What People Groups are You Reaching?

Try this one stupid trick to change the course of history in a people group

When I was a new believer of 19 years old somebody gave me a little yellow prayer card. It had the nation of Albania on it, with prayer points to consider. I stuck that into my Bible and carried it around for years. When I started this, it was 1983. Albania was shut tight, closed off from the world and the gospel.

It was a bit like North Korea is now, only worse. North Korea has an underground church while Albania did not. There were reports of believers, but they were scattered and unable to meet together. Getting the gospel into Albania was very difficult. There were no tourist options and no business-as-mission possibilities. It was against the law to have a radio, so even radio ministry was limited.

In 1990, things began to change. The wall, keeping the world out, began to crumble. By March of 1992, an opposition party won national elections. The nation went through a time of upheaval and then, for the first time in a long time, it opened up to the world.

Small churches began to pop up all over the country. Much to my amazement, the church began to grow, and rapidly. Missionaries poured in and churches were multiplying. I soon had Albanian colleagues church planters that had joined the same mission I was serving with at the time.

For years that little yellow card had ridden along in my Bible, a sidekick to my prayer life (I just trashed my office looking for it and, many, many moves later, I believe I may have l lost it). The testimony of how prayer changes things is not lost on me. When the government of Albania declared itself as an atheist nation, thousands of people praying had started praying for it. It took a long time, But when the Spirit moved there, it made a huge difference.

Jesus told us to pray what we might call, “nagging prayers.”

Luke 18:1-8

Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’

“For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”

And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

Does it work? Yes, it works. Prayer works. It might take some nagging, but in the end God will bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night.

Here is one stupid trick you might consider than can impact the nations for Jesus: Have a “personal foreign policy” which includes a long-term prayer focus on a single unreached people group.

Head over to Joshua Project right now and take a look at the lists of possible candidate people groups. You might choose a “Frontier People Group” that has no virtually no followers of Jesus that still need pioneering cross-cultural workers. This list has groups that over 10,000 in population that fit that category. You could go the other direction. You might look for a people group that is small, easily overlooked, and still quite unreached. You might even be aware of an unreached people group that is not on the lists. The Sandjak of Montenegro do not make the Joshua Project lists, even though they certainly qualify. Let God direct you.

My friend Michael Thompson from OneWay Ministries likes to say that the single most strategic thing a person can do in missions is pray (you can check out his ministry’s excellent videos on https://prayercast.com). He is not wrong about this.

I myself am praying for an engaged people group, but one that needs a breakthrough. The Bosniaks of Bosnia-Hercegovina. You could join me.

[I am traveling in a very remote region and will not be able to interact with comments this week.]