September 1, 2025 • 53 mins
Chris Clayman, CEO of Joshua Project, shares the surprising journey from the organization's humble beginnings to becoming the definitive resource for tracking unreached people groups worldwide. Though it has informed global missions strategy for 30 years, Joshua Project has operated with minimal staff and resources while maintaining the world's most trusted database of unreached peoples.
• Chris's personal journey began in a mud hut in Mali before medical emergencies led to an unexpected path
• Meeting the first Wassoulou convert in New York who came to faith through a dramatic vision of Jesus
• Joshua Project has operated with just 2-4 staff members for most of its 30-year history
• The biblical basis for people group focus traces from Genesis to Revelation
• Current estimates show approximately 10,000 distinct people groups with 4,000 still unreached
• Modern challenges include tracking diaspora communities and leveraging technology for global access
• Joshua Project is expanding from 5 to 30 staff across 15-20 countries with plans for internationalization
• Technological upgrades are needed to make data accessible in multiple languages
• Anyone can contribute updates by emailing info@joshuaproject.net or using the website submission forms
"Research is information that creates awareness, and awareness creates a sense of responsibility."
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
In Revelation 7, john shares his vision of heaven
with members from every tribe,tongue, people and language
standing in the throne roombefore the Lamb.
Yet today there are still over7,000 unreached people groups
around the world.
For the last six years, myfamily and friends have been on
a journey to find, vet and fundthe task remaining.
(00:28):
Come journey with us to theends of the earth as we share
the supernatural stories of Godat work for the men and women he
has called to reach theunreached.
Hello friends, welcome back tothe Unreached Podcast.
Dustin Elliott here as your hosttoday, and we've been talking
about the rising tide that liftsall boats.
(00:49):
We have had the most incrediblesummer series featuring Ethnos
360 and Pioneers and GSI.
We've had new methods lately,like Apologeticsai and the Seed
Bible with AO Labs, and todaythe work that this group does
informs the work we all do inpursuit of the unreached.
(01:13):
I have uttered the words JoshuaProject more times than I can
count over the last 10 years ofmy life and today we have CEO of
Joshua Project, mr ChrisKlayman, with us.
Chris, so happy to have youhere.
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Thank you, so great to be with you guys.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Take us through your story a little bit right.
So you're from Georgetown,texas, which is outside of
Austin, and kind of get us up tospeed.
How'd you meet the Lord?
How'd you get involved in thiswork?
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Well, I'll try to make it short.
You know, grew up in a Christianfamily, but probably second
grade or so just felt convictedof my sin and knew that I needed
Jesus in my life and that beganreally a steady growth like no
minister's kid but no crazyrebellion and everything like
(02:06):
that.
Remember started studying theBible every day like seventh
grade and that's continued.
But then you go to college andyou're like you know, I feel
like the main question I'manswering with my life is what
do Christians around me expectme to do to be a good Christian?
And that's a great place tostart, except for when God wants
(02:29):
you to do something thatChristians around you don't
understand or might even resist.
And I remember shifting thequestion to what does God want
me to do?
Even if the Christians aroundme think I'm crazy and you think
about I was just looking at thelife of Jesus and he was
obedient to the Father.
The religious people around himthought he was crazy, actually
wanted to kill him as a resultof his passion and his
(02:52):
relationship with the Father.
And that started me on ajourney.
I lived in a very kind ofhomogeneous environment you know
, same Baptist church in Austinarea and the same sort of
Baptist church in the Dallasarea with my grandparents, and
that was my experience of thebody of Christ and I just ended
up exploring all sorts of a widearray of the body of Christ,
(03:17):
becoming a summer missionaryafter my freshman year in a very
international city and ended upstudying at Cambridge
University in England.
My junior year of college whichof course a lot of
international people there hadJapanese friends, both of which
had never met a Christian wherethey're from, and I said, wow,
(03:38):
you know, I don't.
I don't know much about being amissionary, but I'm pretty sure
I could be the one Christiansomeone knows, like I can do
that Church planning, evangelism, multiplication, like that's
all way above me, but I can gobe the one Christian someone
knows.
So that started me on a journeyunderstanding about missions,
(04:00):
things that rocked my world,like I just assumed.
We've got churches in all thecountries of the world.
That makes sense that we'regoing and making disciples of
all countries, of all nations,not realizing there's all this
stuff in Scripture about all thepeoples, all the languages, all
the tribes, all the families ofthe earth being blessed in
Christ, and that's a wholedifferent picture than just the
(04:25):
countries.
So that ended up somehow with megoing to Mali, west Africa,
right after college, ended upliving in a mud hut, no
electricity, no running water,what we'd call a previously
unengaged, unreached peoplegroup.
There were just no Christians,few Christians known about in
that area.
Long story short, I wasmedically evacuated twice in a
(04:47):
year.
Came close to dying, that ishow.
I met my future wife and it wasa way that we were at least open
to other opportunities Met thefirst Muslim background
Christian of that same ethnicgroup called the Wassaloo, not
in Mali but in New York City, inHarlem.
And one day of seeing if Godwould lead us there, had this
(05:10):
crazy story of, like 20 yearsold dream vision healing in the
name of Jesus.
Jesus came to him in a vision.
There was a valley of dry bones, like Ezekiel 37.
He's never seen the scripturebefore, never seen a Bible.
Jesus appears in the Valley ofDry Bones.
He had been going through thisguy named Musa, a great illness
(05:32):
and the doctor thought he hadone week left to live.
He sees his actual dead bonesamong the Valley of Dry Bones.
Jesus says if you believe in me,not only will you live in this
life, but you will live foreternity.
And then he gave the typicalMuslim answer but I follow
Muhammad, I don't follow you.
And Jesus just repeated thewords.
He wakes up out of the coma.
(05:53):
He believes in Jesus forhealing.
He's completely healed in amatter of weeks.
Then God reminds him about thatsalvation part and he says well
, I don't know any Christians, Idon't know the Bible.
He says.
God says I will take care ofthat and takes him to a city,
meets a Christian, pointed toJohn 3.16.
His friend was reading in theBible and almost exact words
(06:15):
that he heard in his dream andhe says I want to follow this
Jesus.
The guy gave him a Bible.
He reads it cover to cover.
In like a month or two, old andNew Testament Becomes a
baptized follower of Christ.
They try killing him for20-something years.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Then he fled to New York, tells us this story and
says it's a miracle you walkedinto my life today.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I have always felt called to be an evangelist among
my people, but I've never knownhow, because it's just been me.
I said I know it's a miracle aswell.
I've been praying the last fewyears to see the first church as
started among your people, notknowing how I can be a part of
that work because I'm half deadand I can't visit your country.
It says tonight there is ameeting of the Wassaloo in the
(06:57):
Bronx.
They only meet every year andI've lived in New York City for
maybe 20 years.
I've maybe met 20 Wassaloopeople.
That was our first full day inNew York to see if God would
lead us here, and it's kind ofbeen a journey ever since of
(07:18):
researching unreached people,groups in New York City and
North America, working with WestAfrican Muslims, seeing this
gateway from cities back to theleast reached peoples of the
world.
In Moose's own village throughhis relational network, we went
back, shared the gospel withover a hundred people that first
time back and now there'sprobably 50 or so people who
have been baptized in hisvillage.
And it's just amazing thegateways God has provided
(07:40):
through migration technology andso forth as new gateways for
spreading the gospel to theleast reached peoples.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, amen.
Well, you know, one part ofthat story that shouldn't go
unnoticed is that you wereavailable.
You were available right.
So when you met him, you hadbeen praying about these people.
You had been praying about yourrole in their future.
You had been praying about howGod was going to use you, and
you met him.
He had been praying as well.
You had been praying about howGod was going to use you, and
you met him.
He had been praying as well.
(08:07):
You had different skill setsand different abilities and
different backgrounds, and whenyou put them together right
because you were open and youwere ready, you were able to
really go out and make somesignificant differences for
those people.
So beautiful story.
Thank you for catching this up.
Tell me how you got startedthen with Joshua Project.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Yeah, so my first few years in New York.
We moved there in 2006.
I'd never raised funds to be amissionary, things like that and
so I was like, well, I'll gowork at Starbucks.
I just thought that's whatpeople do in New York.
I didn't even drink coffee atthe time.
I just thought, well, I guessthat's what you do.
And I was asked to leadresearch on the people groups of
(08:53):
New York City, and, being notfrom New York City, I was naive
enough to go sure yeah, I'll dothat.
Sounds better than Starbuckswhile I work with West African
Muslims at least half of my time.
So it started off as more of ajob that sounds better than
Starbucks and really became acalling because I realized, you
know, there's depends how youcount it 23 million people or so
(09:14):
in the metropolitan New Yorkarea, around 8 million or so in
New York City proper.
I mean, there's like 2 millionJewish people, and not just your
Ashkenazi fiddler on the roofvariety.
You know it's Sephardic Jewishthat come from Morocco or Spain
originally, or there's tons ofSyrian Jewish people.
(09:38):
There's Yemeni Jewishsynagogues, there are Indian
Jews, there's an Afghan Jewishsynagogue in Queens, right.
So it's just this incrediblediversity.
Maybe 50,000 Bukharan Jewishpeople from Uzbekistan and maybe
only it was Babylonians, andthen Medes and Persians, and
(10:08):
then Ezra and Nehemiah era.
A lot of Jewish people cameback to Israel.
Well, not all Jewish peoplecame back and ended up speaking
some sort of Persian-typelanguage and separated from
other Jewish communities forwhat?
2,500 years or so.
So through migration, theseother Jewish communities are now
(10:30):
connecting in places like NewYork and the Bukharan Jews have
established their own language,their own culture, their own
kind of way of being, their ownpractice of Judaism.
That's been separate from theother Jewish community and only
connected through migration.
You know, there's a million orso Muslims, arabs, west Africans
(10:51):
, south Asians, you name it.
There's about a half millionHindus.
There's 80,000 Sikhs.
You know, that was just allmetropolitan New York and I
ended up doing a book calledEthnicity, the Nations, tongues
and Faiths of Metropolitan NewYork, had over 100 people help
me research.
We took original photographs.
It's like an all-colorphotographic prayer book, you
(11:14):
know, for the peoples of NewYork.
I got done with that and said,fantastic, I can be done with
research and just go hang outwith West African Muslims full
time, but really felt convictedthat there was information that
we had and I always felt likeresearch is information that
(11:35):
creates awareness and thatawareness creates a sense of
responsibility.
