David Sitton is the President of To Every Tribe, a ministry which has been planting churches among unreached people groups of Papua New Guinea and Mexico for many years now. The ministry is led by a distinguished board of directors and three executive officers. As it happens, they are seeking to hire a Director for their Center for Pioneer Church Planting.
To Every Tribe is hosting a conference this October 22-23 entitled Reckless Abandon: For Jesus and The Nations. In light of this conference, and as a means of spreading the word about To Every Tribe, I’ll be posting a three or four part interview with David Sitton. Part 1 was posted last week. Here’s part 2:
David – Thanks for your willingness to talk a bit more.
It’s great that so many read our first interview and some cared enough to respond. I’m glad we can do a Part 2.
For an opening statement, I’d like to reply to Justin Long at The Network for Strategic Missions and his observation (as a comment on your blog) that my definitions of unreached and unevangelized, according to many missiologists are inverted. That’s mostly true. However, Donald McGavran, one of the foremost missiologists of the last 100 years, defined unreached much the same way I do. “Socially isolated away from gospel witness” is one way he put it. But the important point is that I suspect most of our differences are largely in the semantics.
I would still argue that the natural progression for the gospel among unreached people groups is this: They are first unreached, meaning, there is no knowledge or access to the gospel within their culture. Then, as they hear the gospel, some are converted, leaders are trained and a small church is established. At this point, I consider them to be reached, meaning, that Christ and the gospel are now known, embraced (church planted) and accessible in their culture.
But there is still a remaining need for evangelization to be completed among them. This is the third phase, which I like to call reaching. This simply means that the needed evangelization is completed through the efforts of their own national believers (church) and with their own local resources.
At this point is when the pioneer church planter should move on to other unreached people groups. So the process is Unreached – Reached – Reaching.
Many missiologists see the process as Unevangelized – Unreached – Christian.
Here’s the reason I especially don’t like that third category (Christian) very much. It has largely lost its meaning for me because too many statisticians include anyone that claims to be Christian into that category. For example, it is often said that Papua New Guinea is 97.28% Christian. That is complete nonsense to anyone that has spent any amount of time in PNG. When the Christian category stretches its arms so wide as to surround and include Catholics, far-fringe syncretistic cargo cults and sometimes even the Mormons, it completely confuses the true situation of the urgent need for mission in the remote and still unreached places.
Romans 15:17-24 has greatly affected the way I think about the remaining task of mission. Paul explains that he is leaving the region from “Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum (modern day Albania)” because his aim is to preach the gospel, not where Christ is already named. Paul justifies his departure by quoting Isaiah 52:15 – so that “Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.”
Paul says “there is no more place for me to work in these regions”, and so, he turns his attention to Spain which Paul considered to be an “uttermost” region where Christ was still not known.
How could Paul say there was “no more work for him in these regions?” Certainly there were lost people all over that huge swath of territory that still needed to be evangelized. But for the pioneer church planter, Paul’s
job in the region was finished, and he turned his attention to less reached places.
Paul wasn’t saying by his departure that there was no more need for evangelization. He was saying that this territory was now sufficiently reached so that the remaining work of evangelism could be completed by the local believers in the churches he had established.
This is what I understand from Romans 15:
Unreached Peoples are places where Christ has not been named; where people have never been told of him; where there are those who have never heard of him.
Reached (but not completely evangelized) Peoples are places where Christ is already named; the people have been told of him; they have heard of him; Churches are planted; and the remaining need to evangelize the unsaved, within that now reached region, falls to the local believers.
Reaching Peoples are those that, with their own national manpower and local resources, are completing the job of evangelization and missionary mobilization (and sending) themselves.
And the church planting missionary moves on to other unreached places where Christ is still unknown (unreached) to repeat the process.
I want to say clearly, again, much of the difference, I think, among missiologists comes from our having slightly differing definitions. But we all agree on the distressing spiritual condition of the remaining unreached peoples of the world.
