Bless the People, Bless the Nations: Miriam Charter - The Alliance Canada (original) (raw)

In 1989 a remarkable event took place, forever changing the trajectory of history in Eastern and Central Europe. On November 8, 1989, the Berlin Wall began to crumble, and one after another, countries which had been closed to the West for years experienced revolution, moving toward democracy and freedom. After the revolutions of 1989, I returned to Canada to tell stories of the heroic courage of believers in the face of the harshness of the Communist regime. After each telling, someone was sure to approach me and announce how guilty they felt as they listened to my description of the hardships believers experienced in Communist Europe! “I struggle with guilt when I hear your stories,” they said. “We are so blessed here in Canada. Why do we have so much, and so many in the world have so little?” My immediate response was always, “I don’t tell these stories to induce guilt! I tell these stories to remind you to be thankful! Because indeed, we are so blessed.”

It is a tension thoughtful people will wrestle with every time they watch the evening news. In recent years we’ve watched as Islamist insurgents gain footholds in northern Iraq. We witness the horrors of innocent civilians being executed by ISIS militia at point-blank range in front of mass graves or young girls brutally raped by Boko Haram recruits in the name of God.

As we observe the chaos and messiness in which much of the world lives, we are constantly reminded of how incredibly blessed we are. We recognize the horrors many are subjected to, yet there is an uneasy realization of how we are pampered and surrounded with blessings. It is a tension with which we ought to wrestle every day. It is a tension to which we must subject our theological understanding of “blessing.”

Living the Blessed Life in a Messy World

The question before us is, “How do we as Christ-followers live the blessed life in such a dark and messy world?” Lessons from the life of Abraham may provide a perspective for a thoughtful believer to make sense of and address the tension created by these two realities in our lives today: the abundant blessings we enjoy and the horrific situations in which so many others in our world live.

Learning from the Life of Abram

The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

“I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:1-3)

Abram lived in a messy world. Genesis 12:1-3, the “call of Abram,” follows eleven chapters of primeval history narrating the fallenness of human beings, the aftermath of the disobedience of Adam and Eve, and the escalation of evil in the world. The violence of Cain, the vengeance of Lamech, and the degradation of the generation of Noah culminate in the story of the Tower of Babel. Babel stands as a metaphor for people who live their lives in defiance of God, arrogant and disobedient people whose all-consuming thought is to do precisely the opposite of what God has told them to do. Abram lived in the Land of Ur, the land of the moon god, Sin. 1 It was well nigh impossible to find salvation in Ur of the Chaldees. And into the bleakness of ancient history, God speaks to a 75-year-old man. He says, “Abram, I’m going to bless you. But what is more, I will make you a blessing to all peoples.” The call of Abram injects blessing into history, 2 introducing hope. God promises to bless Abram, and through him, all peoples on earth will be blessed.

Old Testament scholar and missiologist, Chris Wright, suggests redemptive history is introduced with Genesis 12:1-3, and under the sovereign plan of God, it launches the history of God’s mission. 3 He makes a strong case for this text in Genesis being the “Great Commission,” the Old Testament foundation for the text upon which Christ’s “Great Commission,” recorded in Matthew 28:19-20, is based.4 Mission might well be summed up in the dual command to Abram, “Go. . . and be a blessing.” In retrospect, we know a great deal more than Abraham did of the “whole counsel of God,” of the mystery hidden for ages and ultimately revealed in Jesus, the Messiah. Perhaps we might even think of Genesis 12:1-3 as the “gospel in advance” to which Paul refers in Galatians 3:8 because it is truly the Seed of Abraham, Christ, who will be a blessing for the sons of Adam, 5 all the peoples on earth.

The Universal Scope of the Abrahamic Promise

A variant of the phrase “all peoples on earth,” which Wright uses to underline the universal scope, the multinational outworking of God’s blessing of Abraham, would be his translation of the phrase as “In you will be blessed all kinship groups of earth.” 6 The words used by Christ when He told the eleven to make disciples of “all nations” echo God’s words to Abram, saying that through him, “all peoples” on earth would be blessed.