And now that this informationwas out there, I was responsible
for the information I had and Icould count at that time, on
one hand, the amount of peoplestrategically focused on
evangelism and church plantingamong the least reached peoples
(11:56):
of New York, except for theJewish communities, which had
focused work.
And then there were some peoplethat were from a Muslim
background or Hindu backgroundthat were focused on reaching
their people, but as far as likestrategic church planning?
There wasn't.
And how much publicity didArabs get in New York post 9-11?
There wasn't anyone focused onchurch planning among Arab
(12:17):
Muslims, for instance.
And so we set about seeking tocreate systems and training to
raise up missionaries in thecontext, local churches that
would reach out.
So ended up starting a missionorganization called Global Gates
which focuses on reaching,through global gateways, the
least reached peoples of theworld and so kind of spreading
(12:39):
to the ends of the earth throughglobal gateway cities, and so
had a co-founder with that.
It was also a NewYork-experienced missionary and
so that kind of grew and endedup still working with West
Africans but getting sucked backinto the research world,
because as we expanded intodifferent cities we needed to
really define what are the moststrategic gateways to the least
(13:03):
reached peoples and places ofthe world through global gateway
cities in North America,because US receives tons more
immigrants than any othercountry in the world.
So I have a mentor friend thathas been a senior writer for
Christianity.
Today he's got a religiouswebsite called nycreligioninfo
(13:26):
and I did an interview with himand he wanted to really propose
that NYC is the missionarycapital of the world, not just
for Christians but for Buddhistsand Hindus.
Everyone has a presence here.
I have been inTaliban-supporting mosques in
New York City and meeting evenpeople from Somalia that were
(13:48):
here as missionaries quoteunquote to convert Hispanics to
their brand of Islam.
And there are tons of Hispanicswho have become Muslim in
places like New York, and soyou've just got this breeding
ground of religious conversionthat take place in cities and a
(14:09):
lot of focus for missionaries.
But we needed to see what citieswere actually very strategic
for spreading the gospel aroundthe world.
So I ended up doing a websitecalled upgnorthamericacom which
highlighted the most significantunreached people group
communities in North America.
You can actually do virtualprayer walks through these
(14:29):
communities using Google Earthand step foot in the mosques,
step foot in thatTaliban-supporting mosque and
pray for them in faces andplaces.
And as I kind of got suckedback into the research, we
started updating information onJoshua Project because we
actually had better informationon what was happening, because
diaspora is such a slipperything and we were studying all
(14:53):
these diaspora groups and I hadmet Dan Scribner, the founding
director of Joshua Project, backto 30 years ago in 1995 when
Joshua Project.
Back to 30 years ago, 1995,when Joshua Project started I
was actually teaching aperspectives class in
Connecticut where he's from,dan's brother happened to be
there.
He said, hey, would you like tomeet the director of Joshua
(15:14):
Project?
I said, of course he goes, it'smy brother, he's here in town.
So we ended up meeting probablya decade ago, and that started
a relationship that led to usupdating some information and a
few years ago it just felt likeI needed to create more space by
passing off things I wasresponsible for raising up
leaders and just allow God todirect me, however that would
(15:38):
lead.
And that led to just a uniqueseason in Joshua Project where I
know you've said you've reliedon Joshua Project info and
quoted it a lot.
I think a lot of us assume thatJoshua Project has just had this
massive staff and massivebudget for most of its last 30
years.
It's had two to four staffmembers.
(15:58):
Some years it's operated onless than $10,000.
Numbers.
Some years it's operated onless than $10,000.
It has just been something Godhas used, with the faithful
service of a few that just workhard, very humble, network
widely and rely on the body ofChrist to kind of keep it going
(16:19):
with information coming in andall of that.
So I felt like it was a uniquetime with Joshua Project where
now the average age was 66 whenI came in two years ago.
They are internally talkingabout maybe even shutting down
Joshua Project in the next fewyears.
No one knew this just becausethey were aging out and I have
(16:43):
started organizations before.
Joshua Project had never beenits own organization and really
needed to be in order to buildits capacity and really leverage
its goodwill around the worldand just how it's this trusted,
neutral party that people linkto.
So also there's a complexitywith people groups now in cities
(17:04):
and that's been my world thelast 20 years in New York is the
fusion of peoples andcomplexities and layers and
nuance of people groups in urbancontext.
And also it started a missionorganization with church
planners and evangelists focusedon people groups in cities and
so still very much believe thatpeople groups need to be what
(17:26):
drive us and missions andstarting breakthrough churches
among these least-reachedpeoples, but needing to
understand the complexity.
So I just felt like I'd hadsome unique experiences that led
to this time with JoshuaProject where hopefully could
help advance the work that Godhas entrusted to us.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
If you could put a meme into a podcast, this is
what Clint and I you would have.
You remember the cartoon dogwhere the jaw drops to the floor
and then they've got to bringlike a rolling pin and roll the
jaw back up.
Yeah, that's Clint and I, forthe listeners right now.
Yeah, that's Clint and I forthe listeners right now.
Did you hear what he just said?
Did you hear this story?
(18:10):
Oh, my goodness gracious.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Chris.
Wow, so get this.
The database director forJoshua Project has never been
married, comes from a Kansasfarm, he's volunteered and
worked with groups or had jobswith like crew and navigators
before, but really the last 25years he's donated his time,
(18:36):
full time, to Joshua Project,like sold a Kansas farm or
something and just lives byhimself, faithfully, servesfully
, serves, wakes up.
He is now 86 years old, stillstill working goodness,
full-time for joshua projectwhat's his name?
Probably knows more aboutpeople groups what's?
Speaker 1 (18:53):
at least, give us at least his first name bill.
All right, guys, let's pray forbill, let's thank bill's
awesome goodness, wow, wow.
I don't even know how manydifferent rabbits I want to
chase off that story.
I know my mind's goingeverywhere.
The first thing I want tohighlight is you made a comment
(19:14):
early on, like I may not be ableto plant churches and I may not
be able to reach these wholepeoples, but early on you were
like I can be the one Christianthey know.
Let's just sit on that for amoment, let's just let that sink
in for a moment, because thatwas your posture and that
posture, that simple, humbleposture, allowed God to make you
(19:36):
into a special utensil forspecial use.
And then you went and you were,and then you had to come back
because he had a lot biggerplans for you.
He wanted you to meet somebodyand he wanted you to get into
today's modern Rome, modernRoman road in New York, and he
(19:59):
wanted you to be a part of awork that would inform all of
the other works.
Maybe let's go back to Genesis.
All right, let me just take thelisteners through biblical
history.
Go with us again real quick.
So you get creation, the fourmajor events and kind of the
preamble of the Bible right.
(20:19):
You get the creation.
You get the fall in the Gardenof Eden.
You get the flood with Noah,and then the tower, the Tower of
Babel, the scattering of thenations, right.
So everyone kind of spoke onelanguage.
Everyone comes together.
You know, we've got this greatnew technology and we've got
fire and bricks and we're goingto build this tower and we're
going to go up as high as theheavens so we can be like the
(20:40):
gods, right.
And of course God said no, highas the heavens, so we can be
like the gods, right.
And of course God said no, noton my watch, I'm going to make
you all speak these differentlanguages so you can't
communicate, you can't do thisproject and scatter.
So we had 12 tribes.
We have all these differentlanguages and dialects and
different things starting tohappen and people scattering
around the world.
Tell me your interpretation ofthe tower.
(21:01):
What happened since?
How many languages are there?
Are there anybody creating newlanguages?
Still?
I mean, what's the newest,oldest language?
You know like help me kind ofprocess in your mind and in the
mind of Joshua Project, when Godin Revelation, when John shows
us this member of every tribe,tongue, people and language in
(21:22):
the throne room before the Lamb,how many languages and people
and tribes and nations.
Is that Like how do we know,how do we process this, chris?
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Wow, okay, yeah, big topic.
So I guess back to Tower of theBabel.
I think we always look at thatas just incredible negative
thing.
Right, there's thisdisobedience that happened.
They didn't multiply and spreadand fill the earth, they stayed
in one place, wanted to make aname for themselves, and that's
(21:51):
all very much a legitimateinterpretation, but obviously a
major theme through Scripture iswhat man intended for evil, god
uses for good.
You know, back to what Josephsaid to his brothers after he
was put in prison, tempted to bekilled, and how that resulted
in the salvation of many, manylives.
(22:14):
Same thing with Tower of Babel,where God flips that narrative
and so, yeah, they were supposedto multiply and spread
throughout the whole earth andthis confusion of languages took
place as a result of theirpride and so forth.
But then the redemption of allof that is now.
God takes that beauty ofdifferent culture and language
(22:38):
and instead of a narrative of weall want to get back to where
we're just speaking one languageyou know, or whatever it's that
he redeems it and his worshipis fulfilled.
It is completed when allnations, all peoples, all
languages are represented beforehis throne.
It actually says that that iswhat will take place in the end
(23:03):
times, that we're going to comein with our culture, we're going
to come in with our languageand in some shape or form, that
is a completion of God's worshipand glory throughout the earth,
is a representation of all ofthese in heaven, on this earth
and in heaven.
And so you go back to even nottoo long in Genesis, after the
(23:25):
Tower of Babel story.
You have this blessing towardsAbraham, and there's a couple of
different places this takesplace.
I believe it's in Genesis 12,he talks about you know, make
you a great nation, I will blessyou, I will make your name
great, so that.
(23:46):
So there's a purpose behindthat, so that you will be a
blessing.
And it says and you all, themishpachah that's the Hebrew
term for families.
I think the best interpretationin English would be something
like clans, larger family unitsall the mishpachah of the earth
(24:06):
will be blessed.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Genesis 12, 1 through 3, what we call the Abrahamic
covenant.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
In Genesis 22,.
This blessing is kind ofrepeated with a different word.
It says I will bless you.
I will multiply your offspringas the stars of heaven, as the
sand on the seashore.
Your offspring shall possessthe gate of his enemies, and in
your offspring so you can thinkof a messianic reference here
(24:38):
Christ, who comes, who redeems,who brings all of this into
being, this blessing isfulfilled.
All the nations, all the goyimor the goy, the non-Jewish
peoples, all the non-Jewishpeoples of the earth will be
blessed because you have obeyedmy voice.
And so you start seeing thatscattered throughout scripture
(25:00):
of Psalm 67.
May God be gracious to us andbless us and make his face to
shine upon us.
So there's like that remnant ofthe Abrahamic blessing.
But then you get the next pieceof that as way so that your way
may be known on earth, yoursaving power among all goyim,
among all nations.
