I come from Nagaland, a small state in the Northeast part of India. I’ve been in church planting for the past 17 years. I represent today a huge number of leaders who have come together to agree on the [Matthew] 24:14 vision. Irrespective of our denominational background or mission agencies, we’ve come together, agreeing on this vision and saying, “Let’s get the job done.” 

Today my country has the world’s largest harvest field: a population of 1.5 billion and growing each day. We have 615,000 villages 1,757 people groups that have been identified so far. Out of those 1,757, 1,517 are on the unreached people groups list. The list of unengaged unreached people groups lists 688 in India. So, with the overwhelming task ahead of us, we as the 24:14 family in India have prayerfully agreed: we will finish the task of getting the gospel to every people group, so that by December 31, 2025 there will be no unengaged people groups. So we have a sense of urgency and an overwhelming task. 

We could get caught up with the huge numbers ahead of us. But we want to go back to the simple tools: the simple paths the Bible has shown us for the work that has been assigned to us. The Great Commission has been given to every believer: to go and preach the gospel to all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything Jesus commanded. This Great Commission was given to all believers, so we believe in the priesthood of all believers. In 1 Peter 2:9, Peter writes: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood.” We agree, not just on a piece of paper; we agree in practice. 

It’s like in John 4, where Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well and revealed who he was. This lady had lived a very dark past: with five husbands, and the sixth one was not even her husband. But she just received Jesus Christ and believed, then she left her water jar and want back to the village and said: “Come see this man who told me everything I have done in the past. Could this be the Christ?” And the whole village came to faith. So this woman, who had just believed, became a child of God. She received an identity as a priest and was willing to immediately exercise her priesthood. 

We also we want to mobilize all our believers, so they become the workforce to take the gospel to every people group. We want to train them with a simple plan, giving them a simple tool for how to enter a new village. That is from Luke 10, where Jesus sends out 70 people, two by two. That means 35 pairs going to different places: praying and asking God to give them the person of peace. We equip them with a simple tool: being able to share their story and God’s story. And we give every believer training on simple discipleship and how to form a church. 

For that, we looking at Acts 2:41-47. What did the first believers do as a church? It was simple. Where did they meet? They met in their homes. We see examples of this throughout the New Testament . In Colossians 4:15 Paul writes: “Greet the saints that meet in your home.” To Philemon also: “Greet the saints that meet in your home. And in Romans 16 and 1 Corinthians 16 we read of believers meeting in their homes. The normal place of gathering was in their homes. 

So we equip the believers with a simple path and simple tools. We want them to know how to form a church and what to do as a church. Then they choose leaders from among themselves. So they have a simple five-step plan: Entry, Gospel, Discipleship, Church Formation, and Leadership Development. We would like to mobilize all believers and send them out into the harvest. We want every believer beginning to take ownership of the gospel, and able to share their story and God’s story. We have them make a list of their friends and relatives that they know. The goal is to touch a lot of these people groups that have never heard the gospel. These are people who we come across every day in the marketplaces and in businesses. Even when we socialize we meet many of them. 

So we equip every believer to take ownership of the gospel and to make a list of their family and friends – similar to the demoniac in Mark 5. Jesus had just delivered this guy, who was sleeping half of his life in a graveyard. When the villagers told Jesus to leave the area, this brand new believer (now clothed and in his right mind) begged Jesus: “Take me with you!” But Jesus did the opposite: instead of taking him with him, Jesus released him and gave responsibility to a brand new believer. He had no educational qualifications and no Christian background. But Jesus just released him into the harvest and said: “Go to your family and tell them what the Lord has done.” 

So if we mobilize all believers and train them, we will be able to achieve this task. As we go on engaging these people groups, many people would ask, “How can we measure engagement?” We as the 24:14 family in India have said we want to measure engagement. We consider a people group engaged when a movement has begun: four generations of churches being planted. Where the churches are led by an insider – a local person. Where churches are planting other churches. That means local sending – sending to the next village to plant another generation of churches. When we see four generations, it shows that the churches are now able to sustain themselves; there is a local ownership and local leadership in place. That means the new believers themselves are taking the gospel to others. The churches are healthy, self-governing, self-supporting, choosing their own leaders, and sending out laborers to other villages where the gospel has not been preached. They are self-correcting and self-feeding. They don’t need an outsider to come and lead the movement. When four generations of churches have started, we say that a people group has been engaged. 

A movement needs to be self-sustaining. If we exit a field too early, or just send out one or two laborers for prayer and just sharing the gospel, we don’t say the people group has been engaged. The word that comes to mind is Christian stewardship. Are we being good stewards? Have we left the field too early? If the gospel is not able to sustain itself, we left the field too early. We could fall into the danger of leaving some people groups behind, taking it for granted that they have been reached just because we have sent one or two laborers. But we need to aim for and measure according to the CPM practices of four generations of churches, where it is self-sustaining. We want to be good stewards of these people groups. We want to meet these people groups in heaven. Revelation 7:9 describes people groups of different languages coming together to worship Jesus Christ. So we do not want to leave any people group behind. As a request from the 24:14 India family, we ask you all to pray for the Indian church. Pray that we would take ownership of this gospel and be able to finish this task. Remember the urgency of our timeline: by December 31, 2025. So please join us in prayer that we would mobilize and train every believer, to get the gospel to these unengaged unreached people groups. And that we would be good stewards in this; that we would not leave the field too early and leave the task unfinished. Pray that God would also provide us the resources to build this momentum everywhere. 

We have seen that when a movement takes place, other movements are sparked. So as movement leaders, we want to have more and more laborers trained up to become church multipliers. Then we want to send them out to the harvest field. So please join us in prayer for this overwhelming and urgent task, and for the Indian church to walk in unity. Pray that at such a time as this, we can have unity to agree on the 24:14 vision and say, “Let’s come together and get the job done!”