentum of disciple-making and church planting will be unleashed through our focused praying and resulting efforts by missionaries and mission organizations to reach them.

The interdependent prayer and mission movements need your urgent help! We are seeking to get churches, prayer groups, youth, and children’s ministries worldwide, through as many denominations and networks as possible, to systematically adopt each one of these FPGs - one per church, prayer group, or other ministry entity, as well as by all individual caring Jesus followers.

If you and those you know are willing to engage in ongoing, in-depth prayer, God's promised breakthroughs will occur. Please see these helpful websites:

JoshuaProject.net,  AIMS.org, and BlessFrontierPeoples.org. All have excellent resources about how to effectively adopt and pray for FPGs, such as prayer cards, profiles and videos. (More about that below.)

You can help bring back the King of Kings by using them yourself and sharing them with your church, prayer group or other ministry organization. Please help mobilize others to get involved and there will be synergistic impact beyond you can ask or think! (Eph. 3:20)

Jesus commanded that we His followers pray to the Lord of the harvest to send workers into His harvest field (Matthew 9:37-38). When driving the money changers out of the temple, He also exclaimed, “My house will be called a house of prayer for all"...., there's that Greek word again....ethne.” (Mark 11:17). Prayer is therefore the first order of business in reaching the unreached. It is the powerful, supernatural way in which missions will be enabled to happen, even in the most resistant people groups. When each of these FPGs are adopted for ongoing prayer that specifically focuses on them over time and preferably by multiple ministry entities, it will result in an explosive,

synergistic leap forward in seeing Jesus’ command to reach all the ethne accomplished in this decade.

The brief video HERE, "Understanding the Remaining Mission Task" provides a helpful overview on where we are in completing this all-important mission of the Lord.

Specific prayer cards for each of these largest FPGs are available at: https://joshuaproject.net/pray/cards/frontier/4

They can be enlarged to be placed on the wall of a church or prayer group’s meeting place  and/or printed to be given out as bookmarks for members' Bibles to remind them to pray regularly for the raising up of workers and movements for Christ in the people group or groups they have adopted.

Joshua Project www.joshuaproject.net has many wonderful resources to help you and others find out more about the people group you decide to adopt. A profile is linked to every prayer card with a QR code, having specific prayer points. Also, adopting entities can and should do their own further research and where possible seek to network with others who have adopted the same FPG as their focus.

In addition, a cellphone app called “Unreached of the Day” is also now available to help us pray for one of the Unreached People Groups each day (including the FPGs and those with a greater Christian presence of up to 2%). It provides a picture, profile, map where they are located, and sometimes a video.

 It is also available in many of the world’s languages. Please try it yourself and share it with others HERE

We in the Unreached Peoples Task Force would deeply appreciate your help in getting this challenge out to any churches, prayer groups, youth, and children's ministries you are in touch with. We have found that it is usually best to assign just one of these FPGs to each willing ministry entity or individual praying believer, giving them a particular FPG's prayer card. Don't neglect to share this challenge with children and youth, who can also be
assigned one to keep in their prayers. As they do, God may call them in the future to go as missionaries to their respective people group!

All 273 largest FPGs are available HERE.
(The rest of the prayer cards for all 4700+ FPGs are accessible on the Joshua Project website as already mentioned.)

Participants can be asked to pray for the coming year and then to renew that commitment, or shift to another people group after that if they like.

Please also ask each adopting church or other ministry entity to register your and others’ commitments to your chosen FPGs (or other UPGs) so progress can be monitored at https://joshuaproject.net/get_involved/adopt  

The Joshua Project team will help to track each adoption and hopefully as their team grows, connect adoptees with field teams where possible as well as communicate back how their prayers are being answered. AIMS.org can also assist you with adoption, research, prayer, and connection with those on the field seeking to reach these  FPGs and other unreached people groups.

A Remarkable Testimony!

Let me close with an amazing testimony about the power of praying for a Frontier People Group. At the beginning of the 1990’s, I asked two churches in my hometown to adopt a Central Asian people group of several million with only two known Jesus followers. All the rest, as far as we knew, were Muslims. One of them I was privileged to lead to the Lord myself in an evangelistic event in southern Russia.