(25:21):
And that just thread goes allthroughout that those of us who
enter into faith in Christ enteralso into that same faith and
covenant with Abraham, just ashe was blessed, in order to be a
blessing that all nations,peoples, languages, mishpachah,
families of the earth will beblessed.
(25:41):
In the New Testament you have anequivalent of those words and
you have direct equivalents thatyou see back into the
Septuagint and differenttranslations.
And so the translation forgoyim in New Testament would be
ethne or ethnos in singular, andthere's probably a dual meaning
behind that.
(26:02):
One would just be all thosenon-Jewish people, and so that's
why when you read in EnglishNew Testament you'll see the
word Gentiles, right, there'sJewish people and they're
Gentiles.
Every time you see that wordGentiles I think every time, at
least most every time it's theword ethne.
The Gentiles are the ethne.
So it's like the singularnon-Jewish.
(26:23):
But also you see thatreferenced with specific peoples
, distinct languages, distinctcultures, specific peoples,
distinct languages, distinctcultures, there's going to have
to be new breakthroughs amongthem for the gospel to be
embedded in that culture and toredeem that culture from the
inside out.
And those are ethne as well.
So in the New Testament it goeson and talks about you need to
(26:47):
make disciples of all ethne.
It says this gospel of thekingdom Matthew 24, 14, will be
preached to all ethne as atestimony to all ethne, and then
the end will come.
And then Revelation 7, 9, and10, you get this picture of a
(27:08):
great multitude which no one cancount from all and it's like
they're just covering everypiece that they can think of of
a larger group.
These different nations, thesedifferent peoples, these
different families, thesedifferent languages, all of them
, all of them are going to berepresented before the throne.
All throughout, maybe, mission'shistory there have been
(27:30):
emphasis on different types ofpeoples.
We know the gospel exists inthese peoples or these areas
because we often associate thosetogether and so we have to go
to those areas and peoples andlanguages that don't have it.
So that's been there.
Then you kind of fast forwardto like 19,.
Late 1960s, 70s, maybe even mid60s, started noticing that you
(27:57):
know there's a church basicallyin most countries of the world
and you could look at maybe aninterpretation of Matthew 28, 19
through 20 through a moderngeopolitical lens.
You know there's 200 to 300countries in the world,
(28:19):
depending on how you define it,what you agree with, and you
could say well, we're makingdisciples of all countries.
Like that's happening, there'sstarting to be strong national
churches that were establishedall throughout the world.
At various times the nationalchurches would even call for a
moratorium of missionaries,meaning don't send any more
missionaries from the West.
(28:39):
You know you're inhibiting ourgrowth and our ownership, our
authority in this context forspreading the gospel in our
country.
And it was in that context, in a1974 Lausanne Congress where
Ralph Winter was basicallyillustrating what a lot of
people have been starting to say, and the Lausanne Congress, but
(29:11):
the whole unreached peoplegroup focus.
A lot of people attribute itback to this watershed moment.
In his 1974 address he saidlook, there are different types
of evangelism in this world andof course Billy Graham started,
along with John Stott, theLausanne movement and so there
was a heavy focus on evangelism.
He said the greatest need inthe world today for missionaries
(29:34):
, the absolute greatest, thehighest priority, is
cross-cultural evangelism.
And he would say things like ifyou have like nominal people
around you, nominal Christiansin your own people, same
language, that's like E0evangelism.
(29:56):
They just need to come into thefold, they need to really
understand genuine faith inChrist.
If you've got people who are notidentifying with Christ in any
way from your culture sameculture, same language we'll
call that E1 evangelism.
That's where most people in theworld come to faith in Christ,
is natural family members andfriends in Christ.
(30:17):
It makes sense.
When you communicate goodcommunication, it's going to be
clear in what you present, itwould also be received in the
same way.
That happens at an E1, e0evangelism level.
There's also a nearer cultureevangelism where there's
something related in yourlanguage or culture, where you
(30:39):
can kind of navigate back andforth.
It's still not the same culture, language, but it's part of the
general family and we call thatE2 evangelism.
So think even like a Britishperson going to France.
It's different cultures butit's still this Western European
umbrella.
(31:00):
The languages have a similarorigin, it's related.
It's a lot easier to learn alanguage or how to communicate,
kate, it's certainly not thesame but you can relate in ways
much more than you could in whatis called E3 evangelism, he
said, which is very distantculturally.
(31:20):
Think of that British personshowing up in Gujarat, india and
man.
It's so different Ways ofthinking, life, culture,
language, everything is sodifferent among their people
because there wasn't asignificant enough Christian
presence among their people thathad adequate resources or
(31:55):
numbers to evangelize their ownpeople.
So around 61% of the world'spopulation.
Therefore, he said, our highestpriority is cross-cultural
evangelism.
We can't see God's glory goforth among these people without
the influence of outsideworkers going in and the power
of indigenous expressions offaith, indigenous, being a
(32:17):
botanical term of what's nativeto an area.
You will sniff out foreignnessif the gospel is always
presented from foreigners, andso the greatest effectiveness
will happen with E1 evangelism.
But you can't get there unlessthe outsiders go in, see the
first people come to faith andthey're naturally spreading it.
(32:39):
And from that point it was likesomething just clicked, because
around the world they saw thesenational churches and Ralph
Winter would talk about these61% basically that were part of
peoples without breakthrough,missiological breakthroughs
among them, and he called themhidden people groups.
They are hidden under the tallgrass of the national churches
(33:03):
around the world.
See them.
The body of Christ isn'ttalking about them.
They're not aware, they don'tappear into your church, they're
hidden and we have to bringattention to them, to the body
of Christ, and there's going tohave to be intention and
deliberate evangelism.
You know, sometimes we make afalse assumption that if every
(33:25):
Christian in the world wouldjust go out and reach a few
people for Christ, the gospelwould spread to every people in
the earth.
And that's just not true.
You have to move beyond yourown network, beyond your own
context, to go into thesebreakthrough type settings.
(33:46):
And so the other word that RalphWinter used, which is actually
the best word to illustrate whatwe're talking about with what
we call unreached people groupstoday, but it never took off,
and you'll see why.
He said these peoples areunincorporable people groups
(34:06):
Unincorporable, unincorporable.
What he meant by that was ifyou come to faith in this
certain people group thatdoesn't have an existing church
that you would feel comfortablewith, there's no existing
expression of the body of Christthat you can be incorporated
into, how are you going to benurtured in your faith?
(34:28):
How is that going to grow?
How are you going to reach yourown people if the church isn't
established in a particularculture?
They're unincorporable people.
If individuals came to faith inChrist, where do they go?
And that is the best expressionfor actually what unreached
people groups really meansthere's not enough expressions
of the faith in Christ where, ifpeople came to faith in that
(34:50):
culture, they could easilyincorporate into.
Now, for whatever reason, thatword never took off and
therefore we're left with themore confusing and overly
misused term unreached peoplegroup.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Well, it's six syllables, Chris.
It's six syllables.
I mean, you know, if Clint'sgoing to put that in a worship
song, nobody's going to be ableto get through that on Sunday
morning.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Lord reach the unincorporated yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
You got to try it now , though that's a challenge
right there.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
There you go, come on , worship leader.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Laying it down.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
So Unreached People Group in order to quantify it,
to at least give a trajectory ofwhere things are at and at
least guide the body of Christand the missions community in
the right direction, towardsgetting to this wide array of
how it's described in the Bible,of all nations and tribes and
peoples and languages that inRevelation that's all ethnos,
(35:43):
all phile, all laos, all glasa,and I'm not sure I'm pronouncing
those correctly, but it's alldifferent words to talk about
different layers that overlapwith people's.
There was a lot of wranglingover decades to try to define
that and ultimately landed on adefinition that you know, if
there's not a significant enoughpresence and resources of a
(36:08):
church and a given people, thatit has to have outside
assistance to reach their ownpeople.
That's an unreached peoplegroup.
Or, on a strategic level, apeople group is the largest
group through which the gospelcan spread as a church planning
movement without encounteringbarriers of understanding or
(36:28):
acceptance.
All right, so largest group.
We're not interested in likedividing the world into a
hundred thousand people groups,because we can.
You know what's the largestgroup to which the gospel can
spread without encounteringthese barriers of understanding
or acceptance.
And so really you don't knowwhat a people group is in that
(36:50):
definition until the gospelstarts spreading.
So our best attempt to at leastto give a trajectory is to go
all, right, what are thebarriers of understanding?
That's largely linguistic, okay.
So we kind of form some peoplegroups around language.
There's a barrier ofunderstanding there, but there
are parts of the world wherelanguage really isn't the main
(37:13):
issue for receiving the gospel.
Places like South Asia, theyall speak like six languages.
You know, that's not the bigbig barrier.
The big barrier has to do withsociocultural divisions within
their world caste, differentcommunities, different jatis,
they would say.
(37:33):
So that's more of a barrier ofacceptance than it is of
language, just language, yeah.
Therefore, if you look at aSouth Asia people group list
with Joshua Project, you won'tsee just people groups divided
by language.
You see more of the differentcaste communities, because the
(37:53):
gospel is not easily jumpingfrom caste to caste, except for
cases where the gospel startsspreading and we realize oh wow,
you know those people groupsreally are close enough and they
need to be combined.
Or we find out the gospelstarts spreading and it just
stops for whatever reason, andwe realize maybe that identity
(38:15):
is too broad and we need tobreak that up into other people
groups for a strategic churchplanning effort.
That is the case right now withwhat would be the largest
frontier people group in theworld.
So frontier is a category thatonly goes back to 2019, where
(38:35):
this has been widely used usingJoshua Project information.
So in order to kind of set alist, to give a trajectory, we
said less than 2% evangelical,less than 5% Christian adherent
of any kind, because we cannumerically track that better
than some of these fuzzy morequalitative definitions for an
unreached people group.
(38:56):
But you could still have withinan unreached people group a
group that largely has a healthy, multiplying indigenous church
that isn't past that 2%threshold.
So in order to kind of recoverthe original intention of what
needs missiological breakthrough, the term frontier people group
has come about as a subset ofunreached people groups where
(39:18):
that's less than one Christianfor every 1,000 people.
Like we really need breakthroughand if you look right now as of
what is this August 2025 orwhenever this comes out, the
largest frontier people group wehave in the world in our list
will be the Sheikh of India, andI can already tell you right
now, once we get enoughinformation, that group probably
(39:41):
needs to be broken up into alot of other groups.
Sure, that name comes fromcensus information from India.
The numbers come from censusinformation comes from census
information from India.