I hope that’s not overly tedious, but I wanted to explain why I have come to use these words and definitions.
I was wondering if we could tackle a couple of exegetical questions. How do you understand Matthew 24:14 (“And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”) in light of the widespread belief in the imminent return of Christ?
I believe the Lord wants every generation of believers to live under the expectation on an imminent return of Christ. Paul himself, I think, was looking for the return of Jesus in his lifetime (I Thess. 4-5) and even encouraged believers to live in a way that would “speed” its coming (2 Peter 3:12).
As for Matthew 24:14, I take it at its literal face value. It means exactly what it says. When every one of the 17,000 ethnicities (people groups) in the world has the gospel established among them, then Christ will return. The Lord will not have an incomplete crop! Heaven will be gloriously populated with the elect from “every nation, tribe and language group” (Rev. 5:9; 7:9).
Do I live in expectancy of an imminent return of Jesus Christ? I do. Jesus is coming soon. And it’s certainly a lot nearer now than when we first believed (Romans 13:11-12). However, humanly speaking, I know there are thousands of places around the world where the peoples are still desperately unreached and groping around like blind men in the strongholds of hostile spiritual darkness. So from that stand point, I don’t expect Christ to return tonight. But here’s the thing for me; Jesus said three times in Revelation 22 “Surely I am coming soon”; the last prayer of the bible is the church saying in response – “Amen, come Lord Jesus.” So when I pray – “Come, Lord Jesus”, I’m praying that the gospel would speedily go to the ends of the earth; I’m praying for the rapid success of the gospel among unreached peoples; I’m praying for the elect to be quickly drawn in. And when the Lord has gathered in the last portions of his purchased Bride from among the earths peoples, the Lord will split the skies and come for her. And the Lord could make that happen in an instant if he so chooses.
Editorial Note (from Alex Chediak): For a helpful treatment on the issue of the return of Christ (When? How? Could it happen at any moment?) see Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology (also on Amazon).
How do you understand Colossians 1:24 (“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church”)? Specifically, how does our suffering relate to the extending of Christ’s kingdom?
I tip my hat to John Piper in helping me understand this one. His message a few years ago entitled “Doing Mission when Dying is Gain” is a must listen.
There are two questions that scream out of the Colossians 1:24 text.
Question 1: What is lacking in Christ’s afflictions?
Answer: Absolutely nothing is lacking in its accomplishment of salvation for his people. Salvation is full and free and completely purchased and secured by Christ through his death and resurrection.
Question 2: If there is nothing lacking in the accomplishment of Christ’s afflictions to acquire salvation for his people, then what is lacking (because the verse clearly says that Paul was filling up the lack)? And how can we provide what is lacking?
Answer: The lack in Christ’s afflictions is not in its accomplishment, but in its, personal, specific application to the nations.
Josef T’son has said – “The nations will be won by his (Christ’s) cross and through our crosses.”
I understand that to mean that it’s the cross of Christ that accomplished salvation – But it’s our cross; that is, it’s our joyful enduring of hardship, suffering and martyrdom (maybe) that proves the truth of the cross to hostile nations.
It’s a difficult dynamic to understand at first. But the Ecuador 5 is a great example of how this works. The cross of Christ was proven to be the power of God for salvation for the Auca tribe. The truth of the gospel was confirmed through 5 human crosses when they were slaughtered by the Auca spears.
When a missionary speaks the gospel in love, then meets violent death in joy for this gospel, a miracle sometimes occurs. The eyes of unbelievers are opened. God enables them to understand the significance of the death of Christ, as demonstrated by the missionaries they just killed – And many of them eventually believe in Christ. This is the consistent testimony from the stoning of Stephen to this present day explosion of gospel advance in the most heavily persecuted areas of the world. Persecution and suffering is not a set-back to mission; it’s an incentive for more aggressive gospel witnessing.