John Piper, in his volume on missions, carefully demonstrates the Septuagint rendering of “all peoples” and “all nations,” panta ta ethne is best understood as referring not to Gentile individuals but carries the meaning “all the nations” in the sense of “people groups outside of Israel.” 7 God’s promise to bless the “families” of the earth, says Piper, intends to reach every small grouping of people (ethnic groups). 8 Missionary efforts since the 1970s have focused more on reaching peoples than on unreached territories. Such a change in terminology is still not fully understood in some local churches. In others, the terminology is meaningful, and people have gladly adopted an as yet unreached people group 9 as their target for prayer, giving, and mobilization.

Wright points to the universal scope of the Abrahamic promise as his clinching argument for recognizing the missiological centrality of Genesis 12:1-3. He traces this universality of Abraham’s call through the Old Testament, emphasizing how God’s purpose with Israel never changed; they would be God’s people on behalf of all peoples on earth.

Even in the darkness of the primeval world, God has not forgotten the nations. In verse 3, God says to Abram, “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” This universal aspect of God’s intention for the world beyond the boundaries of Israel can be followed through the Old Testament record into the New and right to the final pages of Revelation, where the leaves of the tree of life are for the healing of the nations (Revelation 22:2). It is as though the purposes of God have in view nothing else but the blessing and ultimate redemption of the nations of the earth.

Throughout the Pentateuch, the historical books, and in the majesty of the Psalms, this unfailing purpose of God can be traced. “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine on us—so that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations” (Psalm 67:1-2).

It is impossible to ignore the repeated verbal allusions to the text of Genesis 12:1-3, linking the Abrahamic promise with God’s salvific purposes for all peoples, a plan for which Israel was central.

In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth. The Lord Almighty will bless them, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance.” (Isaiah 19:24-25)

Just as the form of the verb, bless (brk) in verse 25, “The Lord Almighty will bless them,” matches the same form as in “I will bless you,” in Genesis 12:2, so the phrase “Israel. . .will be a blessing on the earth” in verse 24 matches the phrase later in the same verse, when God says, “and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” 10

Over and over, this thrust toward the universality of God’s purposes can be traced in Scripture. As one moves into the New Testament, the universality of God’s plan is equally indisputable. Matthew closes his gospel by making explicit what the opening of his book had implied (note he introduces Jesus as “the son of David, the son of Abraham” in Matthew 1:1). In Christ’s commissioning of the disciples in chapter 28, the worldwide extent of the call to discipleship is clear. The words of the risen Christ clarify how the original Abrahamic commission to “Go. . . and be a blessing. . . and all the nations on earth will find blessing through you” (Genesis 12:1-3) can be fulfilled.

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20).

Top-Line/Bottom-Line Blessing

Missiologists like Don Richardson have arranged the various promises which make up God’s covenant with Abram under two main headings, the t_op line_ and the bottom line of blessing. 11

Top-line Blessing

The central theme of Genesis 12:1-3 is “blessing.” The words bless and blessing “gleam like jewels in an ornamental goblet.” 12 The Hebrew root, brk, whether as a verb or noun, occurs five times in these three verses. As with the blessing by God during His creation of the world (Genesis 1-2), in Genesis 12:1-3, the word “bless” includes the concepts of “multiplication, spreading, filling and abundance. . . 13 God’s blessing means enjoying the good gifts of God’s creation in abundance.” Wright is quick to remind us that “material blessings are in themselves tangible expressions of divine benevolence,”14 a reassertion of God’s original intention for human beings.15

Why Does God Choose to Bless?