The numbers come from censusinformation.
But we know enough already thatprobably that identity came from
an Indian census that wasn't soconcerned about Muslim
identities they're moreconcerned about Hindu identities
(40:01):
and so they just lumped a bunchof groups together into this
one, and so us to try to figurethat out on a really India is
like its own continent.
You know, is incredibly complexbecause you have to go down to
district levels and state levelsand try to figure out what.
What's all going on there.
There's there's a lot of highcaste Hindu converts to Islam.
(40:24):
Historically that really iswhat Sheikh should be, but most
Hindus who have converted toIslam would come from what we'd
call today scheduled caste, solower caste or outside of the
caste system.
And that's actually not peoplethat should be identified as
Sheikh.
That would be something else.
So the work continues.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
Absolutely.
How do you get your information?
I mean, how does Bill do this?
How do y'all do this?
Speaker 2 (40:49):
You can write info at joshuaprojectnet today to send
any corrections or help us withanything.
No, that's great.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
That's great.
You know, we had Steve Sanfordon from Ethnos and we were
talking about the group heserved in Younger in Life and we
were looking up the group whilewe were talking and I said this
is the Joshua Project info.
And he said I think it'sactually more than that now.
And he said I think it'sactually more than that now and
he said I'm actually going toreach out.
I think y'all have actuallyspoken since then.
He said I'm going to reach outto Chris and we're going to talk
.
So if you have an update onsome Joshua Project data, you
(41:20):
said to send it to info atjoshuaprojectnet or if you look
at any people group profile onJoshua Project.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
There will be two or three submit update buttons on
each of those pages and thatwill link directly to an ID.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
A little bit of community work.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
Yeah, so in short, of where we get our information.
Historically it's been fromlarge data sets such as census
information in countries.
You can never replace theamount of time, effort, money
put into those things.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
Well, no red marks on census studies in biblical
history right.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Yeah, so religiously and politically motivated.
You know, always has to beinterpreted through those lens.
Like the sheikh example I gave.
There will be like largedenominational censuses done by,
say, world Christian Databaseor Operation World, that we will
draw from as well of what'shappening.
And then there will be peoplewho own national or people group
(42:20):
updates and they just see aspart of what they do is to
regularly send updates intoJoshua Project or like I'm
raising my hand right now, as afilled missionary I work among a
certain people and I look atJoshua Project and I go why are
they so wrong?
And I actually do somethingabout it.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
Don't just say that, actually send an email and say
hey we're up to this now.
So where do we stand today?
What's the best guess at thecount People groups reached
unreached.
I realize it's not about ascoreboard, but everyone would
like to know from the definitivevoice.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
So modern, updating beyond what's been done
historically all sorts of fieldsoftware by missionaries,
organizations on the ground,starting to be amalgamated,
sensitive information taken out,pushed up to Joshua Project
partners, imba, peoplegroupsorg,like we're working together to
get you know software pushed up,networking with organizations
(43:21):
around the world, that's they'recapturing this with reports
already you know, sending thatin working with those national
associations, denominations,church planning networks to get
updates, having national andregional representatives around
the world with Joshua Projectthat have local eyes and ears.
So we were at five staffmembers October 2024.
(43:42):
I think we're right around 30now in 15 to 20 countries and
growing.
You know, I would imagine ushaving 100 here in the next
couple of years.
So just having a local eyes andears of what's happening, how
to use that information toaffect the gaps.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
Shouldn't we almost deputize more of the missionary
community?
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Yes, please do, and that's what a lot of it is.
It's just add-on roles to whatpeople are doing already, but
then having a global platform.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Like every major sending org, should have a
monthly reminder for somebody onthe team to update y'all.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
Please, yes, please, do.
It just helps everyone, yeah,which we've just kind of rolled
out again in a version one levelon our website and then looking
at how do we get to moreengagement happening with these
unengaged groups.
We've never tracked unengagedbut that will probably start in
(44:51):
2026 as we've been working withseveral key organizations to
really define what unengagedmeans and have phases of
engagement.
So that whole church aspectwhich has been missing from the
unreached definition as we havein our list today, that we can
start tracking that, becausethat's really what we're getting
at.
Is there healthy reproducingchurches among these people?
And I'm a lot more confident ina group that's 0.1% Christian
but has a healthy reproducingchurch than I am in a group
(45:13):
that's 2.1% Christian butplateaued or declining, and so
we hope to add that layer.
People group numbers arecomplex and so you quoted
17,000-something people groupsearlier.
That is a historical view ofpeople groups in country,
meaning that if the Wolof are inSenegal, the Gambia, mauritania
(45:34):
, france, us, that's fivedifferent people groups.
So everywhere the Wolof are iscounted as a different entity.
And of course, in the past,when people would leave
different countries, and stilltoday you're influenced by the
culture of those differentcountries.
Communication, especially inthe past, was much less and
(45:55):
strategies were often happeningamong people within a given
country.
Where we really need to pushpeople to think about people
group across countries.
So even with the Wolof.
I talked with this woman lastcouple of weeks.
(46:15):
She came to faith.
Wolof Muslim background came tofaith in New York City for the
longest time.
People would say there's onlylike 300 Christians among the
Wolof.
I think that's more.
Now.
When she came to faith she led15 family members and friends to
Christ in the first 18 monthsand they lived in Florida,
(46:36):
quebec, canada, italy, franceand half of her family back in
Senegal.
That's like 5% of the Wolofbelievers comes to faith as a
baby believer out of New Yorkand just spreads.
And we've got to get to thepoint where we see all of those
as potential engagement pointsthat will help everyone connect
(46:59):
and see, and not only thegeographic locations but the
social media and internet spaceswhere these people are
connecting.
That's where you can be in atown of 300 in Iowa or wherever,
but be a strategic frontiermissionary among a frontier
people group because you canengage with them online and if
you were to talk with thatMuslim guy in their small
(47:21):
village, with all the villageoverlooking that guy's shoulder.
That person might be havinginternal questions and
dissatisfaction with Islam andwanting to seek the truth in
Christianity, but they wouldabsolutely save face and try to
defend Islam while you're inperson in the whole village
overlooking.
But on my private home I'mlooking on the internet for
(47:45):
answers.
I'm looking for questions.
I'm wanting to interact withChristians answers.
I'm looking for questions.
I'm wanting to interact withChristians.
And so a people group acrosscountry view is actually a
little more accurate and not amoving target as much, because
every time we'd have a new groupmoving into a diaspora we'd
have to count a new people groupin country and there might be a
hundred thousand people groups.
Honestly, you know, if youcounted them that way, a people
(48:07):
group across country view,there's around 10,000 or so
people groups.
Still the numbers are the sameon the unreached, where around
42% of those are unreached.
So 4,000 or so unreached peoplegroups out of 10,000 people
group across country.
We'll be showing both of thosenumbers on the website because
(48:28):
still people organize a lot bycountries.
So 7,000, something unreached.
If you look at your number of17,000 people groups or so.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
Chris, this has been incredibly enlightening.
Thank you so much for takingthe time.
I guess.
One last ask Does JoshuaProject?
Speaker 2 (48:46):
need anything.
One of the things that Irealized pretty early on is and
for those familiar withtechnology, our tech debt is
like 10 to 20 years old, so ourdatabase was running on
Microsoft Access, which I don'teven think Microsoft supports
anymore, and it was like inorder for us to leverage
(49:08):
technology to get what we haveinto the whole world and think
Joshua Project is just inEnglish and yet 70% of our users
are outside of North Americaand we have millions of unique
users around the world, but eventhe top mission sending
countries like Brazil and Korea,they're not in our top 10 of
(49:29):
users of Joshua Project becauseit's not in their language.
And I sat in a meeting with aKorean pastor last year who
translated Joshua Project infoon his own, had our maps, had a
vision of sending 10,000missionaries from his one church
in 10 years and had alreadysent over 3,000 in three years.
He's having to do all thisextra work.
(49:50):
We have to get to the point withJoshua Project where we're
internationalizing thisinformation.
The info is just getting outthere and because of that
information, people are takingresponsibility and that's
happening.
People in Uganda and Zambia areplaces where highly Christian
are seeing information for thefirst time and going wow, we
(50:10):
thought we were doing good.
But I realize all these Muslimsare around in surrounding
countries and we had no ideauntil we saw Joshua Project.
We got to get it out there.
So we're going through aseveral year tech process.
It's going to be expensive,it's going to be a complete
overhaul of everything, but Ithink we will see an exponential
(50:32):
increase in influence.
Speaker 1 (50:34):
I know some guys that might surprise you Craig and
Jake, I know you're going tohear this, I'm calling you.
You know I'm going to call you.
How can we make that processbeautiful?
Simple, leverage, ai, read itall, get it in the right places.
Speaker 2 (50:47):
Yeah, and there's a lot of people that will
volunteer.
But we got to have some peoplethat can at least lead that
process, because it's beyond thetechnical skills of what we
have.
So we've, you know, joshuaProject has never raised funds
in the past.
We've got to at least letpeople know the needs and what
this could do for the wider bodyof Christ, if we can get this
transformed.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
No more if, brother, no more if it's when we get it
transformed, it will happen.
I believe it.
There is more work to do,continuing to work on the data
we have.
There's more work to do to getthe data we have into the hands
of other Christ followers aroundthe world, and the time is now.
And the time is now, chris.
We always ask our guests andjust thank you again.
(51:29):
We.
And the time is now, chris.
We always ask our guests andjust thank you again.
We always ask our guests justwould you pray for the listeners
and continue to encourage andinvite them into this work?
And my commitment to you,brother, is we're going to stay
in touch.
I want to help you with theseprojects and help you get Joshua
Project into 2026 appropriatelyAwesome.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
Oh Lord, thank you for allowing us to be a part of
your work, and it can beoverwhelming to think about all
these different peoples of theworld and complexities of
identities and migration andurbanization and all of that.
But more than ever we need topray and labor to see
(52:09):
breakthroughs happening amongthese people groups, and just
the complexities are newopportunities, as new
interactions are taking placewith Christians that frontier
people groups never had.
They're technologicallyconnected in ways that they
never were.
There's all sorts of avenuesfor your gospel going forth into
these groups where in the pastthere weren't a whole lot of
(52:32):
options and now there are.
And so, Lord, may we beencouraged, may we be burdened,
may we just step into being thatone Christian someone knows, or
catalyzing being the oneChristian someone knows, because
your hope in us is often whatyou use to help people see
(52:53):
another way and they askquestions.
We point to your word and yourspirit works in powerful ways
and this is your work that youjust allow us to be a part of.
