Why Include Adherents When Defining Unreached?
In 1995 a committee of Patrick Johnstone (then Editor of Operation World), John Gilbert (then IMB Global Research Office Director), Ron Rowland (SIL / Ethnologue researcher), Frank Jansen (then Adopt-A-People Clearinghouse Director) and Luis Bush (then AD2000 & Beyond Movement Director) decided the Joshua Project definition of “unreached”. The criteria for unreached on the Joshua Project list are: less than 2% Evangelical AND less than 5% Christian Adherent. Both conditions must be met to be considered unreached. The terms “Evangelical” and “Christian Adherent” follow the traditional Operation World definitions which can be found here. The 5% Adherent criterion was included in the definition of unreached to differentiate between a people group in Afghanistan with 0% Evangelicals and 0% Christian Adherents with no Christian heritage, no access to a Bible, no church, no Christian broadcasts, training, literature, etc. compared to a people group in say Western Europe that may have only a
