When I wrote Strangers Next Door (2012), I shared stories of churches that caught the vision of reaching unreached peoples who had migrated into their neighborhoods. These churches–with these new believers–then followed those social networks across the world to reach others. In today’s post, I want to draw your attention to Valley Baptist Church in Bakersfield, California. For here is a church who asked about the unreached “over there” and came to see them “over here” as well. You should read the full story by Emily Pearson.
In 2011, Valley Baptist decided to reach the Tijaltepec Mixteco people of Mexico. At that time, they were an unengaged-unreached people group, meaning that not only were they less than 2% evangelical, but no known church planting strategy was being implemented to reach them (there still remains approximately 3000 unengaged-unreached peoples).
As the church began to reach into southern Mexico, they quickly learned that the Tijaltepec Mixteco were living in their backyard.
You need to check out the video below. One of my favorite quotes is when co-pastor, Phil Neighbors states, “To our amazement, we found out that 25 miles from us are approximately 700 of our people group. They had migrated from Oaxaca, Mexico, here, to work in the Central Valley of California.”
The church decided to reach out to this unreached people group for a fellowship event. 400 Mixtecos showed up.
In addition to their church planting labors in Oaxaca, the church has started 12 Bible studies among the people in Bakersfield with plans to plant a church.
Here is the 3-minute video on what is happening between Bakersfield and Oaxaca. Check it out!
It is my prayer that more and more churches across the world would recognize the Kingdom potential of the movement of the nations and our responsibility as Kingdom stewards. We live in the age of migration and are witnessing the outworking of Acts 17:26-27 in an unprecedented way. The Divine Maestro continues to orchestrate the movements of the nations for His glory.
Thank you International Mission Board for reminding us of the importance of an integrated strategy–melding together the foreign and the domestic–when it comes to reaching unreached people groups!
Do you know of other churches doing work like Valley Baptist? If so, I would love to hear about them. Share in the comment section below or send me an email at jpayne@brookhills.org.
Until the strangers next door are strangers no more!