So continue to help us raiseawareness and that
responsibility will rise withthe listeners of this podcast
and all that you have entrustedto us relationally Be glorified
(53:17):
among all peoples, all languages, all tribes, whatever we want
to call them or be glorifiedthroughout the entire earth In
Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 1 (53:26):
And amen.
Thank you for listening toUnreached and amen your friends,
your church, your life group,small group dGroup, wherever you
(53:48):
do life, and if you want toconnect with us, find us on
Instagram at unreachedpodcast,or email us at unreachedpodcast
at gmailcom.
In Revelation 7, john shares his vision of heaven
with members from every tribe,tongue, people and language
standing in the throne roombefore the Lamb.
Yet today there are still over7,000 unreached people groups
around the world.
For the last six years, myfamily and friends have been on
a journey to find, vet and fundthe task remaining.
(00:28):
Come journey with us to theends of the earth as we share
the supernatural stories of Godat work for the men and women he
has called to reach theunreached.
Hello friends, welcome back tothe Unreached Podcast.
Dustin Elliott here as your hosttoday, and we've been talking
about the rising tide that liftsall boats.
(00:49):
We have had the most incrediblesummer series featuring Ethnos
360 and Pioneers and GSI.
We've had new methods lately,like Apologeticsai and the Seed
Bible with AO Labs, and todaythe work that this group does
informs the work we all do inpursuit of the unreached.
(01:13):
I have uttered the words JoshuaProject more times than I can
count over the last 10 years ofmy life and today we have CEO of
Joshua Project, mr ChrisKlayman, with us.
Chris, so happy to have youhere.
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Thank you, so great to be with you guys.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Take us through your story a little bit right.
So you're from Georgetown,texas, which is outside of
Austin, and kind of get us up tospeed.
How'd you meet the Lord?
How'd you get involved in thiswork?
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Well, I'll try to make it short.
You know, grew up in a Christianfamily, but probably second
grade or so just felt convictedof my sin and knew that I needed
Jesus in my life and that beganreally a steady growth like no
minister's kid but no crazyrebellion and everything like
(02:06):
that.
Remember started studying theBible every day like seventh
grade and that's continued.
But then you go to college andyou're like you know, I feel
like the main question I'manswering with my life is what
do Christians around me expectme to do to be a good Christian?
And that's a great place tostart, except for when God wants
(02:29):
you to do something thatChristians around you don't
understand or might even resist.
And I remember shifting thequestion to what does God want
me to do?
Even if the Christians aroundme think I'm crazy and you think
about I was just looking at thelife of Jesus and he was
obedient to the Father.
The religious people around himthought he was crazy, actually
wanted to kill him as a resultof his passion and his
(02:52):
relationship with the Father.
And that started me on ajourney.
I lived in a very kind ofhomogeneous environment you know
, same Baptist church in Austinarea and the same sort of
Baptist church in the Dallasarea with my grandparents, and
that was my experience of thebody of Christ and I just ended
up exploring all sorts of a widearray of the body of Christ,
(03:17):
becoming a summer missionaryafter my freshman year in a very
international city and ended upstudying at Cambridge
University in England.
My junior year of college whichof course a lot of
international people there hadJapanese friends, both of which
had never met a Christian wherethey're from, and I said, wow,
(03:38):
you know, I don't.
I don't know much about being amissionary, but I'm pretty sure
I could be the one Christiansomeone knows, like I can do
that Church planning, evangelism, multiplication, like that's
all way above me, but I can gobe the one Christian someone
knows.
So that started me on a journeyunderstanding about missions,
(04:00):
things that rocked my world,like I just assumed.
We've got churches in all thecountries of the world.
That makes sense that we'regoing and making disciples of
all countries, of all nations,not realizing there's all this
stuff in Scripture about all thepeoples, all the languages, all
the tribes, all the families ofthe earth being blessed in
Christ, and that's a wholedifferent picture than just the
(04:25):
countries.
So that ended up somehow with megoing to Mali, west Africa,
right after college, ended upliving in a mud hut, no
electricity, no running water,what we'd call a previously
unengaged, unreached peoplegroup.
There were just no Christians,few Christians known about in
that area.
Long story short, I wasmedically evacuated twice in a
(04:47):
year.
Came close to dying, that ishow.
I met my future wife and it wasa way that we were at least open
to other opportunities Met thefirst Muslim background
Christian of that same ethnicgroup called the Wassaloo, not
in Mali but in New York City, inHarlem.
And one day of seeing if Godwould lead us there, had this
(05:10):
crazy story of, like 20 yearsold dream vision healing in the
name of Jesus.
Jesus came to him in a vision.
There was a valley of dry bones, like Ezekiel 37.
He's never seen the scripturebefore, never seen a Bible.
Jesus appears in the Valley ofDry Bones.
He had been going through thisguy named Musa, a great illness
(05:32):
and the doctor thought he hadone week left to live.
He sees his actual dead bonesamong the Valley of Dry Bones.
Jesus says if you believe in me,not only will you live in this
life, but you will live foreternity.
And then he gave the typicalMuslim answer but I follow
Muhammad, I don't follow you.
And Jesus just repeated thewords.
He wakes up out of the coma.
(05:53):
He believes in Jesus forhealing.
He's completely healed in amatter of weeks.
Then God reminds him about thatsalvation part and he says well
, I don't know any Christians, Idon't know the Bible.
He says.
God says I will take care ofthat and takes him to a city,
meets a Christian, pointed toJohn 3.16.
His friend was reading in theBible and almost exact words
(06:15):
that he heard in his dream andhe says I want to follow this
Jesus.
The guy gave him a Bible.
He reads it cover to cover.
In like a month or two, old andNew Testament Becomes a
baptized follower of Christ.
They try killing him for20-something years.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Then he fled to New York, tells us this story and
says it's a miracle you walkedinto my life today.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I have always felt called to be an evangelist among
my people, but I've never knownhow, because it's just been me.
I said I know it's a miracle aswell.
I've been praying the last fewyears to see the first church as
started among your people, notknowing how I can be a part of
that work because I'm half deadand I can't visit your country.
It says tonight there is ameeting of the Wassaloo in the
(06:57):
Bronx.
They only meet every year andI've lived in New York City for
maybe 20 years.
I've maybe met 20 Wassaloopeople.
That was our first full day inNew York to see if God would
lead us here, and it's kind ofbeen a journey ever since of
(07:18):
researching unreached people,groups in New York City and
North America, working with WestAfrican Muslims, seeing this
gateway from cities back to theleast reached peoples of the
world.
In Moose's own village throughhis relational network, we went
back, shared the gospel withover a hundred people that first
time back and now there'sprobably 50 or so people who
have been baptized in hisvillage.
And it's just amazing thegateways God has provided
(07:40):
through migration technology andso forth as new gateways for
spreading the gospel to theleast reached peoples.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, amen.
Well, you know, one part ofthat story that shouldn't go
unnoticed is that you wereavailable.
You were available right.
So when you met him, you hadbeen praying about these people.
You had been praying about yourrole in their future.
You had been praying about howGod was going to use you, and
you met him.
He had been praying as well.
You had been praying about howGod was going to use you, and
you met him.
He had been praying as well.
(08:07):
You had different skill setsand different abilities and
different backgrounds, and whenyou put them together right
because you were open and youwere ready, you were able to
really go out and make somesignificant differences for
those people.
So beautiful story.
Thank you for catching this up.
Tell me how you got startedthen with Joshua Project.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Yeah, so my first few years in New York.
We moved there in 2006.
I'd never raised funds to be amissionary, things like that and
so I was like, well, I'll gowork at Starbucks.
I just thought that's whatpeople do in New York.
I didn't even drink coffee atthe time.
I just thought, well, I guessthat's what you do.
And I was asked to leadresearch on the people groups of
(08:53):
New York City, and, being notfrom New York City, I was naive
enough to go sure yeah, I'll dothat.
Sounds better than Starbuckswhile I work with West African
Muslims at least half of my time.
So it started off as more of ajob that sounds better than
Starbucks and really became acalling because I realized, you
know, there's depends how youcount it 23 million people or so
(09:14):
in the metropolitan New Yorkarea, around 8 million or so in
New York City proper.
I mean, there's like 2 millionJewish people, and not just your
Ashkenazi fiddler on the roofvariety.
You know it's Sephardic Jewishthat come from Morocco or Spain
originally, or there's tons ofSyrian Jewish people.
(09:38):
There's Yemeni Jewishsynagogues, there are Indian
Jews, there's an Afghan Jewishsynagogue in Queens, right.
So it's just this incrediblediversity.
Maybe 50,000 Bukharan Jewishpeople from Uzbekistan and maybe
only it was Babylonians, andthen Medes and Persians, and
(10:08):
then Ezra and Nehemiah era.
A lot of Jewish people cameback to Israel.
Well, not all Jewish peoplecame back and ended up speaking
some sort of Persian-typelanguage and separated from
other Jewish communities forwhat?
2,500 years or so.
So through migration, theseother Jewish communities are now
(10:30):
connecting in places like NewYork and the Bukharan Jews have
established their own language,their own culture, their own
kind of way of being, their ownpractice of Judaism.
That's been separate from theother Jewish community and only
connected through migration.
You know, there's a million orso Muslims, arabs, west Africans
(10:51):
, south Asians, you name it.
There's about a half millionHindus.
There's 80,000 Sikhs.
You know, that was just allmetropolitan New York and I
ended up doing a book calledEthnicity, the Nations, tongues
and Faiths of Metropolitan NewYork, had over 100 people help
me research.
We took original photographs.
It's like an all-colorphotographic prayer book, you
(11:14):
know, for the peoples of NewYork.
I got done with that and said,fantastic, I can be done with
research and just go hang outwith West African Muslims full
time, but really felt convictedthat there was information that
we had and I always felt likeresearch is information that
(11:35):
creates awareness and thatawareness creates a sense of
responsibility.
And now that this informationwas out there, I was responsible
for the information I had and Icould count at that time, on
one hand, the amount of peoplestrategically focused on
evangelism and church plantingamong the least reached peoples
(11:56):
of New York, except for theJewish communities, which had
focused work.
And then there were some peoplethat were from a Muslim
background or Hindu backgroundthat were focused on reaching
their people, but as far as likestrategic church planning?
There wasn't.
And how much publicity didArabs get in New York post 9-11?
There wasn't anyone focused onchurch planning among Arab
(12:17):
Muslims, for instance.
And so we set about seeking tocreate systems and training to
raise up missionaries in thecontext, local churches that
would reach out.
