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“Unreached People Group Adoption”

Our Global Outreach Missions Statement states that the GO Team serves to help Crossroads to impact the unreached for Jesus by partnering with peoples and organizations which can help us do our part in seeing a church planting movement occur among our adopted unreached people group.

What is an adopted unreached people group? First we need to define a People Group (or people) as a significantly large ethnic or sociological grouping of individuals who perceive themselves to have a common affinity with one another. For evangelistic purposes, it is the largest group within which the gospel can spread as a church planting movement without encountering boundaries of understanding or acceptance. The best analogy that explains this is to think of all the 10,000 or so lakes in Minnesota. When you throw a rock into one of the lakes it causes ripples that can only reach to the shore of that particular lake. The ripples do not jump from one lake to another but stop exactly at the shores of the lake. The rock thrown into the lake is the gospel and each lake represents a particular people group. Like our analogy, the gospel spreads like the ripples but only reach to the shores or boundaries of the people group. It takes outside or cross-cultural influence for the gospel to jump to another people group.
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An unreached people group, sometimes called “hidden peoples,” is a people group that has no indigenous community of believing Christians with adequate numbers and resources to finish evangelizing their community without further outside or cross-cultural assistance. Using our analogy, somebody has to throw the rock into this unreached lake to cause ripples where again the ripples can travel to the shore of this new lake.

Therefore we come back to our original question of what is an adopted unreached people group? Adoption of an unreached people group is a commitment by a church or fellowship group to see the establishment of a strong church among that unreached people group. Adoption, then, by its definition of commitment means focusing personnel, finances, energy, etc. towards establishment of an indigenous and viable church planting movement among them.

On April 25, 1999 Crossroads as a church adopted the You people of Central Asia as our adopted unreached people group. Since the adoption, a global missions emphasis has been integrated into the life of the church by participation in activities such as First Friday of the Month Prayer Meetings for the Yous, hosting the North American You Church Partnership Consultation in 1999 and 2000, International Day of Prayer for the Yous (January 2001 and 2002), sending out first long-term family from Crossroads to the Yous (July 2001), short-term trips to West and East Youland, completion of church’s global missions policy with focus on Yous, Christmas-in-September Care Package Program, and consistent support of four missionary families in Youland plus one missionary couple to Russia.

The adoption of the Yous has helped the global missions efforts at Crossroads by giving us direction and focus in using our time, talents and financial resources. May Crossroads bring great joy to Jesus as we obey Him in being filled with his Spirit to be his witnesses in our community and to the nations.

To find out more about the You people and who they are, please visit other areas of the Global Outreach ministry web page. For brochures, prayer guides, and information about the You people, contact the Global Outreach Team.

Adoption Certificate
Signed during April 1999 Adoption Ceremony
(To obtain a copy for yourself, please contact the Global Outreach Team):

Believing Father God has adopted us into His Kingdom, and

Jesus has purchased people from every tribe, language, people, and nation by His precious blood shed on the cross (Rev. 5:9), and

Christ has commanded us to preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8) making disciples of every nation (Mt. 28:18-20), and

the people of our culture have ready access to the Gospel and there are still millions of people in the world with no such access, and

God has led Crossroads to do our part in helping a specific unreached people group worship his Son, Jesus. (Acts 16:6-10, Ps. 67)

We hereby adopt the Yous of Central Asia

Pledging ourselves from this day forward to pray regularly for the establishment of an indigenous, reproducing church among them, and to continue to do so until our prayers are answered.

In addition, we proclaim ourselves willing to be led by God into further involvement in the task of reaching the Yous in any or all of the following ways:

  1. Working to raise consciousness of their need within our congregation

  2. Giving of our time, treasure, and talent, to work among them

  3. Sending people to work among them for both short-term and long-term

  4. Partnering with others who have these same adoption goals

  5. Join with others world-wide in participating in the International Day of Prayer and Fasting for the Yous on the first Friday of each month.

By signing this, I covenant to diligently seek God's will for my life, family, and church in regard to this adoption of the Yous, and to solemnly undertake to fulfill all these stated responsibilities and others inherent in this act of adoption as they are revealed to us by God.

Crossroads Christian Church