I believe that suffering, hardship, persecution and missionary martyrdom is a divine strategy that God intentionally uses – To advance the fame of his name to all nations. Persecutions always advance the gospel more quickly.
Not to belabor the point, but isn’t it interesting that God has a predetermined number of martyrs (Rev 6:11-14) that he has appointed for the ingathering of his predetermined number of lost sheep (John 6:35-40; 44 and John 10:15)?
We talked about “panta ta ethne” (to all the nations – ethnicities) a bit last time. One of the facts that impressed me when I took the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course was that the last 50 years seem to have brought us much closer to the goal. Can you comment on that?
We are, of course, closer to the goal. But the remaining part of the task is the hardest part. We often say at To Every Tribe that the easy-to-reach places have already been reached. The remaining unreached peoples are (often) geographically remote, culturally and linguistically confusing and oftentimes physically hostile to those carrying the gospel.
When could we finish the task? It could happen quickly if a few thousand martyr missionaries would rise up to go; a few thousand financial martyrs would rise up to sacrificially support them and a few thousand Moravian-like prayer martyrs would rise up to intercede for them. This is the kind of revival I’m praying and believing for. The problem is not essentially a manpower or money shortage. The shortage is in the number of missionaries who are willing to “fall into the earth and die” for the greater harvest (John 12:23-25). A lot of seed needs to be buried in order to reap the remaining crop.
Mark Noll and others have noted that world Christianity has taken on a new shape with large sending bases now in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. What effects might this have on pioneer missions of the sort To Every Tribe does? Are you recruiting at all from outside the USA?
The missionary task is not an American effort; and these days, missionaries from the West are among the least effective in the remaining rough and tough places of the world. Pioneer church planting is grueling work and it will not be accomplished over the long haul by soft, fearful, risk-avoiding missionaries. I praise God that he is raising up fully abandoned, martyr witnesses from 2nd and 3rd world peoples; and we want to work with them.
The effect of this cross-cultural work force will only have a positive effect on To Every Tribe. We want to learn how to maximize multi-cultural church planting teams with our brothers from other countries. We want to be on the aggressive front-line of helping them to organize and mobilize for the nations. In our own Center For Pioneer Church Planting, I see near-future multi-cultural partnerships and church planting teams consisting of American, Canadian, Australian, Mexican and Papua New Guinean believers. Part of our vision is to establish missionary training bases in PNG and Mexico in order to launch these church planting teams in the fastest, most contextually relevant and cost effective ways that we can.
Thanks again for your time and your important work.
Thank you, brother, for your interest in our ministry. I pray God’s best blessings on your family and your good work for the gospel. Let’s reconvene for a third conversation sometime.
(To Be Continued…….)

David Sitton is the President of To Every Tribe, a ministry which has been planting churches among unreached people groups of Papua New Guinea and Mexico for many years now. The ministry is led by a distinguished board of directors and three executive officers. As it happens, they are seeking to hire a Director for their Center for Pioneer Church Planting.
To Every Tribe is hosting a conference this October 22-23 entitled Reckless Abandon: For Jesus and The Nations. In light of this conference, and as a means of spreading the word about To Every Tribe, I’ll be posting a three or four part interview with David Sitton over the next 30 days or so. Here’s part 1:
David, can you please tell us a little bit about your background. How did you come to know the Lord?
I appreciate you taking the time for this interview for your blog/website.
I grew up in Corpus Christi, Texas and was quite the wild hare hellion in my junior high and high school days – That would be about the years of 1973-76. I was gladly dominated by the adrenaline-laced life of drugs, girls and the South Texas surfing sub-culture.
But there was always a super-charged spiritual drive within me that was in competition with the excitement of wild living. I remember those days as being a miserably conflicted young man.
The short story for salvation is that the Lord drew me in through the consistent testimony of one of my girlfriends; her whole family actually. It wasn’t the immediate click of a gospel light switch though. For me, it was more like one of those mood lamps where you turn the knob and the light gets slowly brighter; I was drawn in to Christ over the process of some months.

