EQUIP UNREACHED INITIATIVE
The Equip Institute focuses on training pastors, church leaders, and missionaries.
The Equip Unreached Initiative is focused on the latter group—missionaries—specifically those with a call to reach UPGs
What ia s UPG?
Unreached People Groups
No Church
No Gospel
No Witness
About UPGs
Data on UPGs
More than 3 billion of the world’s 8 billion people belong to Unreached People Groups (UPGs), meaning they live without a viable church presence or meaningful access to the gospel. Of the approximately 7,000 UPGs worldwide, nearly 3,000 are further classified as Unengaged Unreached People Groups (UUPGs). These communities not only lack a church presence and gospel access but also receive little to no active missional engagement.
Reaching UPGs
Training to Reach UPGs
The long-standing concept of “closed countries”—those that suppress Christianity and restrict missionary access—remains useful, but it must be understood differently today. In practice, many countries and regions are primarily only “closed” to Westerners, while individuals from the Majority World often have significantly greater access. Moreover, whereas mission once flowed predominantly “from the West to the Rest,” today it increasingly moves “from everywhere to everywhere.”
In addition to training pastors and church leaders, we also train Majority World missionaries. In response to their calling, some of the missionary leaders we train are already serving within so-called “closed” regions among Unreached People Groups, while others are actively preparing to go.