The other I was able to meet on a visit to the country where their people group lived. The Adopt a People Clearinghouse which existed at that time had just printed a beautiful prayer card about this almost completely unreached FPG. Using that card, church people from both churches began to pray and we began to see God’s wonders. As declared in Psalms 77:14, “You are the God who performs miracles; You display your power among the peoples.” That is exactly what we began to witness!

Shortly after the believers began to pray, quite astonishingly, our city and their capital city began a sister-city program that enabled the exchange of musicians, composers, and other cultural programs. The symphony orchestra of that country then decided to do a concert the night before they separated from the Soviet Union as part of their independence celebration. The music of my grandfather, who had been Dean of Fine Arts at our university and a well-known local composer, was chosen to be performed. He had recently passed away and my parents could not go, so I was chosen to do so.

At the concert, in that Central Asian nation, the conductor asked me to say some words about my grandfather, so I told them about his search for God through his composing, and we read Psalm 23, his favorite Psalm. The conductor and all the musicians, as well as the audience that included some government officials, were all Muslims, yet they loved my grandfather’s music and Psalm 23 since they came from a shepherd culture!

I also found out that my remarks had been included along with the concert on national radio! In addition, a non-residential missionary who had a heart for that people group had come with me and through that experience was given an open door and office to bring in university lecturers and agricultural development experts who were all Jesus followers. They eventually led hundreds to Christ, thanks be to the Lord!

The favor God gave in answer to the prayers of believers back home was so amazing! After the concert, the conductor asked if I could come back the following year for another such concert of my grandfather’s music which I did. As we were sitting in the audience before the orchestra began to play, the conductor suddenly turned around and said. “Now, can we have John Robb come up to the mic and tell us about God?”

Talk about always being ready to share at a moment’s notice! I did my best to follow up on what was said the year before and again they seemed to be so open and receptive for being nominal Muslims. “What is this glory?”, one of the songs that was sung during that concert, was my granddad’s touching Christmas piece about the shepherds welcoming the birth of Jesus. It has been said that you can preach to Muslims, and they might kill you, but you can sing to them, and they will love you! That is what happened apparently since I am still alive and can recount this wonderful God-story to you!

What an illustration of the power of focused prayer to bring about breakthroughs among unreached people groups!

That must be the reason that Jesus stressed that prayer was the essential thing for mission breakthrough when He said:

“The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field.” (Matthew 9:37-38)

God owns the harvest and the process of reaping it as its Lord. However, what He really needs and wants is our focused, persistent prayer, through which He will even cause people groups who are resistant due to demonic deception and bondage to become receptive to the Gospel. They will then experience dreams and visions, signs and wonders and receive those workers the Lord has specially chosen and gifted to reach that particular people group with its unique culture and worldview. Here lies the mystery and potency of prayer for the remaining thousands of people groups who have never heard the Gospel.

That is why the most strategic thing we can do, as instructed by the Master Missiologist Himself, is to pray and get others to do so also.

Therefore, in the run-up to His return, along with millions of other Jesus followers, let us now respond to His command, utilizing fully the supernatural power of intercessory prayer, so that all the Frontier People Groups will hear His Good News and have movements for Him.

Then, one day, perhaps sooner than we think, we will all together welcome back the Lord Jesus, returning in His awesome glory as King of Kings and Lord of Lords!

John Robb - Coordinator, Unreached Peoples Task Force

Chairman, Transformation Prayer Foundation

www.transformationprayerfoundation.org

Founder/former Chairman, International Prayer Connect www.ipcprayer.org

Former Unreached Peoples Track Coordinator, AD2000 and Beyond Movement

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

For the prayer cards for the 273 largest FPGs, click / scan this QR code:

https://www.ipcprayer.org/images/2026/FPGs_273_largest_Joshua-Project-Prayer-Cards.pdf

FOCUS! – The Power of People Group Thinking – John D Robb

If you would like to read John's book, Focus: the Power of People Group Thinking which is a manual on reaching the unreached translated into 27 languages used by missionaries in various parts of the world, you can download it free of charge HERE or through this QR code:

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