I’m kind of excited about the fact that the number of unreached people groups, as reported by Joshua Project
has dropped by nearly 10% in the past four years. Granted, some of my enthusiasm has to be leavened by the fact that Joshua Project leaders have established new policies regarding certain smaller groups. For more on this, see…
http://joshuaproject.net/about/minor_peoples
Still, I wrote Joshua Project’s lead demographer if I could make this summary statement: “The list of unreached people groups has dropped in size,” and he indeed felt ok about saying that. In addition to changing the way the JP team reports smaller groups (especially those in a diaspora), they admit they’ve also learned new data about certain initiatives (about which they knew little before). But of course, they also readily admit that new initiatives are also changing the face of these data. Bottom line: Instead of being a list of “nearly 7,000” like it was in 1996, the JoshuaProject list is now more like “about 6500.
To me, this is good news, even WITH the disclaimers. I think the praying public will benefit from seeing this kind of progress. Frankly, on the heels of hearing about lots of martyrdom and persecution, they could use some good news.
So — please help us get the word out: The JoshuaProject list no longer qualifies as being “about 7,000” groups. It’s now squarely 6500-ish. Praise God.
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