How were you called into missions work, and among what people did you serve?
I’ve got to say that I cringe at the idea of a missionary “call”. Too many believers hide behind the mirage of an expected miraculous, mystical “calling” that never seems to be dramatic enough. There is nothing in the New Testament anything like our Western view of a “missionary call.”
The biblical reality is that 99% of the cross-cultural workers in the book of Acts got there one way: Persecution! And most of the remaining 1% went because the Apostle Paul challenged them to go. And that’s how it happened for me.
The Lord got me for unreached peoples through a missionary. He looked me straight in the eye, quoted a text and asked me a question. Romans 15:20-21 was the text – “I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation, but as it is written ‘Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.” And here’s the question – “There are lots of unreached tribes in Papua New Guinea. Some of them are cannibalistic and hostile headhunting tribes; they are completely unreached by the gospel. Come with me brother – Let’s go get some of them for Jesus.” I was 19 years old. But from that moment, my life was re-directed and set upon a course for the unreached regions. And that was 32 years ago.

With the emphasis that men like Ralph Winter put on the concept of “panta ta ethne“, has pioneering mission work (work among unreached peoples) become more common today?
Ralph Winter almost single-handedly put the concept of “unreached peoples” into the missionary consciousness. Until the early 1970’s, the church had focused upon “geo-political countries” as the target for missionary outreach. Winter popularized “panta ta ethne” which is the Greek phrase out of Matthew 28:19 “to all the nations (ethnicities)” as the biblical target for the gospel. The intent of the death of Christ was to secure salvation for the elect people of God within each and every ethnic and linguistic people group; more than 24,000 of them worldwide.
So, yes, this concept is very much understood today in the missionary community, but not so much in the churches.
My understanding, and I could be mistaken, is that the majority of new missionaries still tend to go to reached cultures, as opposed to unreached ones. But I’m wondering if this trend is changing.
Thanks for the set-up for something I really want to say clearly. There’s an important difference between unevangelized and unreached peoples.
Unevangelized people are unconverted individuals in places where there are established churches. Unreached peoples are those that live in regions where there are no churches and no access to the evangelical gospel in their culture.
And to answer your question about the present trend; 96% of the missionary work force is still laboring in unevangelized, but not truly unreached regions. Here it is again – 9 out of 10 Christian missionaries that go cross-cultural are still going to reached places!
Here’s still another way to say it – Something like 90% of all “ministers” worldwide are concentrating on only 2% of the world’s population! We are massively overly evangelizing places where the gospel is already well planted! I believe that we need a substantial strategic redeployment of the missionary workforce to the areas where there is still no access to the evangelical gospel.

You represent a ministry called To Every Tribe. What is your unique emphasis or focus? How are you similar (or different) from groups like Frontiers or Pioneers? Do you partner with any other groups?
Our emphasis is upon the strictly unreached people groups of Papua New Guinea and Mexico along with a growing presence among Muslim immigrants here in the United States.
We have many friends among FRONTIERS and PIONEERS and we highly value their work for the gospel in hard places. And we are interested in gospel partnerships as those opportunities arise.
To Every Tribe though is unique in an interesting blend of its distinctives:
1. We are committed to the least reached people groups.
2. We are a pioneer church planting ministry.
3. We come from a reformed, non-cessationist theological perspective.
4. We are a missionary training institution as well as a sending agency.
You have established the Center For Pioneer Church Planting in south Texas. Can you talk a little about the strategic role of church planting as opposed to other forms of mission ministry (e.g., medical missions, engineering missions)?
Everything is a tool. Medicine and dental clinics and clean water systems and feeding the hungry and all of that is important work. And its gospel work when used as means to actively demonstrate the love and compassion of Christ and to gain a hearing for the gospel in sometimes hostile environments. But the preaching of Christ is the emphasis. Establishing new believers into vibrant, reproducing fellowships is the goal. Everything else is a tool that helps us get the name of Christ and salvation to the most interior places.