God chose to bless Abram, not because of his faith, obedience, or goodness, not because he was deserving, but simply because blessing is what God does! After all, the promise of blessing comes in verses 2 and 3, but Abram doesn’t obey God and set out for Haran until verse 4, after receiving the promise of blessing. Blessing is a gift from the One who loves to give abundant gifts. This, to us who are recipients of blessings today, renders the blessing so much more exquisite because it is given without consideration of merit. There is no other way of explaining why we in the Western world live with such abundance. God is a generous God who chooses to bless His creatures. We dare not think in human terms, suggesting God’s selection of the recipients of His blessing is because of something deserving in them.

Israel forgot why they were blessed. In Deuteronomy, God reminds His chosen people why He chose them:

For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt (Deuteronomy 7:6-8).

Israel’s history is marked by their misunderstanding of why God had chosen them from all the peoples on earth, a mistaken but deep-seated belief they were privileged because of something inherently special in themselves. We recognize this misconception in discussion with many people in the majority world, especially in North America. An irritating spirit of entitlement can often be detected, suggesting, “I deserve these good things!! These are my rights!”

Such attitudes have embodied the spirit of many who live in North America and throughout the Western world, a sense of entitlement because of our privileged past and the sense of how success in national purpose can be explained and even ensured by these privileges. In simplistic terms, it is the belief that we have a right to anything we want because of who we are. Do we deserve the blessings we experience every day in life here in the West? Certainly not! How humbling it is to us, living in this land of security and plenty, to remember we are blessed simply because a generous God in heaven exudes blessing and chooses to bless us.

For believers, such blessings directly result from our lineage as believers, our position as children of Abraham. Galatians 3:9 says, “So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. If you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are His heirs to God’s promise.” Biblical authors in books after Genesis refer to God’s covenant with Abram as “the promise” because the promises of the covenant together constitute the one coherent purpose of God.

Richardson challenges the “so called higher critics” who would suggest the Abrahamic Covenant as nothing more than “another example of a petty tribal god whetting the selfishness of an exclusive little clique of followers with exclusive promises of exclusive blessing.”16 He suggests such critics have elevated themselves so far above the text in their intellectual pride they fail to recognize “in the midst of this flurry of promises regarding the political, personal and social enrichment of Abraham, a qualifying phrase occurs: . . . and you will be a blessing.” This phrase, says Richardson, “presages the bottom line: . . . AND ALL {PEOPLES} ON EARTH WILL BE BLESSED {THROUGH YOU.}17

Bottom Line Blessing

Richardson’s statement of this bottom line of blessing is powerful:

These words bring a hush upon thoughtful readers. We sense immediately that the God who would speak such words is no petty tribal god. He is a God whose plans are both benign and universal, spanning all ages and cultures. If He retaliates against enemies of Abraham, it is not just to protect Abraham, but to keep the enemies from extinguishing a fire kindled to warm the whole world.18

According to Galatians 3:29, “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” As we share in the blessings which have flowed to us through Abraham and then through Christ, we have a corresponding responsibility to pass on this blessing, making disciples of all nations for the glory of Christ and the joy of other peoples. We are blessed to be a blessing.

Reading the Scripture with this top-line/bottom-line mindset, we find this motif in every single book of the Bible. The top line is a blessing. The bottom line is responsibility. Not one of us who are children of Abraham can escape the responsibility implicated by the blessings to which we are heirs. How does it happen? It happens as we who are people of faith, those who are blessed, become the channels of blessing to others. This, in a nutshell, is the only answer to the haunting question posed in this chapter, “How do we, as Christ-followers, live the blessed life in such a dark and messy world?”

Suggestions for Pastoral Practice

What Does It Mean to Bless Others?

What does it actually mean to bless someone else? Let me be intentionally practical in suggesting that the benediction―pronounced by a pastor at the end of the weekend services, a benediction received week by week by parishioners― should be understood as a blessing bestowed upon them. When we bless someone, we invoke God’s blessing. We bear witness to the truth of how God’s generosity and power have by no means been extinguished. Based on who we know God to be, we speak of God’s intentions to bless people. We speak His Truth into a life, releasing the blessing of God into their life.