So ended up starting a missionorganization called Global Gates
which focuses on reaching,through global gateways, the
least reached peoples of theworld and so kind of spreading
(12:39):
to the ends of the earth throughglobal gateway cities, and so
had a co-founder with that.
It was also a NewYork-experienced missionary and
so that kind of grew and endedup still working with West
Africans but getting sucked backinto the research world,
because as we expanded intodifferent cities we needed to
really define what are the moststrategic gateways to the least
(13:03):
reached peoples and places ofthe world through global gateway
cities in North America,because US receives tons more
immigrants than any othercountry in the world.
So I have a mentor friend thathas been a senior writer for
Christianity.
Today he's got a religiouswebsite called nycreligioninfo
(13:26):
and I did an interview with himand he wanted to really propose
that NYC is the missionarycapital of the world, not just
for Christians but for Buddhistsand Hindus.
Everyone has a presence here.
I have been inTaliban-supporting mosques in
New York City and meeting evenpeople from Somalia that were
(13:48):
here as missionaries quoteunquote to convert Hispanics to
their brand of Islam.
And there are tons of Hispanicswho have become Muslim in
places like New York, and soyou've just got this breeding
ground of religious conversionthat take place in cities and a
(14:09):
lot of focus for missionaries.
But we needed to see what citieswere actually very strategic
for spreading the gospel aroundthe world.
So I ended up doing a websitecalled upgnorthamericacom which
highlighted the most significantunreached people group
communities in North America.
You can actually do virtualprayer walks through these
(14:29):
communities using Google Earthand step foot in the mosques,
step foot in thatTaliban-supporting mosque and
pray for them in faces andplaces.
And as I kind of got suckedback into the research, we
started updating information onJoshua Project because we
actually had better informationon what was happening, because
diaspora is such a slipperything and we were studying all
(14:53):
these diaspora groups and I hadmet Dan Scribner, the founding
director of Joshua Project, backto 30 years ago in 1995 when
Joshua Project.
Back to 30 years ago, 1995,when Joshua Project started I
was actually teaching aperspectives class in
Connecticut where he's from,dan's brother happened to be
there.
He said, hey, would you like tomeet the director of Joshua
(15:14):
Project?
I said, of course he goes, it'smy brother, he's here in town.
So we ended up meeting probablya decade ago, and that started
a relationship that led to usupdating some information and a
few years ago it just felt likeI needed to create more space by
passing off things I wasresponsible for raising up
leaders and just allow God todirect me, however that would
(15:38):
lead.
And that led to just a uniqueseason in Joshua Project where I
know you've said you've reliedon Joshua Project info and
quoted it a lot.
I think a lot of us assume thatJoshua Project has just had this
massive staff and massivebudget for most of its last 30
years.
It's had two to four staffmembers.
(15:58):
Some years it's operated onless than $10,000.
Numbers.
Some years it's operated onless than $10,000.
It has just been something Godhas used, with the faithful
service of a few that just workhard, very humble, network
widely and rely on the body ofChrist to kind of keep it going
(16:19):
with information coming in andall of that.
So I felt like it was a uniquetime with Joshua Project where
now the average age was 66 whenI came in two years ago.
They are internally talkingabout maybe even shutting down
Joshua Project in the next fewyears.
No one knew this just becausethey were aging out and I have
(16:43):
started organizations before.
Joshua Project had never beenits own organization and really
needed to be in order to buildits capacity and really leverage
its goodwill around the worldand just how it's this trusted,
neutral party that people linkto.
So also there's a complexitywith people groups now in cities
(17:04):
and that's been my world thelast 20 years in New York is the
fusion of peoples andcomplexities and layers and
nuance of people groups in urbancontext.
And also it started a missionorganization with church
planners and evangelists focusedon people groups in cities and
so still very much believe thatpeople groups need to be what
(17:26):
drive us and missions andstarting breakthrough churches
among these least-reachedpeoples, but needing to
understand the complexity.
So I just felt like I'd hadsome unique experiences that led
to this time with JoshuaProject where hopefully could
help advance the work that Godhas entrusted to us.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
If you could put a meme into a podcast, this is
what Clint and I you would have.
You remember the cartoon dogwhere the jaw drops to the floor
and then they've got to bringlike a rolling pin and roll the
jaw back up.
Yeah, that's Clint and I, forthe listeners right now.
Yeah, that's Clint and I forthe listeners right now.
Did you hear what he just said?
Did you hear this story?
(18:10):
Oh, my goodness gracious.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Chris.
Wow, so get this.
The database director forJoshua Project has never been
married, comes from a Kansasfarm, he's volunteered and
worked with groups or had jobswith like crew and navigators
before, but really the last 25years he's donated his time,
(18:36):
full time, to Joshua Project,like sold a Kansas farm or
something and just lives byhimself, faithfully, servesfully
, serves, wakes up.
He is now 86 years old, stillstill working goodness,
full-time for joshua projectwhat's his name?
Probably knows more aboutpeople groups what's?
Speaker 1 (18:53):
at least, give us at least his first name bill.
All right, guys, let's pray forbill, let's thank bill's
awesome goodness, wow, wow.
I don't even know how manydifferent rabbits I want to
chase off that story.
I know my mind's goingeverywhere.
The first thing I want tohighlight is you made a comment
(19:14):
early on, like I may not be ableto plant churches and I may not
be able to reach these wholepeoples, but early on you were
like I can be the one Christianthey know.
Let's just sit on that for amoment, let's just let that sink
in for a moment, because thatwas your posture and that
posture, that simple, humbleposture, allowed God to make you
(19:36):
into a special utensil forspecial use.
And then you went and you were,and then you had to come back
because he had a lot biggerplans for you.
He wanted you to meet somebodyand he wanted you to get into
today's modern Rome, modernRoman road in New York, and he
(19:59):
wanted you to be a part of awork that would inform all of
the other works.
Maybe let's go back to Genesis.
All right, let me just take thelisteners through biblical
history.
Go with us again real quick.
So you get creation, the fourmajor events and kind of the
preamble of the Bible right.
(20:19):
You get the creation.
You get the fall in the Gardenof Eden.
You get the flood with Noah,and then the tower, the Tower of
Babel, the scattering of thenations, right.
So everyone kind of spoke onelanguage.
Everyone comes together.
You know, we've got this greatnew technology and we've got
fire and bricks and we're goingto build this tower and we're
going to go up as high as theheavens so we can be like the
(20:40):
gods, right.
And of course God said no, highas the heavens, so we can be
like the gods, right.
And of course God said no, noton my watch, I'm going to make
you all speak these differentlanguages so you can't
communicate, you can't do thisproject and scatter.
So we had 12 tribes.
We have all these differentlanguages and dialects and
different things starting tohappen and people scattering
around the world.
Tell me your interpretation ofthe tower.
(21:01):
What happened since?
How many languages are there?
Are there anybody creating newlanguages?
Still?
I mean, what's the newest,oldest language?
You know like help me kind ofprocess in your mind and in the
mind of Joshua Project, when Godin Revelation, when John shows
us this member of every tribe,tongue, people and language in
(21:22):
the throne room before the Lamb,how many languages and people
and tribes and nations.
Is that Like how do we know,how do we process this, chris?
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Wow, okay, yeah, big topic.
So I guess back to Tower of theBabel.
I think we always look at thatas just incredible negative
thing.
Right, there's thisdisobedience that happened.
They didn't multiply and spreadand fill the earth, they stayed
in one place, wanted to make aname for themselves, and that's
(21:51):
all very much a legitimateinterpretation, but obviously a
major theme through Scripture iswhat man intended for evil, god
uses for good.
You know, back to what Josephsaid to his brothers after he
was put in prison, tempted to bekilled, and how that resulted
in the salvation of many, manylives.
(22:14):
Same thing with Tower of Babel,where God flips that narrative
and so, yeah, they were supposedto multiply and spread
throughout the whole earth andthis confusion of languages took
place as a result of theirpride and so forth.
But then the redemption of allof that is now.
God takes that beauty ofdifferent culture and language
(22:38):
and instead of a narrative of weall want to get back to where
we're just speaking one languageyou know, or whatever it's that
he redeems it and his worshipis fulfilled.
It is completed when allnations, all peoples, all
languages are represented beforehis throne.
It actually says that that iswhat will take place in the end
(23:03):
times, that we're going to comein with our culture, we're going
to come in with our languageand in some shape or form, that
is a completion of God's worshipand glory throughout the earth,
is a representation of all ofthese in heaven, on this earth
and in heaven.
And so you go back to even nottoo long in Genesis, after the
(23:25):
Tower of Babel story.
You have this blessing towardsAbraham, and there's a couple of
different places this takesplace.
I believe it's in Genesis 12,he talks about you know, make
you a great nation, I will blessyou, I will make your name
great, so that.
(23:46):
So there's a purpose behindthat, so that you will be a
blessing.
And it says and you all, themishpachah that's the Hebrew
term for families.
I think the best interpretationin English would be something
like clans, larger family unitsall the mishpachah of the earth
(24:06):
will be blessed.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Genesis 12, 1 through 3, what we call the Abrahamic
covenant.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
In Genesis 22,.
This blessing is kind ofrepeated with a different word.
It says I will bless you.
I will multiply your offspringas the stars of heaven, as the
sand on the seashore.
Your offspring shall possessthe gate of his enemies, and in
your offspring so you can thinkof a messianic reference here
(24:38):
Christ, who comes, who redeems,who brings all of this into
being, this blessing isfulfilled.
All the nations, all the goyimor the goy, the non-Jewish
peoples, all the non-Jewishpeoples of the earth will be
blessed because you have obeyedmy voice.
And so you start seeing thatscattered throughout scripture
(25:00):
of Psalm 67.
May God be gracious to us andbless us and make his face to
shine upon us.
So there's like that remnant ofthe Abrahamic blessing.
But then you get the next pieceof that as way so that your way
may be known on earth, yoursaving power among all goyim,
among all nations.
(25:21):
And that just thread goes allthroughout that those of us who
enter into faith in Christ enteralso into that same faith and
covenant with Abraham, just ashe was blessed, in order to be a
blessing that all nations,peoples, languages, mishpachah,
families of the earth will beblessed.
(25:41):
In the New Testament you have anequivalent of those words and
you have direct equivalents thatyou see back into the
Septuagint and differenttranslations.
And so the translation forgoyim in New Testament would be
ethne or ethnos in singular, andthere's probably a dual meaning
behind that.
