Finishing the Task Update: There is momentum.

Last week I spent two days in California (well, plus two days traveling) at the annual meeting of Finishing The Task, chaired by Paul Eshleman. About 40 different people were there representing several different ministries. It was a good time to see old friends and hear reports from many different agencies about what is being done among the unreached. (I facilitated part of the session on the databases, too, with my friends Dan, Jim and Bert. You guys did great.)

You will remember Paul presented the “Finishing the Task” list at Cape Town 2010, and I made some comments on that. The current list, post Cape Town and FTT updates, is now available at Finishingthetask.com.

I was very happy to see most of the groups with a population of 100,000 or more had been either adopted or engaged. Adoption simply means that someone has committed to put a long-term team on the ground–it doesn’t mean that there are actually workers there–and viewed in this light there is a lot of work left to do. Still, there’s good news.

The list has now been updated to include all groups of 50,000 population or over, based on the research of IMB and the Joshua Project. (Remember, FTT is not a unique list: it is a time-delayed “filter” or “subset” of the CPPI list.) Here’s the current scoreboard:

• 271 groups are unengaged: no one is trying to reach them. Most of these are under 100,000 in population.
• 319 are adopted, but not yet engaged by church planting teams. The FTT group is following up on these commitments.
• 458 are engaged by long-term church planting teams. This means there are at least 2 people on the ground. The group may be “insufficiently engaged” (e.g. the total number of workers are less than 1 per 50,000 people).
• 14 of the groups are at least 2% reached (=off the priority list).
• 50 are on the list due to a research error and are being re-evaluated.

I have noted a few problem cases on the list, and I (and others) are looking into these. As with all lists, the FTT list is not “perfect.” However, I’m pretty excited that this initiative is seeing some progress.

What are the challenges & barriers up next?

• Commitments have to be translated into teams on the ground. We all know where good intentions lead.
• Groups that are engaged need to be “sufficiently engaged.” Most unevangelized individuals are not within completely unengaged groups but rather within groups that are engaged but not sufficiently reached.
• Completely unengaged groups need commitments. Check the list and scroll all the way to the bottom, and look for the “white” groups.