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Ethne Overview  

What is the Ethne vision?
The Ethne vision is: "peoples joining together to glorify God among all peoples." The purpose of Ethne is to energize continuing initiatives among the "one-fourth world" or 27% of the world which has almost no access to the Gospel, by: (1) celebrating Great Commission progress amongst the least-reached peoples, (2) assessing current opportunities and resources, and (3) accelerating movements to Christ amongst all peoples. Ethne is the Greek word Jesus used for "nation" - a word which means tribe, ethnic group or people. Our world today has about 7.84 billion individuals living in over 230 geo-political nations but divided into 17,416 ethne, or people groups by country. Of those ethne, approximately 7,403 people groups remain least-reached.

What is the Ethne Global Least-Reached Prayer Initiative?
In order for the Global Body of Christ to reach the 7,403 Least-Reached Peoples (LRPs), the Ethne movement facilitates an annual global, 12-month prayer initiative beginning in June and ending in May of the following year, focusing on a different set of the Least Reached Peoples each month. During the 12 months all 7,403 Least-Reached Peoples will be prayed for. This initiative, expecting to involve hundreds of thousands of people from around the globe praying simultaneously for the Least-Reached, is called HeLPS for Harvest Linked Prayer Strategies.

The Ethne initiative is also encouraging believers simultaneously to reach out to these Least-Reached Peoples in each area of focus during the month of prayer and the two months following, 90 days total, while the prayer is lifted up, in order to conserve the harvest we believe that God is pouring out.

What is the origin of the Ethne Movement?
Ethne is built on the momentum of the AD2000 and Beyond Movement and the 2001 Great Commission Roundtable meeting and the Singapore '02 meeting. It is the official Unreached People Group network or "intersection" for three global Christian movements: the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, the World Evangelical Alliance Mission Commission and Transform World.

What does "Least-Reached" mean?
By "least-reached" Ethne and Joshua Project mean "a people group among which there is no indigenous community of believing Christians with adequate numbers and resources to evangelize this people group." The original Joshua Project editorial committee selected the critieria of less than 2% Evangelical Christian and less than 5% Professing Christians. The terms Unreached People Group (UPG) and Least-Reached People Group are used interchangably.

What is the relationship between Ethne and Joshua Project?
Joshua Project is pleased to provide the least-reached peoples data for the Ethne HeLPS prayer initiative. This Ethne section of the Joshua Project website displays only a portion of the available people group data. Please visit the rest of the Joshua Project website for more information.

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