It is not we who give the gifts spoken of in the benediction. In some inexplicable way, we put God’s generosity in motion when we bless another. This is not to suggest a “health and wealth” gospel to which some would like to lay claim. When we bless someone else, we invoke what we understand, by faith, only a gracious, sovereign Lord can give, not because of the recipient’s faith or obedience, but simply because blessing is what God chooses to do.

The Two-Fold Impact of the Benediction

For a pastor who yearns to see God raise His people as a Great Commission local church, the benediction is more than a prayer by which the congregation knows the service has ended. Instead, the benediction may be understood as a well-prepared conclusion to the ministry of the Word for the week, a part of the service for which people wait with anticipation, never wanting to miss out on the blessing or commission the pastor will pronounce over the people. The benediction intersects with and explains the commitment of pastors and people to the nations in fascinating ways. It focuses on each person’s responsibility to fulfill Christ’s final words to “make disciples of all nations.”

The Benediction is Personal

When a pastor pronounces a benediction on the congregation, it is much more than a generalized blessing of people. I, as a congregant, open to the spoken words, realize with wonder that the blessing is for me! It is personal. God’s truth is declared into each person’s individual lives in the congregation, among whom I am one. God is announced as the gracious, sovereign Lord whose intent is to flood His children with gladness and joy. Every time I receive a benediction, I have this sense, as the blessing is pronounced, that my fellow congregants and I serve as witnesses to the truth of how God’s generosity and power are upon us. Despondent or discouraged parishioners, on any day, can lift their heads and affirm God’s tenacious love will have the final word. The blessing is for them! Like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, writing from Cell 92 during the darkest days of his imprisonment, one can say, “Despite everything, I belong to God.”19 There is a promise for every person who receives the benediction.

The tension the benediction creates within me weekly makes me ask, “Why am I so blessed?” If the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5) is any guide in describing those who are blessed, we must with utmost humility acknowledge the blessing as coming to us, not because of our ingenuity or hard work, but simply because this is what God is like. He is sovereign and omnipotent, always working for our best (Romans 8:28).

The Benediction is Instrumental

As much as the benediction is an increasingly personal experience of blessing, I realize this act of blessing is not simply a wonderful gift I receive into my life and “consume.” There is an instrumental dimension to the blessing, enabling God’s generosity to others in a mysterious and humbling way. Because we belong to the Lord who blesses, we live as a people who bless. The announcement of blessing by my pastor is instrumental; it enacts God’s generosity. As the author Eugene Peterson writes, “Words make something; they don’t just say something.”20 Christ’s words in John 6:63, 68 suggest the point Peterson makes, as we consider the life-giving power of words spoken in the power of the Spirit. Words of blessing are not mere vapours, thrown into the wind, disappearing into the air as a passing expression of hope-filled goodwill. Jesus’ words, “The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life,” remind us we belong to the Lord who blesses. With the words of blessing, we join in an inexplicably powerful way in God’s healing and restoration, further enabling the eternal purposes of God to bless the world He created, the blessing He instituted after His sixth-day creation of humankind. We live as people who bless. We live as instruments of His blessing. Any blessing we bestow on another serves as a witness to God, who is generous, but in some mysterious way, it also puts the extension of God’s generosity in motion. It is instrumental. Our words of blessing mean something. The benediction of a pastor can be a great source of healing because the words themselves are life.

God’s blessing upon Abraham has in view the instrumental involvement of the one on whom He was bestowing the blessing (Abraham). “I will bless you. . . and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” We who are blessed by God, though totally undeserving, live as instruments of God’s blessing to others. One must always recognize how, as a pastor blesses the congregation, the ultimate blessing of the nations (peoples) of the earth is in view. At this point, there is an intersection of the pastoral benediction with the culture of a congregation where, over the years, a shared passion for and commitment to Christ’s commission to “make disciples of all the peoples” begins to take shape.

