Should Christians Pray for Unreached People Groups (UPGs)?

I think it might be best to give the TLDR answer here: YES, it is good for Christians to pray for UPGs.

I am giving the answer early becase I am going to go over a number of things that might cause people to think I am saying “no.”

A big reason that one might think my answer would be “no” is because I reject much of what might be labeled “UPG Theology.”

I will try to express a certain flavor of “UPG Theology.” There are many variants, some of which I may generally agree with. But here is a common form that I simply don’t—- I am using my own words to expess it. I am not directly quoting anyone:

“Missionaries are called to serve God by going out, bridging cultural boundaries, to reach unreached people groups. There are thousands of unreached people groups, some of which are also unengaged by any effective Christian ministry. God has promised that once every UPG (or perhaps UUPG, unreached and unengaged people group) has been effectively bridged by the gospel of Christ, as evidenced by perhaps an indigenous church movement, Jesus will return. Therefore we must pray that God sends workers to the harvest and that such groups have hardened hearts opened to the working of the Spirit of God.”

Much of this I believe is problematic.

1. The basis for some of this is a a dubious interpretation of the Greek phrase “Panta ta Ethne” (or similar variants). I am no Greek Scholar… but the consistent view of scholars as far as I can see is that this phrase cannot be interpreted as “ethnolinguistic groups.” The term is pretty consistently used to describe Gentiles, as a group. This does not invalidate the idea of people groups, but it does at least draw into question the appropriateness of taking verses in the Bible and substituting in the concept of
“people group.” More on this later.

2. The value of identifying people groups, determining whether they are “reached,” “unreached” or “unengaged unreached” is certain fine, and may even be useful, but getting focused on statistics probably isn’t. A whole missiological industry has sprung up seeking to determine: “How many people groups are there?” “How many UPGs are there?” “How many are UUPGs?” “How many languages are there?” “How many still do not have a Bible in written or oral form?” People Group, much like Language is a difficult term to define. Unreached or Unengaged are also difficult to define. Numbers may be useful to give a bit of a perspective of the scope of the work. However, numbers are often used like they have some meaning beyond that. I have seen people struggle to understand why numbers seem to vary so wildly between different data collectors. Often the labels are a very arbitrary, and thus so are the statistics.

3. Related to the previous two. People often take “people groups” as a well-defined Biblical term rather than a poorly defined designtation in (Christian) cultural anthropology. Doing this leads to some rather fanciful beliefs like taking Matthew 24:14 to mean that God is waiting until every people group (as we have identified and defined) moves from being unreached to reached (again as we define it) before the Second Coming. Some see this in a negative sense (Jesus won’t return UNTIL after every people group has been reached). Others see this in a positive sense (Jesus WILL return when the last people group has been reached… or very soon after). Since that is not what the passage says, and even if it did (which again I must say it doesn’t) we cannot impose our definitions of people groups and reached versus unreached onto the Biblical text. It is bad exegesis (bad eisegesis really) and bad theology.

Therefore praying for UPGs to meet a Biblical prophecy and speed up the return of Christ is flawed. (Frankly, if that theology was accurate and that we could speed up Jesus’s return, it seems like one could make the argument that we should ensure one or more UPG is never reached so as to allow more people to be saved. Just a thought— but again, the underlying premise is flawed.)

So does not mean that praying for unreached people groups is bad? Not at all. The identifying of ethnolinguistic people groups that have little or no Christian ministry is helpful for strategy and mobilization. Praying for the people as well as ministry is important. Beyond that, praying also reminds us about people who often are forgotten. People like to argue about whether our prayers “change God.” I will not delve into that issue. I do know, however, that prayer “changes us.” Prayer for unreached people groups (and reached people groups as well) is beneficial for such groups, for ministries to or within those groups, and for the one praying.