Research

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen.

Let us agree that wherever we travel, we go with one message - a message of love. God loves us a lot, He loves the people there a lot, and we take this love from Him, so we love them a lot. When we travel from a country at the end of the world - call it Egypt - what are we doing? We are saying, "We love you, and God loves you." It is a message of love.

The service is now less than 20 years old, and I want to cover some of the experiences we have gathered in the 15 to 17 years that have passed. The approaches we use, the things we have learned. Every country has different circumstances, so you do not take one approach and say, "I will use this everywhere." It is a mix of several approaches. There are things we started with, things we added later. Let me walk you through some of these approaches.

Ten Approaches to Evangelism

1. Lifestyle Evangelism

This is the most powerful form of witness - living among people and letting them see Christ in you. One of our brothers, a resident named Samih, was someone who was considered very good at giving gifts and serving. But his life itself had a very powerful impact on the people who lived around him. Many people came to know Christ because of the way he lived. Many people loved the church because he just went and lived among them. He had a project in a specific country, but the real impact was that people could see him, live with him, and feel his love. That approach is not just for special people - we are all Christians. We live our lives, our work, our normal lives, and people see Christ in us.

2. Servant Evangelism

This is a major part of what we do. We go to a country and do school programs, hospitality, medical missions, educational initiatives - something that helps people with their practical needs. The servant serves the society, and through that service, doors open.

3. Street Preaching

You can see this in Africa, but not in every country. In some places, you can go stand in the street, talk, and share openly. But in other countries, this does not work at all. Research tells you which approach fits which context.

4. Child Evangelism

In many countries, we think about the children first. We do Sunday school for children, children's programs, vacation activities. Children are remarkably open, and when a child comes to know Christ, the whole family is often affected.

5. Event Evangelism

We do events - medical campaigns, Christmas celebrations, community gatherings. This was important in some countries, especially in the early stages of discovery. After a few years of presence, you can do a major event with significant impact.

6. Bible Study

The core - this is supposed to be at the heart of all the approaches. In most countries, the very first thing we establish is a Bible study group. Sometimes in a country that already has a service, locals call their friends and they hold Bible study gatherings together.

7. Relational and Conversational Evangelism

This is mostly in countries where it is difficult to share openly. It is all about relationships. One of our brothers was living in a dormitory in a country where you could not openly proclaim Christianity. He did not preach. He did not distribute anything. He simply prayed before every meal. From there, people started to ask, "Why do you pray? Who do you pray to?" That was the approach. Through the relationship - he is a person, a friend, he is part of the community - and through that, people start to ask questions and he can share the faith.

8. Medical Approach

We have seen this in many countries, especially countries suffering from poor health care services. The medical service can be done through event evangelism - a medical mission - or through an ongoing medical project. There is a model called community health care workers where local people are trained not to be doctors, but to be able to discover cases that need to go to a hospital, because the country may not have hospitals nearby.

9. Sports Ministry

We have not tried this model ourselves yet, and we do not have experience with it, but it is worth the effort. In some countries we explored, we thought about doing sports activities - gathering youth, playing sports with them, and from there the service begins. You live with them, play with them, and get to know them more. In one country during exploration, we saw that it would be very effective to open a gym. The lifestyle level there is good, and if the coach is a genuine Christian, it would have a big impact.

10. Business as Mission

In some countries, we can think of a business - a project in the country not primarily to make money, though some should be sustainable, but also as a way for servants who live in that country to have work permits and a legitimate presence. I was inspired by something I saw - an Australian missionary in Asia who opened a cafe. On the upper floor of the cafe, he created what he called a "speaking room." He told people, "If you want to practice English, take your coffee and come up to the speaking room." People from different languages would come to practice English, and sitting among them were the missionary, his children, and people from his team. That was creative, wise, and effective.

The point is that you do not just pick one approach. You always think about the service and take a mix of all these approaches based on what works in the specific country.

The Spies of Canaan - A Biblical Foundation for Research

Let me take you to the book of Numbers, chapters 13 and 14. The Lord spoke to Moses and said, "Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel." God promised and gave it to them. He said to send a man from every tribe, each one a leader among them. A leader is a person who takes responsibility and dreams of the presence of the Kingdom of God.

Then in Numbers 13:17, Moses sent them to spy out the land and said to them, "Go up this way into the South, and go up to the mountains, and see what the land is like: whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak, few or many; whether the land they dwell in is good or bad; whether the cities they inhabit are like camps or strongholds; whether the land is rich or poor; and whether there are forests there or not."

