... Definitions ...
UUPG: Unengaged Unreached People Group
People groups refer to groups of individuals, families and clans who share a common language and ethnic identity.
Unengaged unreached people groups have no coordinated evangelical Christian missionary presence among them.
Unengaged unreached people groups have never heard the gospel, or they may have been exposed to the gospel in the past, but have been forgotten.
In Central Asia there are more than 400 people groups that have not been engaged by any known Christian witness. World-wide thousands of people groups are not engaged with the gospel.
For the IMB to complete this task—to have just one missionary assigned to every unreached people group—would require doubling the existing number of full-time personnel. The task seems overwhelming.
“We will eventually get there,” says IMB President Jerry Rankin, “but if the 42,000 churches, 1,200 local associations, 40 state conventions and 16 million Southern Baptists [of the Southern Baptist Convention] all became involved, suddenly the task is doable.”