What Does It Mean to Bless Others? Some Practical Suggestions

The concept of instrumentality, learned as a recipient of the weekly benediction at the end of each service, may begin to infect parishioners’ prayers and their conversations with others. When you sit with someone and share their brokenness, you listen to their expressions of pain, thinking of their need in terms of what you believe to be God’s truth for them. Looking them in the eyes, you can boldly declare, in the form of a blessing, what you believe the truth to be. It is not you who bestows the blessing. You are the instrument through whom God will bless this person. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who knew so many years of unjust imprisonment and ultimately death, understood extending blessing even to the one who makes us suffer. His words are one of the finest descriptions of what this concept of “blessing all peoples” might look like for the sake of the world:

God does not repay evil for evil, and thus the righteous should not do so either. No judgment, no abuse, but blessing. The world would have no hope if this were not the case. The world lives by the blessing of God and of the righteous and thus has a future. Blessing means laying one’s hand on something and saying, Despite everything, you belong to God. This is what we do with the world that inflicts such suffering on us. We do not abandon it; we do not repudiate, despise or condemn it. Instead we call it back to God, we give it hope, we lay our hand on it and say: may God’s blessing come upon you, may God renew you; be blessed, world created by God, you who belong to your Creator and Redeemer. We have received God’s blessing in happiness and in suffering. Yet those who have been blessed can do nothing but pass on this blessing; indeed, they must be a blessing wherever they are. The world can [be] renewed only by the impossible, [and] the impossible is the blessing of God.21

The blessing of God will ultimately spread throughout the entire earth through the descendants of Abraham. We who are blessed in Abraham stand in a long line of those who willingly become the instruments through whom the blessing will flow. How else will the blessing of Abraham come to all nations unless we accept the responsibility following from being among the recipients of unbridled blessing?

Paul repeatedly spoke of the universal availability of the Gospel as he defined his apostolic mission: “Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake” (Romans 1:5).

This definition of his mission echoes the Abrahamic covenant in Paul’s use of the phrase “all the Gentiles.” It is the same phrase explained earlier, literally “all the nations,” (panta ta ethne) he uses in his quotation of Genesis 12:3 in Galatians 3:8,“Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.”

Paul sees Abraham as the model for what should have been Israel’s response to God but also as the model for all the nations who would be blessed through him. It is breathtaking to think the nations of the earth, when the Gospel is received, fall into this great line of those who will be the instruments of the blessing being received by all nations.

The Intersection of the Benediction and the Great Commission

The question before us in this chapter is, “How do we, as Christ-followers, live the blessed life in such a dark and messy world?” The concept of the pastoral benediction suggests one response to this question. Sometimes, without consciously understanding how it happens, the benediction contributes to our heart’s response to Christ’s Commission to “make disciples of all nations.” The pastor is blessing us with something we know only God can give, but the words of the benediction unleash the blessing of God into our lives. Many in the congregation may come to understand there is a bottom line following from the top line of blessing; through you, the blessed ones, all peoples on earth will be blessed. The realization of responsibility may light in our hearts a passion for taking our place in that long line of Christ-followers who have become the instruments or channels through whom the blessing might reach to the farthest corners of the dark, confused, and messy world in which we live, bringing redemption and healing.

For some of the blessed in our churches, their understanding of what it means to become an instrument through whom God’s blessing will flow to the nations may mean uprooting themselves from the comforts of home and moving across an ocean to places like Niger, Turkey, or Cambodia to bring the blessing to one of the peoples of the earth. Some will respond to the call to go and live among one of the least-reached peoples on earth.

For others, it may not involve crossing an ocean. Many of our churches are located in megacities of great ethnic diversity.22 At times , it seems to us people from among “all peoples on earth” have moved right into our church’s neighbourhood. Becoming a channel of blessing will certainly mean blessing those living right in the neighbourhood. And from a church body that acknowledges how blessed they are, there will be people so full of grace, so rich in God’s blessing, that it overflows from them to the ethnic groups of a great city or small town receiving immigrants.

