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Church Vision that Advances through People-Group Penetration
The following post is an excerpt from God Dreams: 12 Vision Templates or Finding and Focusing your Church’s Future.
In part three of the book I walk through the 12 templates starting with a simple definition and providing a personal snapshot from my point of view as a vision consultant. Then, I explore the template biblically, providing historical and contemporary church examples and metaphors for communication. For the complete guide with team assessment questions, I recommend that you buy the book. You can also see all of 12 templates in one visual overview or visit the God Dreams resource site.
Quick Definition
Your church’s vision is taking the gospel to a group of people who don’t have it yet. You might state it as, “We will engage a specific group of people, usually different from our own congregational makeup, through service and gospel proclamation.”
Personal Snapshot
I was meeting with Austin Stone Church’s Kevin Peck and his team in the Texas capital city of Austin for a Church Unique certification experience. At a break, in Austin Stone’s For the City Center, I was blown away by a fascinating billboard in the foyer. It was a visual progress chart for their 100 People Network, a long-range vision initiative the church launched in 2009. The vision is to send one hundred people from their local church to an unreached people group for at least two years. Every person in the church is challenged to play one of three roles: to be a goer, a sender, or a mobilizer. My visit was May 2014, five years after the initiative was launched, and the billboard showed that they had identified more than seventy-five of the one hundred people. Their billboard showed it in a creative way: the faces of those who were signed up. (Check out 100peoplenetwork.org for more information.)
Matt Carter, the lead pastor, says that from the beginning they had asked, “What does God want from us as a church with our limited time and resources?” Their primary answer is sending their people into the six thousand unreached people groups of the world.
Another amazing story of people-group penetration comes from the community of Northwest Bible Church. Approximately three miles from their location off the North Tollway and Highway 12 north of Dallas is Vickery Meadows, the most densely populated area in Dallas and a leading area for refugee resettlement. Technically refugees are persons who have been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster. The people group, in this case, includes political refugees of more than fifty nationalities and thirty-two spoken languages all living in one square mile, making it one of the leading areas of refugee resettlement in the country. Within two years of clarifying their vision and focusing on reaching this group, Neil Tomba reported a tremendous surge of increased energy, focus, and resources like he had not seen in his prior decade as senior pastor. You can learn more on their site.
Biblical Reflections
The apostle Paul said he had “become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some” (1 Cor. 9:22). At the same time, he was clear that he was uniquely called as Apostle to the Gentiles (Gal. 2:7; Rom. 11:13). In particular, Paul sensed a call to take the gospel to Rome (Acts 19:21; 23:11; Rom. 1:15; 15:22).
Others such as Peter served as apostle to the Jews (Gal. 2:8) and sought to penetrate that group with the gospel. In fact the entire book of Acts can be outlined around the biographical emphasis of Peter as the apostle to the Jews transitioning to Paul as apostle to the Gentiles with a pivot point at Acts 13:1. Peter’s name is mentioned more than sixty times in the first thirteen chapters and only once during the second half of the book, as the emphasis shifts.
Notice also how the writers of the four Gospels each tried to penetrate a different group. Matthew’s heavy emphasis on how Jesus fulfilled various Old Testament prophecies spoke especially to Jewish readers. Mark’s fast-moving account appealed to another group. Luke wrote with special emphasis on Gentiles and women. John’s angle spoke specifically to the unbeliever, calling for a decision to believe and follow Jesus.
Perhaps the most dramatic example of people-group penetration is the incarnation itself. God became a man as Jesus “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:6–7). Ultimately God, by sending Jesus the Son, walked across an infinite divide that humanity could not. He penetrated the time-space world as we know it to show us what God looks like in the flesh.
Metaphors for Communication
The image above imagines an army of people moving from one sphere to another sphere, penetrating it with the gospel, and carrying the gospel from one people group to another.
Imagine pictures and scenes of people trying to “get into” another group of people. The army image sometimes creates a forceful tone, which might not work for you. Perhaps consider more tender pictures like kids playfully jumping the fence to find new friends or ambassadors skillfully and sensitively negotiating in a foreign country or a business trying to take their strategy international. Imagine ideas of long-term and quiet infiltration like a police officer going into deep undercover or a spy going “dark” for a long time in enemy territory. Envision your own images for “how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” (Rom. 10:15).
Consider these related terms:
- Fit in, relate to, or walk in another’s shoes
- Enter, insert, breeze in, or barge in
- Tunnel, burrow, mine, drill, or sink
- Infiltrate, perforate, or invade
- Impregnate, implant, or fertilize
Other images that depict people-group penetration include a swimming pool full of people with a slide that enables outsiders to be conveyed and perhaps even thrust into the heart of that gathering, a doctor’s shot with life-giving medicine in the point of the needle, or a funnel that concentrates the flow into one specific opening.
Historical Example
Americans celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day each March, but what many don’t realize is that Patrick was a missionary. He was kidnapped as a youth, taken to Ireland as a slave, but he eventually escaped, came to faith in Christ, and then returned to Ireland because he had a burden and calling to share the gospel with the people who represented his former captors.
Contemporary Examples
Just outside Wichita, Kansas, Joe Boyd planted a church to reach a surprisingly unique people group: folks in the aviation community. Started in 2008, Aviator Church has seen more than one thousand people profess new faith in Christ and take the step of baptism. Aviator Church sent people and resources to start seven church plants before their seventh anniversary. Joe Boyd often says, “We are not a church with a mission. We are a mission that has churches.”
Russell Cravens planted a church in Houston’s midtown to reach busy young dads moving back to the city. He was burdened to bring the whole gospel to this underreached segment of people in the flux of Houston’s urban renewal.
Recently Jim Randall, who helped me start Auxano in 2004, started working with The Cowboy Church of Ellis County. It was founded in January 2000 as an outreach to team ropers, barrel racers, working cowboys, and others who love Western culture and enjoy rural life. More than three hundred attended the first service, many of whom rarely or never attended church.
While these groups represent an entire church reaching a specific people group, Jeff Vanderstelt, formerly of Soma Church in Tacoma, Washington, challenges missional communities to develop their own people-group penetration strategy. He writes in his book Saturate.
We remind one another that we are commanded by Jesus to make disciples of all people groups. So we ask: “What people and place do we believe God is collectively sending us to this year? Who do we hope to see become followers of Jesus Christ?”
Our missional community has identified the faculty and families of Grant Elementary School, as well as the neighborhoods around it. Some groups focus on a neighborhood or region. Some focus on a particular group of people with common interests, experiences or needs. The missional community in which Greg and Mary participate has identified families transitioning out of homelessness. Some of our artists are on mission to the artistic community, which is much more nomadic in nature. We have missional communities reaching out to college campuses, others that partner with Young Life to reach high school students, and some that see the local military base as their missional focus.
A helpful resource to look at people groups from a global perspective is peoplegroups.org. By their analysis the world’s 7.2 billion population is made up of 11,511 people groups. Of this wider group, 6,823 people groups or 4.1 billion are technically “unreached” people groups (UPGs) meaning that the evangelical population is less than 2 percent without the capability of an indigenous group to sustain church planting. In addition, 3,213 groups or 210 million people are described as “unengaged and unreached” (UUPGs). This status means there is no “church planting strategy, consistent with evangelical faith and practice underway.” Their website enables you to explore UPGs and UUPGs on a map of the world.
Realizing Your Own Vision
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