Do you think it is preferable for these other forms of missions to be done in cooperation with a church planting team, say, among an unreached people group?
These tools should be carefully used so that they do not become the main thing. One of the big problems in mission is in creating dependency among those we are trying to reach. There is a way to plant indigenous churches so they are not dependent upon American manpower and money-power from the West. And these are the most healthy and happy churches.
Speaking of church planting, what do you do with the fact that nearly 2/3 of the missionary labor force is female?
We actively recruit women and joyfully send them as a part of our church planting teams!
Are there certain areas in which women are particularly suited to serve?
There are many things that only women can and should do! By the way – I counted one time 36 people in the New Testament that were named by name as being co-workers with the Apostle Paul. And almost half of them were women! The list of things women can do is far longer than the “can’t do” list.
Are there areas in which they should not serve?
The Scriptures are clear about male leadership in the church. Women should not serve as elder/overseers in the local church. And they should not lead the way in the teaching and preaching of the Word (though that doesn’t mean absolute silence either as 1 Corinthian 14 gives guidelines for how women should pray and prophesy in the assembly of believers).
But here is a question I get a lot. Can women plant churches? Again, we believe that men should lead church planting teams.
But here’s a question for you? Do you know who planted the church among the Auca Indians in Ecuador? Rachel Saint did. That wasn’t the plan. The men were leading the way in that gospel effort among the Auca’s – But the Ecuador 5 were slaughtered by the Auca warriors! Rachel Saint and Elisabeth Elliot went back in and eventually got the gospel established among that hostile tribe that had killed their brother and husband! So absolutely, women can plant churches as they have repeatedly done all through church and mission history. But our emphasis is still upon male leadership of church planting teams.
At the Bethlehem Pastors conference in 2006, you openly invited men to join you, and sensed that God was calling 10% of those in attendance to join you in pioneer missions work. Is that right? Can we get an update on that?
That whole period of time leading up to the Bethlehem Pastors Conference was an anointed time almost unprecedented in my entire life. In the weeks leading up to the conference, the Lord strongly impressed upon me the number of 140. I had been told that there would be 1,400 pastors in attendance – And that’s where the “tithe” came from.
Our staff and students were actively praying and fasting for the 3 weeks leading up to the conference that God would release 140 pastors into the worldwide harvest. And the Lord is doing it.
In the weeks and months following the conference more than 200 people contacted me. Some of these are presently on our staff and have gone through our missionary training and are en route for unreached places!
I have received e-mails, letters and phone calls by numerous people that have told me they resigned their pastorates, sold their homes and are now working among unreached peoples around the world (with other agencies). One especially touching testimony happened the following year when I was again at the Bethlehem Conference as a registrant. A man came up to me, introduced himself to me and burst into tears. He said, “I heard you speak last year. I had my daughter listen to the tape. And she is now living among an unreached Muslim people group in the Middle East.”
It was a miraculous day where the Lord mobilized a large number for the unreached regions. And I suspect there were missionary martyrs that were gloriously raised up for the gospel that day. Only in heaven will the complete testimony be known.
What are your hopes for the next 10 years?
Let’s make it 5 years. Anything I say about the possibilities a decade down the road will seriously undershoot what the Lord is about to do. But we do have a 5 year plan. Here’s the way I wrote it out in a purpose statement: My hope is that the Lord will use To Every Tribe to train and launch church planting teams to at least 25 more unreached people groups within the next five years. 25 church planting teams represent about 80-90 missionary families and singles.
I’m asking for missionary martyrs to step up and get prepared for the frontline hostile places; and I’m asking for those that don’t go to step up as financial martyrs to sacrificially send them!
David, thank you so much for your time.
Brother, thank you so much. Let’s do this again.

(To Be Continued…….)