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Adopt a frontier people group in prayer, and see the Holy Spirit work glorious wonders in their lives! Let us lift up our brothers and sisters to the Lord, that they may come to know and love Him. Christ gave us the mission to pray for labourers for His Father’s harvest.

An increasing number of us in the prayer and mission movements believe 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 that will be.

Perhaps the most important sign is that the ethne, the ethnic people groups mentioned in Matthew 24:14 and 28:19, are now within the possibility of being reached with the Gospel by 2030 to 2033, as several world evangelisation and Bible translation efforts now predict. What a time to be alive and to serve the returning King of Kings!

In the meantime, we need to greatly multiply and expand both the prayer and mission efforts to ignite movements for Him in every one of the Frontier People Groups (FPGs), those most unreached groups with less than one per thousand who follow Jesus. Of the several thousand Unreached People Groups, there are 294 Frontier People Groups, each over one million in size, that are called “frontier” because they are the least reached, making up about 1.6 billion people.

Mission: Possible

Joshua Project maintains the list of these largest FPGs here. These largest 294 are the most strategic people groups to reach first, because as they respond to the Gospel, movements for Christ that develop within them will likely overflow out to the smaller FPGs in their proximity as the powerful momentum of disciple-making church planting movements is unleashed.

World Prayer Assembly 2012, Jakarta, Indonesia — Summary Video

The prayer and mission movements need your help! We are seeking to get churches, prayer groups, youth, and children’s ministries worldwide, through their denominations and networks, to systematically adopt each one of these 294, even by this year’s end. Jesus commanded that we pray to the Lord of the harvest to send workers into His harvest field. (Matthew 9:37–38)

Prayer is the powerful supernatural way that mission is enabled to happen, even in the most resistant and unreached places and people groups. When each of these 294 are adopted for ongoing prayer that specifically focuses on them in an in-depth manner by multiple ministry entities, it will result in an explosive, synergistic leap forward in seeing Jesus’ command to reach the ethne accomplished in this decade. This brief video, Understanding the Remaining Mission Task, provides a helpful overview of what remains to be done in this all-important mission of the Lord.

Another important video is “Why Pray for the Largest Frontier People Groups?”

Printable prayer cards for each of these largest FPGs are available on Joshua Project. These cards can be enlarged to be placed on the wall of a church or prayer group’s meeting place, or given out as bookmarks for members’ Bibles as a reminder to pray regularly for workers and movements to Jesus in the people group they have adopted.

JoshuaProject.net has many wonderful resources for learning more about each people group. Adopting entities can do further research and network with others who adopt the same FPG. A new web platform, GetInvolved.com, will further facilitate the formation of digital prayer communities adopting the same FPG for ongoing prayer.

We 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. In our experience it is best to assign just one FPG to each ministry entity, attaching a prayer card for that FPG with your request, until one or more churches or prayer ministries take responsibility for each of these three hundred Frontier People Groups. They can be asked to pray for just the coming year, then to renew that commitment or shift to another people group if they like.

Please also ask each adopting entity to register your and others’ commitments to adopt particular FPGs (or other UPGs) so we can track what is happening at AIMS.org (Accelerating International Mission Strategies). The AIMS mission agency will help to track each adoption, connect them with field teams where possible and communicate how their prayers are being answered. They can assist you with adoption, research, prayer, and connection with those on the field seeking to reach these FPGs and other unreached people groups.

Lifting Hearts Up to the Lord

Let me close with an amazing testimony about the power of praying for a Frontier People Group. At the beginning of the 1990s, I asked two churches in my hometown to adopt a Central Asian people group with only two known followers of Jesus. One, I had been privileged to lead to the Lord myself in an evangelistic event in southern Russia. The other, I met on a visit to the country where their people group lived. The rest, as far as we knew, were all Muslims.

The Adopt a People Clearinghouse, associated with the U.S. Center for World Mission at that
time, had just printed a beautiful prayer card about this almost completely unreached people. Using that card, members in both churches began to pray, and we begin to see God’s wonders. As it is promised in Psalm 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 these churches began to pray, our city and the capital city of this people group began a sister-city exchange of musicians, composers, and other cultural programs. The symphony orchestra of their country then scheduled a concert the night before their independence celebration from the Soviet Union.

The music of my grandfather, who was Dean of Fine Arts at our university and a well-known local composer, was chosen to be performed. My parents could not go to represent him since he had recently passed away, so I was chosen to do so.

At that concert, in that Central Asian nation, the conductor asked me to say a few words about my grandfather. I told them about his search for God through his composing, and we read his favourite Psalm — Psalm 23. 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 shepherding culture!

I later learned that my remarks were 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, he 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!

Multiplying Our Loaves

God gave amazing favour in answer to the prayers of ordinary believers back home. After the concert, the conductor asked if I could come back the following year for another concert of my grandfather’s music, which I did.

As we sat in the audience waiting for the concert to begin, the conductor asked, “Now, can we have John Robb come up to the mic and tell us about God?” Talk about being ready to share at a moment’s notice! I did my best to follow up on what was said the year before; again, they seemed to be so open and receptive for nominal Muslims.

What is This Glory?, my granddad’s touching Christmas piece about the shepherds welcoming the birth of Jesus, was one of the songs performed during that concert. 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! I am still breathing, so that is apparently what happened!

What an illustration of the power of focused prayer to release breakthroughs among unreached people groups! This must be the reason that Jesus stressed prayer as the essential foundation 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 prayer through which He will send out the workers He has specially chosen and gifted. Here lies the mystery and potency of prayer for the still plentiful number 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.

In the run-up to His return, let us take up Jesus’ command, to pray for workers to be sent out to all Frontier People Groups and birth movements to Jesus. Let us exercise the supernatural prerogative of prayer for mission breakthroughs!

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Originally published at Mission Frontiers. Photo by Luis Quintero.