What is Moses doing here? Two things. First, he gave them a plan - people knew where to go, there was a clear direction. Second, he gave them a checklist - go and do research on these specific things. What are the people like? What is the land like? Is there a forest? This is research.

Now someone might say, "But God already told them He was giving them the land! Why do they need to do research?" God gave the land to the people of Israel, but they still had to do their part - go and research and travel and send people. We have to do our part. When I think about this, I think about the raising of Lazarus. Our Lord Jesus was going to raise a dead man - three or four days in the grave, definitely a supernatural miracle. And yet He said, "Roll away the stone." He wanted them to move the stone. God will do the miracle, but He asks us to do our part. He will open people's hearts by the Holy Spirit, but we must do the research, the preparation, the homework.

The Research Methodology

Research as a methodology - some of you may have studied this in university. Let me walk you through how it works, and then we will apply it to the service.

Step 1 - Define Your Research Question

There are a thousand questions you could work on. You need to define which one. For example, if I want to buy a car, I think: I want a family car, I need space for service equipment, I will be traveling a lot, and I need to stay within my financial budget. That is my research question - what car fits these needs?

In the service, our research question might be: "What opportunities exist for evangelism in this country?" What are the common features of the country? What approaches can we use? What are the challenges and what are the opportunities?

Step 2 - General Search

Start with a broad search. Look for the common features of the country and the approaches that might work. Look for challenges and opportunities. And study the history of Christianity in the area. This is important. There was a country we went to where the Catholics who had been there before had a complicated history - people associated all outside Christians with that history. So we needed to understand who went before us and what happened, so we could figure out how to approach people without that baggage.

From the general search, you gather information and start to organize it.

Step 3 - Identify Problems and Variables

Now you look at the data and identify the problems. For example: in this country, you are not allowed to talk to anyone under 18 about religion. Or: it is illegal to share your faith openly. These are problems - specific obstacles you need to work around.

Step 4 - Play with the Variables

Start changing the variables. If you cannot reach people under 18, can you do programs for adults instead? If open preaching is illegal but people ask you about your faith, you can share freely - so maybe a lifestyle approach works. Change the location, change the age group, change the approach. Find the combination that opens doors.

Step 5 - Test and Examine

Before committing big resources, test your idea. I remember about two and a half years ago, we were examining a project. We needed to start an educational center for children. Instead of immediately getting a place, doing all the paperwork, and investing heavily, we started with something called "fundays." We did them twice a week - gathered the children, played two games, shared something nice, taught a letter like the letter E, sang songs, and went home. When we found success - the children came, the parents were supportive - we knew it worked. In the testing phase, we did the project like a demo. From there, we took the decision: we entered the educational center, we trained people, we set up the place, we had resources, classes, specific activities - everything clear.

Step 6 - Make the Decision

Based on tested results - not assumptions, not wishful thinking - make the decision about where to serve, what approach to use, and how to allocate resources.

SWOT Analysis - A Tool for Strategic Thinking

The research we do also involves analysis. We use something called SWOT analysis - Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

Strengths and Weaknesses are internal - things about us. We all have weaknesses and we do not always want to admit them, but we need to know them. We also have strengths, and we need to know those too.

Opportunities and Threats are external - things you cannot control. You need to learn how to deal with them, how to understand them, and how to respond to them. When you explore and look at the external factors, you need to determine: is this an opportunity or a threat in the situation I am in?

Here is a critical principle: research is NOT a milestone. It is not something you do once and say "we are done." Research spans exploration, building reputation, and beyond. Why? Because it is a dynamic field. You can be in a place and other groups come and do something that fails, and the field changes. A new religion gains influence. The geography and roads change - we were thinking a location was three hours from the capital and it seemed too far, but then a new road is built and it takes only 40 minutes. The economy and needs change - a country with good tourism might suddenly lose it. Politics and laws change. Everything changes. We should continue researching from the time of the second milestone onward. Even if you reach the empowered church and move to a new place, you start research all over again.

Data Sources - Where to Find the Information You Need

The starting point is the checklist - like the one Moses gave to the spies. We do this online before the journey. You can do research during the education phase on any country. Later, the team responsible for the country will do it in depth. But for now, we do secondary research - we do not take primary data yet.

Primary Digital Resources

Joshua Project (joshuaproject.net) - I see Joshua Project as your number one resource. When you come to the country, you get data from here, and from here you can move forward. It is organized by countries, continents, and people groups within each country. There are many details.

Joshua Project started in 1998. Technical people - software developers, coders - built a big database. They took a large part of the data from Operation World and built Joshua Project on top of it.

