Dan Scribner Joshua Project Frontier Ventures Unreached People Groups Finish Line Podcast
Finish Line Podcast Episode 66

Dan Scribner, Director of the Joshua Project, on Defining the Work that Remains for the Great Commission

You may want your missions giving to help reach people with little or no access to the gospel, yet still wonder how anyone can know where the greatest gaps actually remain.

How can you use better information, prayer, and collaboration to direct your resources toward unreached people groups and the parts of the Great Commission still unfinished?


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Meet your guide

Dan Scribner, Director of Joshua Project, has helped lead the ministry since its launch in 1995 and has served with Frontier Ventures for decades. What began as an effort to identify the world’s largest unreached people groups has grown into a global research platform that gathers, refines, and shares data to help churches and missions organizations see where gospel access remains limited.

Dan explains how global missions have shifted from a country-focused, Western-led model toward greater attention to people groups, indigenous leadership, collaboration, Bible translation, technology, and church planting movements. Joshua Project does not exist simply to build better databases. Its purpose is to help ministries, churches, and donors recognize gaps and deploy people, prayer, and resources more strategically. Dan also describes how urbanization, cultural barriers, and changing technology are reshaping the missions landscape.

By the end, you may see research and prayer as practical tools for discerning where your generosity and attention can serve the Great Commission most strategically.

What you’ll gain

  • How better data can sharpen your global missions giving
  • Why unreached people groups require more than country-level thinking
  • How collaboration is accelerating Bible translation and church planting
  • Why indigenous leadership is reshaping the future of missions
  • How technology is revealing gaps in global gospel access
  • Why consistent prayer can shape where you give and serve

Inspired? Take your next step

Try the Game of Life Simulator

Step into a four-minute interactive experience and see what unfolds as you decide how to manage your resources.

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Inspired? Learn how to partner with ministries well.

A compelling ministry story can inspire you to respond. But wise partnership often begins with better questions.

Applied Generosity Intervention Partnership Focus

What is the ministry really seeking to restore?

Learn to look beyond visible needs toward people, context, relationships, and flourishing.

Applied Generosity Intervention Partnership Fruitfulness

How do you recognize meaningful impact?

Consider how ministries learn, evaluate their work, and pursue lasting change.

Applied Generosity Intervention Partnership Faithfulness

What does genuine ministry partnership look like?

Explore how to foster trust, alignment, and shared mission in your giving.

In our Intervention Series on the Applied Generosity Podcast, we’ll help you become a more thoughtful, discerning, and faithful partner.

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Quotes to Remember

  • “It’s not about a check list, not about a task… it’s the fact that the creator of the universe is not being worshiped by his creation in a way that is full and complete.”
  • “Missions exist because worship does not”
  • “Glory of God has to be at the center or else it turns into a task.”

Links from the Show

Bible References from the Show

Matthew 28:19 | Make Disciples Of All Nations

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

Matthew 24:14 | Gospel Proclaimed Throughout World, Then The End Will Come

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.

1 Corinthians 12: 4,12 | Many Gifts But One Spirit, Many Members But One Body

4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit

12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.

Romans 11:11-12 | Salvation For Gentiles To Make Israel Jealous

11 So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather, through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. 12 Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!

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Have you considered the ways you are uniquely called into generosity? We’re not all called into the same adventure.
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Enter your information below and we’ll send you our free PDF guide to explore the specific adventure you were called into.
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