Why We Plant Churches

What would it take to see more people follow Jesus?

Maybe you’ve heard about UPGs—unreached people groups—and frontier people groups, the unreached groups that have the least access to the gospel. Mission leaders, researchers and mobilizers also talk about UUPGs, unengaged unreached people groups. These groups are not just unreached; nobody is trying to reach them. A group becomes “engaged” when:

• There is sustained activity to share Christ and make disciples
• There are efforts to establish self-sustaining churches
• The work occurs in culturally appropriate and locally relevant ways

You could apply the same standards to unreached places, areas where even if the gospel is spreading among people with more or less the same language and culture, nobody’s trying to take it to certain places.

Planting churches that plant churches

The definition of “engagement” shows us the solution to this problem: self-sustaining, culturally appropriate and locally relevant churches working to share Christ and make disciples within their people group and beyond.

This is why Pioneers and similar ministries exist. We serve as catalysts for planting churches like that. Through local churches, people can hear the gospel from people who speak their language. They get to see it lived out by people like them, people they identify with more easily than they can with someone who is a foreigner or outsider. When such churches grow and multiply, more people have attractive opportunities to become part of the family—the Church—linking arms with others to worship God and invite people all over to join them.

In a world where more than one in three people are still unreached, self-sustaining and reproducing churches are the best solution.

So, this is what we’re all about. Since 1979, Pioneers missionaries have been using innovative and creative methods to spread the gospel worldwide. They collaborate with local churches to make disciples and lay the groundwork for church-planting movements among unreached peoples. They introduce people to the Bible and share the gospel in culturally understandable ways. As they do, they witness God transforming lives across different cultures and people groups everywhere.

What can you and your church do?

• Pray: The most powerful thing you can do is to intercede for the unreached by name, by people group, by region.
• Give: Supporting missionaries who serve among unreached people and in the least-reached places puts resources where the need is greatest.
• Go: Whether for a summer, a year or a lifetime, you can be part of a team working to plant the church among people who have never had one.
• Learn: Understanding who the unreached are—and why it matters—is the first step toward doing something about it.

Ready to take your next step? Let’s get started.

See About Us and watch our video, What Does Pioneers Do? Read What Does It Take to Go to the Hardest Places? Watch What Is Church Planting? or read an article describing how Pioneers teams approach church planting (spoiler: it depends).