Posted on Feb 7, 2007 | by Mickey Noah

ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP)--The presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board and International Mission Board simultaneously hit buttons to launch the new North American People Groups website (www.peoplegroups.info) on Feb.7 during a joint ceremony.

With interim NAMB President Roy Fish in Alpharetta, Ga., and IMB President Jerry Rankin in Richmond, Va., to “throw the switch,” the new interactive website -– developed and funded jointly by the SBC’s two mission boards -– now offers a wealth of data to Christian users and the public at large.

“The North American Mission Board has a long history of evangelism and church planting among the variety of language and ethnic groups in North America,” Fish said during the launch ceremony.

“Out of the 1,725 churches Southern Baptists started in 2005, 59 percent were either African American or ethnic congregations. We are a denomination committed to reaching across racial, ethnic and cultural lines with the Gospel. ... And today, we are proving that by the way we invest our mission dollars,” Fish said.

“NAMB recently adopted a strategic direction,” he continued. “One critical element of this strategy includes the identification of segments of lostness among all people groups in North America. Today’s unveiling of the People Groups website begins this process of identification. For how can we evangelize those who we do not know exist?” Fish asked.

The new People Groups database is designed to break down people groups living in a given state, city or zip code by nationality, language spoken at home and ancestry.

“More and more, we are finding that the people groups of the world, which are the focus of our international mission efforts, are also represented among our own population in the United States,” the IMB’s Rankin said.

“Partnering with the North American Mission Board to identify and reach these ethnic-linguistic pockets at home will not only stimulate an evangelistic outreach here that might otherwise be overlooked, it has the potential of evangelizing unreached people groups overseas,” Rankin said. “We are grateful for the initiative taken by NAMB to launch this site, and for the privilege of working together to bring all the peoples of the world to a saving faith in Jesus Christ.”

The user-friendly interactive website is intended for the pastor, church staffer or church member who wants to better understand and minister in their changing communities by knowing what ethnic groups live nearby and how many people they encompass.

The database pilot project was launched in April 2006 as a jointly funded venture by NAMB’s Center for Missional Research and IMB’s Global Research Department.

“With the pressing of this button, we further erase the distinction between ‘home’ and ‘foreign’ and move one step closer to ‘global’ mission engagement,” Ed Stetzer, director for NAMB’s Center for Missional Research, said during the ceremony.

With a few clicks, website users can scroll through census data to determine the nationalities and language groups present in their state or province, city and even down to neighborhoods.

“For instance, say you need to know the top 10 counties in the United States populated by those born in Ethiopia,” Stetzer said. “Or maybe you’d like to know how many people speak French, Spanish or Russian in your state or community. It’s available via an advance search engine on www.peoplegroups.info.”

Because the People Groups website is an interactive, two-way avenue of information, website users also can request missions expertise from North American and overseas missions personnel for a particular people group, and also participate in online discussion forums with other people group workers registered with the website. A resource database also permits the user to search for available ministry resources on the Internet for thousands of languages.

In addition, the People Groups site enables registered users to report back on people groups in their areas -– including cultural characteristics, the people groups’ degree of evangelization and ministry opportunities. Once reported in by Web users in the field, this information will be accessible on the website for all users.

Stetzer said further enhancements recently added to the website include the addition of Canadian census data, a more user-friendly advanced People Groups search engine, the ability to network with people online and a ministry resource database that will point users to websites offering Bibles, “JESUS” films and other evangelism/discipleship resources.

“The face of North America is changing,” Stetzer said. “From 1970 to 2006, the foreign-born population in the United States rose from 4.7 to almost 13 percent, 18 percent in Canada. By 2050, it’s predicted that half of the U.S. population will be of a different race than non-Hispanic white. North America is becoming a mosaic of people groups representing hundreds of languages, nationalities and religions.”

Jim Haney, director of IMB’s Global Research Department, noted, “Our job is to provide churches with research data to help make churches more effective in evangelism, church planting and in sending missionaries, both in North America and internationally. Globalization and transnationalism give North America a unique opportunity in history. North America has become a modern crossroads of peoples from around the globe,” Haney said.

Phillip Connor, manager of the People Groups website for NAMB, said, “Having planted churches among Chinese and South Asian communities of Montreal in my home country of Canada, I know the importance of good information and resources. My hope is that countless churches and leaders will use this resource to engage ethnic communities near them with the Gospel.”
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