This blog's purpose is to facilitate prayer for churches and disciples in the process of "embracing" a UUPG--unengaged unreached people group. Those terms were defined in one of the first posts I wrote. But I want to make sure that we understand what it means to embrace.
To embrace a UUPG means to accept the responsibility of getting the gospel to a people who otherwise would never hear there is a Savior. It means becoming the missionary. It means doing whatever it takes for as long as it takes to see indigenous churches established firmly enough to taken on the task of evangelizing their own.
It might help to understand what embacing is NOT. It is not just praying for a UUPG as important as that effort is. It is not just taking mission trips although trips are definitely involved. It is not just developing a partnership with a missionary even though church support is often vital to the realization of a missionary's strategy for reaching a people group. All of these activities are good and legitimate expressions of the passion to see God's glory extended to the nations. But they are not what is meant by "embrace."
To embrace is to take on the task of getting the gospel to a UUPG. It means being willing to be the "boots on the ground." It means establishing a strategic presence for sharing the gospel. It means discipling new believers who in turn will evangelilze and disciple others. It means planting reproducing churches, churches that will plant churches that will plant churches in a movement of multiplication.
Someone has compared the commitment to embrace a UUPG to the commitment of marriage. Prayer could be compared to admiring someone from afar. Mission trips could be compared to dating. A partnership with a missionary could be compared to going steady or perhaps an engagement. But embracing means a commitment, like marriage, for as long as it takes, for better or worse, to see it through.
Pray today about the level of your commitment. Are you ready to EMBRACE?
Elvin McCann mentioned in his presentation that to Embrace a people group means to own the Great Commission for that people group.
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