(26:02):
One would just be all thosenon-Jewish people, and so that's
why when you read in EnglishNew Testament you'll see the
word Gentiles, right, there'sJewish people and they're
Gentiles.
Every time you see that wordGentiles I think every time, at
least most every time it's theword ethne.
The Gentiles are the ethne.
So it's like the singularnon-Jewish.
(26:23):
But also you see thatreferenced with specific peoples
, distinct languages, distinctcultures, specific peoples,
distinct languages, distinctcultures, there's going to have
to be new breakthroughs amongthem for the gospel to be
embedded in that culture and toredeem that culture from the
inside out.
And those are ethne as well.
So in the New Testament it goeson and talks about you need to
(26:47):
make disciples of all ethne.
It says this gospel of thekingdom Matthew 24, 14, will be
preached to all ethne as atestimony to all ethne, and then
the end will come.
And then Revelation 7, 9, and10, you get this picture of a
(27:08):
great multitude which no one cancount from all and it's like
they're just covering everypiece that they can think of of
a larger group.
These different nations, thesedifferent peoples, these
different families, thesedifferent languages, all of them
, all of them are going to berepresented before the throne.
All throughout, maybe, mission'shistory there have been
(27:30):
emphasis on different types ofpeoples.
We know the gospel exists inthese peoples or these areas
because we often associate thosetogether and so we have to go
to those areas and peoples andlanguages that don't have it.
So that's been there.
Then you kind of fast forwardto like 19,.
Late 1960s, 70s, maybe even mid60s, started noticing that you
(27:57):
know there's a church basicallyin most countries of the world
and you could look at maybe aninterpretation of Matthew 28, 19
through 20 through a moderngeopolitical lens.
You know there's 200 to 300countries in the world,
(28:19):
depending on how you define it,what you agree with, and you
could say well, we're makingdisciples of all countries.
Like that's happening, there'sstarting to be strong national
churches that were establishedall throughout the world.
At various times the nationalchurches would even call for a
moratorium of missionaries,meaning don't send any more
missionaries from the West.
(28:39):
You know you're inhibiting ourgrowth and our ownership, our
authority in this context forspreading the gospel in our
country.
And it was in that context, in a1974 Lausanne Congress where
Ralph Winter was basicallyillustrating what a lot of
people have been starting to say, and the Lausanne Congress, but
(29:11):
the whole unreached peoplegroup focus.
A lot of people attribute itback to this watershed moment.
In his 1974 address he saidlook, there are different types
of evangelism in this world andof course Billy Graham started,
along with John Stott, theLausanne movement and so there
was a heavy focus on evangelism.
He said the greatest need inthe world today for missionaries
(29:34):
, the absolute greatest, thehighest priority, is
cross-cultural evangelism.
And he would say things like ifyou have like nominal people
around you, nominal Christiansin your own people, same
language, that's like E0evangelism.
(29:56):
They just need to come into thefold, they need to really
understand genuine faith inChrist.
If you've got people who are notidentifying with Christ in any
way from your culture sameculture, same language we'll
call that E1 evangelism.
That's where most people in theworld come to faith in Christ,
is natural family members andfriends in Christ.
(30:17):
It makes sense.
When you communicate goodcommunication, it's going to be
clear in what you present, itwould also be received in the
same way.
That happens at an E1, e0evangelism level.
There's also a nearer cultureevangelism where there's
something related in yourlanguage or culture, where you
(30:39):
can kind of navigate back andforth.
It's still not the same culture, language, but it's part of the
general family and we call thatE2 evangelism.
So think even like a Britishperson going to France.
It's different cultures butit's still this Western European
umbrella.
(31:00):
The languages have a similarorigin, it's related.
It's a lot easier to learn alanguage or how to communicate,
kate, it's certainly not thesame but you can relate in ways
much more than you could in whatis called E3 evangelism, he
said, which is very distantculturally.
(31:20):
Think of that British personshowing up in Gujarat, india and
man.
It's so different Ways ofthinking, life, culture,
language, everything is sodifferent among their people
because there wasn't asignificant enough Christian
presence among their people thathad adequate resources or
(31:55):
numbers to evangelize their ownpeople.
So around 61% of the world'spopulation.
Therefore, he said, our highestpriority is cross-cultural
evangelism.
We can't see God's glory goforth among these people without
the influence of outsideworkers going in and the power
of indigenous expressions offaith, indigenous, being a
(32:17):
botanical term of what's nativeto an area.
You will sniff out foreignnessif the gospel is always
presented from foreigners, andso the greatest effectiveness
will happen with E1 evangelism.
But you can't get there unlessthe outsiders go in, see the
first people come to faith andthey're naturally spreading it.
(32:39):
And from that point it was likesomething just clicked, because
around the world they saw thesenational churches and Ralph
Winter would talk about these61% basically that were part of
peoples without breakthrough,missiological breakthroughs
among them, and he called themhidden people groups.
They are hidden under the tallgrass of the national churches
(33:03):
around the world.
See them.
The body of Christ isn'ttalking about them.
They're not aware, they don'tappear into your church, they're
hidden and we have to bringattention to them, to the body
of Christ, and there's going tohave to be intention and
deliberate evangelism.
You know, sometimes we make afalse assumption that if every
(33:25):
Christian in the world wouldjust go out and reach a few
people for Christ, the gospelwould spread to every people in
the earth.
And that's just not true.
You have to move beyond yourown network, beyond your own
context, to go into thesebreakthrough type settings.
(33:46):
And so the other word that RalphWinter used, which is actually
the best word to illustrate whatwe're talking about with what
we call unreached people groupstoday, but it never took off,
and you'll see why.
He said these peoples areunincorporable people groups
(34:06):
Unincorporable, unincorporable.
What he meant by that was ifyou come to faith in this
certain people group thatdoesn't have an existing church
that you would feel comfortablewith, there's no existing
expression of the body of Christthat you can be incorporated
into, how are you going to benurtured in your faith?
(34:28):
How is that going to grow?
How are you going to reach yourown people if the church isn't
established in a particularculture?
They're unincorporable people.
If individuals came to faith inChrist, where do they go?
And that is the best expressionfor actually what unreached
people groups really meansthere's not enough expressions
of the faith in Christ where, ifpeople came to faith in that
(34:50):
culture, they could easilyincorporate into.
Now, for whatever reason, thatword never took off and
therefore we're left with themore confusing and overly
misused term unreached peoplegroup.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Well, it's six syllables, Chris.
It's six syllables.
I mean, you know, if Clint'sgoing to put that in a worship
song, nobody's going to be ableto get through that on Sunday
morning.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Lord reach the unincorporated yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
You got to try it now , though that's a challenge
right there.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
There you go, come on , worship leader.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Laying it down.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
So Unreached People Group in order to quantify it,
to at least give a trajectory ofwhere things are at and at
least guide the body of Christand the missions community in
the right direction, towardsgetting to this wide array of
how it's described in the Bible,of all nations and tribes and
peoples and languages that inRevelation that's all ethnos,
(35:43):
all phile, all laos, all glasa,and I'm not sure I'm pronouncing
those correctly, but it's alldifferent words to talk about
different layers that overlapwith people's.
There was a lot of wranglingover decades to try to define
that and ultimately landed on adefinition that you know, if
there's not a significant enoughpresence and resources of a
(36:08):
church and a given people, thatit has to have outside
assistance to reach their ownpeople.
That's an unreached peoplegroup.
Or, on a strategic level, apeople group is the largest
group through which the gospelcan spread as a church planning
movement without encounteringbarriers of understanding or
(36:28):
acceptance.
All right, so largest group.
We're not interested in likedividing the world into a
hundred thousand people groups,because we can.
You know what's the largestgroup to which the gospel can
spread without encounteringthese barriers of understanding
or acceptance.
And so really you don't knowwhat a people group is in that
(36:50):
definition until the gospelstarts spreading.
So our best attempt to at leastto give a trajectory is to go
all, right, what are thebarriers of understanding?
That's largely linguistic, okay.
So we kind of form some peoplegroups around language.
There's a barrier ofunderstanding there, but there
are parts of the world wherelanguage really isn't the main
(37:13):
issue for receiving the gospel.
Places like South Asia, theyall speak like six languages.
You know, that's not the bigbig barrier.
The big barrier has to do withsociocultural divisions within
their world caste, differentcommunities, different jatis,
they would say.
(37:33):
So that's more of a barrier ofacceptance than it is of
language, just language, yeah.
Therefore, if you look at aSouth Asia people group list
with Joshua Project, you won'tsee just people groups divided
by language.
You see more of the differentcaste communities, because the
(37:53):
gospel is not easily jumpingfrom caste to caste, except for
cases where the gospel startsspreading and we realize oh wow,
you know those people groupsreally are close enough and they
need to be combined.
Or we find out the gospelstarts spreading and it just
stops for whatever reason, andwe realize maybe that identity
(38:15):
is too broad and we need tobreak that up into other people
groups for a strategic churchplanning effort.
That is the case right now withwhat would be the largest
frontier people group in theworld.
So frontier is a category thatonly goes back to 2019, where
(38:35):
this has been widely used usingJoshua Project information.
So in order to kind of set alist, to give a trajectory, we
said less than 2% evangelical,less than 5% Christian adherent
of any kind, because we cannumerically track that better
than some of these fuzzy morequalitative definitions for an
unreached people group.
(38:56):
But you could still have withinan unreached people group a
group that largely has a healthy, multiplying indigenous church
that isn't past that 2%threshold.
So in order to kind of recoverthe original intention of what
needs missiological breakthrough, the term frontier people group
has come about as a subset ofunreached people groups where
(39:18):
that's less than one Christianfor every 1,000 people.
Like we really need breakthroughand if you look right now as of
what is this August 2025 orwhenever this comes out, the
largest frontier people group wehave in the world in our list
will be the Sheikh of India, andI can already tell you right
now, once we get enoughinformation, that group probably
(39:41):
needs to be broken up into alot of other groups.
Sure, that name comes fromcensus information from India.
The numbers come from censusinformation comes from census
information from India.
The numbers come from censusinformation.
But we know enough already thatprobably that identity came from
an Indian census that wasn't soconcerned about Muslim
identities they're moreconcerned about Hindu identities
(40:01):
and so they just lumped a bunchof groups together into this
one, and so us to try to figurethat out on a really India is
like its own continent.
You know, is incredibly complexbecause you have to go down to
district levels and state levelsand try to figure out what.
What's all going on there.
There's there's a lot of highcaste Hindu converts to Islam.
(40:24):
Historically that really iswhat Sheikh should be, but most
Hindus who have converted toIslam would come from what we'd
call today scheduled caste, solower caste or outside of the
caste system.
