The Basics

Who Can Apply?

Anyone is invited to submit proposals to the General Conference Office of Adventist Mission for financial help to establishing Urban Centers of Influence in their territories. These proposals will be taken to the Mission Board Strategy and Funding Committee for consideration and approval.

Global Mission Funds Operations

Global Mission funding assistance cannot be used for purchasing or refurbishing buildings. Global Mission funds are intended for personnel, program and project resources, and perhaps some seed money for rental costs to help get the project started.

UCI Strategies

A successful Urban Center of Influence proposal for funding assistance will clearly outline a strategy to:

1. Serve the local urban community
2. Put the Jesus' method into practice
3. Engage lay people in service
4. Plant new groups of Seventh-day Adventist believers among unreached people groups
5. Maintain long-term sustainability

Understanding Unreached People Groups

Unreached people groups lie at the heart of Global Mission's work. Here is operating definition of reached versus unreached groups. This is the criteria by which Global Mission processes all applications.

1. People Group: A significantly large sociological grouping of people who perceive themselves to have a common affinity for one another because of shared language, ethnicity, religion, race, caste, occupation, education, and/or patterns of social interaction.

2. Reached People Group: In order for a people group to be considered “reached” by the three angels’ messages, the following criteria must be considered:

a. There are adequate numbers and resources to effectively witness to the group without outside assistance.

b. They have the option to worship in their first language or “heart language,” not only in a trade language or in translated worship services. [1]

c. They have access to the Bible and other key materials in their first language.

d. They have indigenous church leaders who can witness to the rest of the people group without working through a translator.

3. Unreached People Group: A group among which there is no indigenous community of believing Adventists with adequate numbers and resources to effectively witness to that without assistance from “outside” (e.g. foreign cultures or other people groups).

[1] Worshipping in a trade language is not adequate for the following reasons: (1) a person’s first language is the heart language, the one a person was born into, and is the language that communicates at the very deepest level with individuals, and (2) often only the adults, especially those who work in the market place speak the trade language, while the women and children speak their first language in the home. If worship is conducted in the trade language it is difficult for whole families to worship together in meaningful ways.