Ethnê has been variously described as a “gathering place”, or a “village commons” or an “arena of relationship” for “UPG-focused” networks from around the world. These networks are trans-national and trans-denominational. In these various networks, organizations, churches, and individuals who share a common passion for serving Christ among specific “least evangelized” groups gather to do something none of us could do on our own.

Ethnê is therefore the “virtual place” where these various networks come together to collectively do what none of our networks could do on our own among the Unreached or Least Evangelized Peoples.

The Steering Committee itself (about 20 members) represent major networks on every continent (including Central Asia Consultation, India Mission Network, SEALINK, Arabian Peninsula Partnership, Nigerian Evangelical Mission Association, North Africa Partnership, SEANET, COMIBAM, Korea, and a variety of others. The larger “community” is global and majority non-Western.

Most of our networks focus on work among Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and major cities. Collectively, we are finding ways to mesh different “parts” of Gospel ministry. We are working to combine community development, Business as Mission, orality methods, holistic church planting movement concepts, strategic prayer, etc. in a way which will result in real movements of serious “serial discipleship” (i.e. not shallow concepts of “reaching”).

In the first Ethnê Initiative cycle, SEALINK (the South East Asia UPG network) served the global body of Christ by helping provide the linkage to connect representatives from each continent. In this current cycle, toward Ethnê09, COMIBAM (the Ibero-American mission network) has stepped forward to serve the larger body of Christ by taking more of the leadership of the Ethnê Steering Committee. The president of COMIBAM (Carlos Scott) and his leadership team have given full and open support to this process and have graciously offered to host the Ethnê09 “Family Gathering.” Ethnê09 will be held immediately following a major COMIBAM leadership meeting –November 1-4 in Bogota, Colombia.

The movement continues to gain ground in a viral way. The India Mission Association has already offered to be the core of and host the next Ethnê cycle (Ethnê2012?). This offer to serve the body of Christ as we join together to reach the Least Evangelized of the world is especially significant since most of the Least Evangelized of the world live in South Asia.

The Ethnê Strategy groups continue to grow and work in some amazing ways. The following are very brief reports:

The Holistic Gospel Movements group (Church Planting Movements) continues to collaborate to stimulate trainings and call out workers to peoples where little is happening. They have several working groups collecting ideas on best practices based on actual success stories, including in some urban settings in Asia. This group is deeply committed to seeing transforming discipleship happen, and is against seeing just shallow believers and simplistic groups emerge.

The Frontier Crisis Response group has connected many workers and networks into more effective efforts which continue to leave long term workers in place long after the initial crisis is past. This group has had key roles in Aceh, Myanmar, Pakistan, etc.

The Member Care Strategy group is in process of finding ways to connect “UPG focused workers” to member care and member health resources. This group will prioritize connecting such resources to personnel from organizations and nations which have fewer of such resources.

The Student Mission Mobilization network is working together multi-nationally to stimulate mobilization of young s to work specifically among the Least Evangelized. Most recently, this group met in August in conjunction with Mission Korea. Under the heading of Student Mission Mobilization Roundtable, over 50 mission Mobilizers from over 20 Asian countries (plus one each from Romania, Brazil and Nigeria) met to share ideas, share resources, stimulate national and multi-national mission mobilization events – and have a lot of fun as you would expect student Mobilizers would J.

The Ethnê Strategic Prayer group has stimulated major intercessory initiatives. They have connected well with the Global Day of Prayer movement in order to provide “UPG-specific” prayer updates. They have stimulated a key initiative in Africa called Pray40. This initiative, led by African leaders who are members of the Ethnê family, has begun to spread from South Africa to other African countries and hopefully to other countries around the world. The Ethnê prayer update goes to intercessory specialists and networks on each continent and links into literally several million intercessors. The global UPG prayer initiative (with a focus on UPGs in every region of the world) is now into its third year. Joshua Project and Global Prayer Digest and now www.ethnopedia.org (a COMIBAM initiative) are just a few of the key players in this effort. Sub-groups of this strategy group have met in Africa, Asia, Europe and the US – and continue to spread.

The Ethnê website has had some challenges but is moving forward into some new capabilities, including both automated (and thus roughly wooden) translation tools as well as more and more who are taking the initiative to provide various materials and translations in their own language.

Much is being discussed about how to work together as the Global North and Global South. Many of us in the Ethnê Steering Committee and Ethnê Strategy groups are experiencing the thrill of finding out that true, equal collaboration and sense of family really does happen. As we work together on our way to serve the Peoples Jesus loves, we have found that we are becoming true family along the way.