And that's actually not peoplethat should be identified as
Sheikh.
That would be something else.
So the work continues.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
Absolutely.
How do you get your information?
I mean, how does Bill do this?
How do y'all do this?
Speaker 2 (40:49):
You can write info at joshuaprojectnet today to send
any corrections or help us withanything.
No, that's great.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
That's great.
You know, we had Steve Sanfordon from Ethnos and we were
talking about the group heserved in Younger in Life and we
were looking up the group whilewe were talking and I said this
is the Joshua Project info.
And he said I think it'sactually more than that now.
And he said I think it'sactually more than that now and
he said I'm actually going toreach out.
I think y'all have actuallyspoken since then.
He said I'm going to reach outto Chris and we're going to talk
.
So if you have an update onsome Joshua Project data, you
(41:20):
said to send it to info atjoshuaprojectnet or if you look
at any people group profile onJoshua Project.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
There will be two or three submit update buttons on
each of those pages and thatwill link directly to an ID.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
A little bit of community work.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
Yeah, so in short, of where we get our information.
Historically it's been fromlarge data sets such as census
information in countries.
You can never replace theamount of time, effort, money
put into those things.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
Well, no red marks on census studies in biblical
history right.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Yeah, so religiously and politically motivated.
You know, always has to beinterpreted through those lens.
Like the sheikh example I gave.
There will be like largedenominational censuses done by,
say, world Christian Databaseor Operation World, that we will
draw from as well of what'shappening.
And then there will be peoplewho own national or people group
(42:20):
updates and they just see aspart of what they do is to
regularly send updates intoJoshua Project or like I'm
raising my hand right now, as afilled missionary I work among a
certain people and I look atJoshua Project and I go why are
they so wrong?
And I actually do somethingabout it.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
Don't just say that, actually send an email and say
hey we're up to this now.
So where do we stand today?
What's the best guess at thecount People groups reached
unreached.
I realize it's not about ascoreboard, but everyone would
like to know from the definitivevoice.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
So modern, updating beyond what's been done
historically all sorts of fieldsoftware by missionaries,
organizations on the ground,starting to be amalgamated,
sensitive information taken out,pushed up to Joshua Project
partners, imba, peoplegroupsorg,like we're working together to
get you know software pushed up,networking with organizations
(43:21):
around the world, that's they'recapturing this with reports
already you know, sending thatin working with those national
associations, denominations,church planning networks to get
updates, having national andregional representatives around
the world with Joshua Projectthat have local eyes and ears.
So we were at five staffmembers October 2024.
(43:42):
I think we're right around 30now in 15 to 20 countries and
growing.
You know, I would imagine ushaving 100 here in the next
couple of years.
So just having a local eyes andears of what's happening, how
to use that information toaffect the gaps.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
Shouldn't we almost deputize more of the missionary
community?
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Yes, please do, and that's what a lot of it is.
It's just add-on roles to whatpeople are doing already, but
then having a global platform.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Like every major sending org, should have a
monthly reminder for somebody onthe team to update y'all.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
Please, yes, please, do.
It just helps everyone, yeah,which we've just kind of rolled
out again in a version one levelon our website and then looking
at how do we get to moreengagement happening with these
unengaged groups.
We've never tracked unengagedbut that will probably start in
(44:51):
2026 as we've been working withseveral key organizations to
really define what unengagedmeans and have phases of
engagement.
So that whole church aspectwhich has been missing from the
unreached definition as we havein our list today, that we can
start tracking that, becausethat's really what we're getting
at.
Is there healthy reproducingchurches among these people?
And I'm a lot more confident ina group that's 0.1% Christian
but has a healthy reproducingchurch than I am in a group
(45:13):
that's 2.1% Christian butplateaued or declining, and so
we hope to add that layer.
People group numbers arecomplex and so you quoted
17,000-something people groupsearlier.
That is a historical view ofpeople groups in country,
meaning that if the Wolof are inSenegal, the Gambia, mauritania
(45:34):
, france, us, that's fivedifferent people groups.
So everywhere the Wolof are iscounted as a different entity.
And of course, in the past,when people would leave
different countries, and stilltoday you're influenced by the
culture of those differentcountries.
Communication, especially inthe past, was much less and
(45:55):
strategies were often happeningamong people within a given
country.
Where we really need to pushpeople to think about people
group across countries.
So even with the Wolof.
I talked with this woman lastcouple of weeks.
(46:15):
She came to faith.
Wolof Muslim background came tofaith in New York City for the
longest time.
People would say there's onlylike 300 Christians among the
Wolof.
I think that's more.
Now.
When she came to faith she led15 family members and friends to
Christ in the first 18 monthsand they lived in Florida,
(46:36):
quebec, canada, italy, franceand half of her family back in
Senegal.
That's like 5% of the Wolofbelievers comes to faith as a
baby believer out of New Yorkand just spreads.
And we've got to get to thepoint where we see all of those
as potential engagement pointsthat will help everyone connect
(46:59):
and see, and not only thegeographic locations but the
social media and internet spaceswhere these people are
connecting.
That's where you can be in atown of 300 in Iowa or wherever,
but be a strategic frontiermissionary among a frontier
people group because you canengage with them online and if
you were to talk with thatMuslim guy in their small
(47:21):
village, with all the villageoverlooking that guy's shoulder.
That person might be havinginternal questions and
dissatisfaction with Islam andwanting to seek the truth in
Christianity, but they wouldabsolutely save face and try to
defend Islam while you're inperson in the whole village
overlooking.
But on my private home I'mlooking on the internet for
(47:45):
answers.
I'm looking for questions.
I'm wanting to interact withChristians answers.
I'm looking for questions.
I'm wanting to interact withChristians.
And so a people group acrosscountry view is actually a
little more accurate and not amoving target as much, because
every time we'd have a new groupmoving into a diaspora we'd
have to count a new people groupin country and there might be a
hundred thousand people groups.
Honestly, you know, if youcounted them that way, a people
(48:07):
group across country view,there's around 10,000 or so
people groups.
Still the numbers are the sameon the unreached, where around
42% of those are unreached.
So 4,000 or so unreached peoplegroups out of 10,000 people
group across country.
We'll be showing both of thosenumbers on the website because
(48:28):
still people organize a lot bycountries.
So 7,000, something unreached.
If you look at your number of17,000 people groups or so.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
Chris, this has been incredibly enlightening.
Thank you so much for takingthe time.
I guess.
One last ask Does JoshuaProject?
Speaker 2 (48:46):
need anything.
One of the things that Irealized pretty early on is and
for those familiar withtechnology, our tech debt is
like 10 to 20 years old, so ourdatabase was running on
Microsoft Access, which I don'teven think Microsoft supports
anymore, and it was like inorder for us to leverage
(49:08):
technology to get what we haveinto the whole world and think
Joshua Project is just inEnglish and yet 70% of our users
are outside of North Americaand we have millions of unique
users around the world, but eventhe top mission sending
countries like Brazil and Korea,they're not in our top 10 of
(49:29):
users of Joshua Project becauseit's not in their language.
And I sat in a meeting with aKorean pastor last year who
translated Joshua Project infoon his own, had our maps, had a
vision of sending 10,000missionaries from his one church
in 10 years and had alreadysent over 3,000 in three years.
He's having to do all thisextra work.
(49:50):
We have to get to the point withJoshua Project where we're
internationalizing thisinformation.
The info is just getting outthere and because of that
information, people are takingresponsibility and that's
happening.
People in Uganda and Zambia areplaces where highly Christian
are seeing information for thefirst time and going wow, we
(50:10):
thought we were doing good.
But I realize all these Muslimsare around in surrounding
countries and we had no ideauntil we saw Joshua Project.
We got to get it out there.
So we're going through aseveral year tech process.
It's going to be expensive,it's going to be a complete
overhaul of everything, but Ithink we will see an exponential
(50:32):
increase in influence.
Speaker 1 (50:34):
I know some guys that might surprise you Craig and
Jake, I know you're going tohear this, I'm calling you.
You know I'm going to call you.
How can we make that processbeautiful?
Simple, leverage, ai, read itall, get it in the right places.
Speaker 2 (50:47):
Yeah, and there's a lot of people that will
volunteer.
But we got to have some peoplethat can at least lead that
process, because it's beyond thetechnical skills of what we
have.
So we've, you know, joshuaProject has never raised funds
in the past.
We've got to at least letpeople know the needs and what
this could do for the wider bodyof Christ, if we can get this
transformed.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
No more if, brother, no more if it's when we get it
transformed, it will happen.
I believe it.
There is more work to do,continuing to work on the data
we have.
There's more work to do to getthe data we have into the hands
of other Christ followers aroundthe world, and the time is now.
And the time is now, chris.
We always ask our guests andjust thank you again.
(51:29):
We.
And the time is now, chris.
We always ask our guests andjust thank you again.
We always ask our guests justwould you pray for the listeners
and continue to encourage andinvite them into this work?
And my commitment to you,brother, is we're going to stay
in touch.
I want to help you with theseprojects and help you get Joshua
Project into 2026 appropriatelyAwesome.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
Oh Lord, thank you for allowing us to be a part of
your work, and it can beoverwhelming to think about all
these different peoples of theworld and complexities of
identities and migration andurbanization and all of that.
But more than ever we need topray and labor to see
(52:09):
breakthroughs happening amongthese people groups, and just
the complexities are newopportunities, as new
interactions are taking placewith Christians that frontier
people groups never had.
They're technologicallyconnected in ways that they
never were.
There's all sorts of avenuesfor your gospel going forth into
these groups where in the pastthere weren't a whole lot of
(52:32):
options and now there are.
And so, Lord, may we beencouraged, may we be burdened,
may we just step into being thatone Christian someone knows, or
catalyzing being the oneChristian someone knows, because
your hope in us is often whatyou use to help people see
(52:53):
another way and they askquestions.
We point to your word and yourspirit works in powerful ways
and this is your work that youjust allow us to be a part of.
So continue to help us raiseawareness and that
responsibility will rise withthe listeners of this podcast
and all that you have entrustedto us relationally Be glorified
(53:17):
among all peoples, all languages, all tribes, whatever we want
to call them or be glorifiedthroughout the entire earth In
Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 1 (53:26):
And amen.
Thank you for listening toUnreached and amen your friends,
your church, your life group,small group dGroup, wherever you
(53:48):
do life, and if you want toconnect with us, find us on
Instagram at unreachedpodcast,or email us at unreachedpodcast
at gmailcom.
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