Ethnic groups
Today in the world, 17,468 groups of peoples have been counted, which together comprise the entire world population. Of these, about 7419 people are not reached by the gospel of Christ. This means that more than 3 billion people have little or no access to the good news.
To evangelize each of these peoples it is essential to understand their culture, speak their language and contextualize the message of the cross so that it can be understood.
Currently, the most difficult part of the world to evangelize is the one located inside the famous 10x40 window .
The “Resistance Belt”, as it is also known, is a territorial extension that covers much of Africa, the Middle East and Asia. In this region are also the largest religious blocs in the world: Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Animism and Atheism. In addition, the region is also marked by poverty and low quality of life in general.
To learn more about the evangelization challenge in this region click below and read our article on Unreached Peoples.
Focus on tribal people
We at Etnos have developed work among groups of peoples, or ethnic groups, that have at least one installed church.
Our aim is to support the flourishing of these small churches so that they are recognized by the local community as true embassies of the Kingdom of God. The instrument we use in this support process is our community development program .
This program aims to offer practical tools to these small churches, so that they are increasingly able to signal the love of Christ. Thus, evangelism becomes the natural result of deepening relationships, an organic and love-based process.
We believe that strengthening native Christians among unreached peoples is an effective strategy, as they do not need to adapt to translate the gospel. They already master the language and worldview of their people.
Perhaps you are asking yourself: what to do when the ethnic group is not engaged, that is, there is no Christian in its midst? To answer this question, we propose another question:
What would be more effective? Send a Brazilian missionary to work in Paraguay or send him to Japan?
Certainly a Brazilian worker in Paraguay would be the best option, although Brazilians do not speak Spanish, we have a greater cultural proximity to Latin America than to countries with Asian culture.
This is Etnos' strategy, to participate in the evangelization of ethnic groups, unreached and unengaged, through the strengthening of the existing Christian community in its midst, or the one that is geographically and culturally closest as possible.
Our Goal
Our target as an organization is to have projects started among 90 Unreached Peoples by the end of 2022, and start Christian movements in 630 peoples by the end of 2030.
In other words, only from Etnos will we be able to objectively support the flourishing of native Christian movements in almost 10% of the Unreached Peoples within the 10x40 Window.
We are currently present in 10 ethnic groups and only through a partnership signed with the Baptist Convention of Myanmar, we have the opportunity to start our program from another 17 ethnic groups within the country.
Today, what prevents us from continuing the implementation of this partnership is our limited investment capacity, the military coup implemented in the country in February 2021 and the closing of borders due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Despite this complex scenario, we are working intensively on our mobilization program so that financial resources are not a barrier to the continuity of our work. Therefore, we believe that once the borders are reopened, we will return to Myanmar to continue the implementation of community development programs.