The link between the weekly practice of a well-prepared, prayed-over, powerfully-delivered benediction upon God’s people and the commitment of the people to the Great Commission can be explained biblically, though the mystery of the connection cannot be fully grasped. There is anecdotal evidence in the stories of people on the pew who have stepped into the chain of blessing by blessing others. As pastors speak truth and blessing into the lives of their people, the recipients, so rich in God’s blessing, leave the place of worship to intentionally speak words of blessing to others. They have caught the vision of their church, their home, their school, their place of work becoming a place of giving and receiving a blessing, by their words and deeds. They begin to see the people around them in the subway, across from them in the café, in the marketplace, in the hallway at school, in the foyer at church as part of the “all peoples on earth” to whom they can extend a blessing.

The question framing this chapter has been, “How do we, as Christ-followers live the blessed life in a dark and messy world?” How do we who are children of Abraham live with the uncomfortable tension which emerges when we recognize how blessed we are but are confronted daily with the reminders of a world with many unreached peoples23 who have not yet been penetrated by the Gospel and live with tragedy and chaos we cannot ignore? The covenant of God with Abram provides one answer to that tension, “I will bless you. . . and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” The top line of blessing lies in God’s promise, “I will bless you.” The bottom line of blessing is “and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” Indeed, we are blessed to be a blessing.

This is an excerpt from the book, On Mission Volume 5. Download your free copy today.

1. The name of Abram’s wife, Sarai, was later changed to Sarah. Sarratu from which her name came was the wife of the moon god, Sin. Both Ur and Harran were important centres of moon worship. Gordon Wenham suggests that perhaps the family of Terah (Abram’s father) were once involved in such worship (cf. Joshua 24:2, 15). Gordon J. Wenham. Word Biblical Commentary: Genesis 1 – 15 (Waco: Word Books Publisher, 1987), 273.
2. Christopher J.H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2006), 213.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid., 214.
5. Ibid., 212.
6. Ibid., 216.
7. John Piper. Let the Nations be Glad: The Supremacy of God in Missions (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1983), 181.
8. Ibid., 170-184. In these pages is one of the most extensive but well-organized teachings from Scripture to be found on the meaning of people groups. Piper uses Ralph Winter’s definition of a people group: a significantly large grouping of individuals who perceive themselves to have a common affinity for one another because of their shared language, religion, ethnicity, residence, occupation, class or caste, situation, etc. . . .[It is] the largest group within which the Gospel can spread as a church planting movement without encountering barriers of understanding or acceptance. (Taken from Ralph Winter. “Unreached Peoples: Recent Developments in the Concept,” Mission Frontiers, August/September 1989), 12.
9. Winter, Unreached Peoples: Recent Developments in the Concept, 12. Ralph Winter defines an “unreached people group” as “a people group within which there is no indigenous community of believing Christians able to evangelize this people group.”
10. Wright, The Mission of God, 236.
11. Don Richardson, Eternity in their Hearts: The Untold Story of Christianity Among Folk Religions of Ancient People (Ventura: Regal Books, 1981), 123.
12. Wright, The Mission of God, 208.
13. Ibid., 209.
14. Ibid.
15. In the creation account, after God created humankind, “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number. . .’” (Genesis 1:28). This phrase is often referred to as the cultural mandate; it underlines God’s heart right from creation to bless humankind.
16. Richardson, Eternity in their Hearts, 123.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid., 123-124.
19. Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Conspiracy and Imprisonment 1940-1945 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006), 632.
20. https://sojo.net/articles/lost-translation-eugene-peterson-and-his-message.
21. Bonhoeffer, Conspiracy and Imprisonment, 623.
22. For example, according to the City of Toronto website (Toronto.ca) more than half its population (51.5%) was born outside of Canada; over 180 languages and dialects are spoken; over 30% of Toronto’s residents speak a language other than English or French at home. The same is increasingly true of many Canadian cities.
23. Winter, Unreached Peoples: Recent Developments in the Concept, 12. Ralph Winter defines an “unreached people group” as “a people group within which there is no indigenous community of believing Christians able to evangelize this people group.”