Open Doors World Watch List - This is very important. Open Doors was founded by a European, a Dutch man, who was famous as "God's Smuggler." He was the person who smuggled thousands of Bibles into China, the Soviet Union, and other closed countries. His book was an inspiration. Later, the work grew into an NGO called Open Doors, which now publishes a watchlist of more than 50 countries where Christians face persecution. When you research a country, the first thing you check is whether it is on this list. If it is, you have a completely different perspective and different considerations.

Operation World - There was a man who was a missionary in Africa, from a European country. Every time he traveled, he would meet other missionaries and ask them about their work. He took a lot of notes and started writing small books with details. As his work grew, he wrote a book called Operation World covering all countries. There was a version published in 1994, and later editions. Of course, with the internet, you do not need the book as much, but Operation World as an organization continues to be a valuable resource.

Government and Institutional Sources

CIA World Factbook - Reliable data on every country. United Nations agencies publish reports on health, education, and development. Country government websites, tourism ministry sites, and health ministry reports can provide specific, practical information about regulations, infrastructure, and local conditions. All this data is easy to get from these sites.

A Warning About Unreliable Sources

Do not rely on Wikipedia for mission-critical decisions. Please. There was an organization - a missionary organization from another country that we were working alongside. They were doing research and chose where to work based on what they got from Wikipedia. Based on what I saw in this case, the information was wrong. They did not succeed. They lost money and lost time because they were choosing where to go based on unreliable information.

About AI tools like ChatGPT - I personally use three or four AI tools. ChatGPT is not wrong as a tool - the question is how we use it. You should understand that ChatGPT takes data from us. So never enter sensitive data. Do not enter the name of the church, the name of the NGO, the name of the service, or the location of the church. This data enters their system. No one should enter sensitive information - no church names, no service names, no NGO names, no details about where the church does its service. But you can use it for ideas - I personally asked it for ideas to prepare this workshop. So it is not wrong, but the data it gives is not always accurate. It can give you a reference for something that does not exist.

Understanding People Groups

There are approximately 16,000 distinct people groups in the world. A people group is a group of individuals that have a common sense of history, language, beliefs, and identity. While there are about 196 countries, ethnically there are far more distinct groups within those borders. Pakistan alone has over 400 distinct people groups.

Around 7,000 of those 16,000 people groups are considered unreached - meaning less than 2% of the population is evangelical Christian. That means too few believers to evangelize and disciple the rest of the group. Almost 3 billion people fall into this category.

Over 3,000 of those unreached groups are unengaged - no churches, no known believers, no missionaries, and no one actively focused on engaging them.

95% of all unreached people groups are located in the region between 10 and 40 degrees north latitude, stretching from North Africa to Southeast Asia. This is called the 10/40 window. It is where most of the major non-Christian religions hold sway.

It is important to understand the difference between unreached and unengaged. They are not connected to each other - some groups are unreached but have some missionaries working among them, while unengaged groups have nothing at all. This matters because when we are starting in a new country, we may begin in an area with some existing presence, but as the service matures and we have a strong local church, we start thinking about reaching the unengaged places further away.

The Country Research Checklist

When researching a country for evangelism service, here is what you need to know:

• Christians - How many are there? How do they live? What do they believe? What denominations are present?
• Other religions - What are the major faiths? What do they believe? What influence do they have?
• Infrastructure - Is there reliable water, electricity, and food supply?
• Languages - What languages are spoken? Are there tribal languages? What is the language of education?
• Education - What is the state of education? What institutions exist?
• Health - What is the state of healthcare? What are the most common needs?
• Demographics - What is the population distribution?
• Culture - What are the customs, traditions, and social norms?
• Economy - What is the economic situation? What do people do for a living?
• Politics - How stable is the government? What is the political situation?
• Legal requirements - What are the regulations for NGO registration? Church registration?

All these aspects will affect every decision you make. The approach you use in one country will be different from the approach in another. Each country has a different situation, so if all these aspects change, everything changes. Do the homework before you book the flight.

Key Takeaways

• God gives the promise but expects us to do the research - just as Moses sent spies to Canaan before entering, we must study the field before we serve it
• There are at least ten different approaches to evangelism, and research determines which approach fits each specific country and community
• A clear research methodology - from defining the question to testing with a pilot program - prevents costly mistakes and wasted resources
• SWOT analysis forces honest assessment of both internal capabilities and external realities, guarding against both overconfidence and discouragement
• Research is not a one-time milestone but an ongoing, dynamic process - the field changes constantly and the team must continuously update its understanding
• Use reliable data sources like Joshua Project and Open Doors, protect operational security when using digital tools, and never make mission-critical decisions based on unreliable information

Dive Deeper

Resources coming soon.

To our God be all glory and honor, now and forever. Amen.