What Is Gospel Infrastructure?

Introduction

Jesus taught his disciples that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations (Luke 24:46-47). This is the task of Christian missions.

But how do we know when the gospel sticks in a specific place such that we can say the work of missions has been accomplished? And how do we balance God’s sovereignty with the church’s responsibility when measuring progress?

For two thousand years, God has made great progress in the missionary task through the church. The greatest gains among Protestants have been made in the modern missions era, beginning when William Carey challenged Christians and churches to give themselves fully for the announcement of the gospel to all people. With increasing focus, the gospel has progressed from outer coastlands, to interior territories, to peoples hidden behind social and linguistic barriers.

In 1976, Ralph Winter established the U.S. Center for World Mission to coordinate missions efforts among these hidden, unreached people groups. The Center’s popular missions progress tracker, Joshua Project, has clarified the status of gospel advance through information about people groups today and current attempts to reach them. The Joshua Project website classifies a people as reached when more than 2 percent of the population identifies as Evangelical according to their definition.

While Joshua Project data is helpful, there remain limitations to relying solely on this type of metric for missions:

• Churches may begin to think the goal of missions is merely Christianizing a population into identifying as 2% Evangelical, rather than the ongoing proclamation of the gospel to that people.
• According to Joshua Project estimates, the number of so-called Evangelicals among a people group is often 2.5 to 10 times higher than the actual number of converted Christians.¹  
• Without detail regarding the geographic concentration of Christians, we may receive false impressions of the status of the work in any particular city or village.
• If missionaries become too numbers-minded, they risk imagining that conversion is something they control rather than something God accomplishes.

When I was first deciding where to move to as a missionary, I relied heavily on Joshua Project’s data. Missions leaders counseled my team: “You should go to this or that area of the world because, according to Joshua Project, there are less than 0.10% Evangelical Christians there.” The thought was that if we went to a place with very few Christians, then our work would be more effective and even more necessary.

And yet, over time, we found that we needed a clearer and more practical goal. We began to focus on making the gospel accessible for a people in a particular place. Rather than basing our work on the number of so-called Evangelicals compared to the total population, we found that building essential gospel structures ensured that the lost would at least have an opportunity to hear about Jesus.

Understanding Infrastructure: An Analogy

Think of a house under construction. One day, construction will be complete, and a family will occupy that house. A well-constructed home will last a long time. Once built, a family will call that house their home. They will make memories. They will celebrate milestones. And eventually, the house will be passed to the next generation, and the cycle will repeat. But before all of that can happen, a relatively short, frenzied, and necessary phase of construction of the house must occur. The task of building the house requires many different kinds of people than those who will live in the house: engineers, architects, planners, and specialized homebuilders. These will oversee different kinds of milestones: things like setting the foundation; completing the walls and roof; and installing all plumbing, electrical, and finishes to make sure the job is done.

Similarly, we may think of missions as consisting of two phases. Missionaries are like skilled craftsmen participating as builders and architects and engineers. Only they aren’t building a house. Rather, the missionary’s work is to build things like churches, Bible translations, pastoral training, and evangelistic outreach. We call this set of durable, biblical elements gospel infrastructure. If missionaries do a good job, then these structures can be used by national churches in the second phase so that profession of Christ in that place will continue for generations to come. These basic gospel structures provide the foundation and stability needed for long-term and fruitful gospel ministry.

The church I pastor was planted by faithful missionaries more than 170 years ago. I have the privilege of ministering on the foundation they laid. Now, imagine that those missionaries hadn’t planted our church. Instead, what if they simply ran evangelistic programs, baptized new believers, and then left? Would the foundation laid by their labor remain 170 years later? Maybe, but I doubt it.

You see, gospel infrastructure is what promotes and protects lasting gospel presence and access in a place. Gospel infrastructure is both a framework for evaluating a place and a guide for building what may be missing. Though the term infrastructure is borrowed from physical construction, it aptly captures the idea of durable, interconnected elements needed for enduring gospel presence. The rest of this article will unpack the idea of gospel infrastructure and explain how it can sharpen and sustain our global missions strategy.

Defining Gospel Infrastructure: Essential Structures

The basic gospel structures of missions are interconnected. Churches evangelize and seminaries educate pastors. When we view lasting gospel access through the lens of concrete structures, we can begin to clearly see what work still needs to be done. Suppose there is a healthy church but no pastoral training. Missionaries should work to build internships or seminaries where multiple generation of pastors can be trained. Similarly, if there are seminaries but no Bible translation efforts, then missionaries may establish a publishing house where the Bible or other Christian resources can be provided to national readers.

Now, not all structures are equally important. Some structures are foundational (e.g., churches, the Bible, pastors), while others are supportive (literature, music, base). All, however, contribute to lasting gospel access in a place.

Let’s consider in more detail the various structures needed:

• Bible Translation: Having the entire Bible available in the local language is fundamental to making Christ known. The Bible is God’s gift to every tribe, language, and people. Christians who give this gift in the form of an understandable translation from the original biblical languages provide a solid foundation for gospel witness for generations to come.
• Evangelism: Jesus said, “‘You will be my witnesses’” (Acts 1:8 ESV). Christians must proclaim, explain, and demonstrate the gospel to their neighbors, family, friends, and colleagues at work and school. More than a biblical necessity, the history of missions shows that lasting gospel access is more likely when evangelism is widespread, in the local language, and primarily carried out by local believers.
• Healthy Churches: Healthy churches are the crown jewel of missions. That is because the local church is God’s primary instrument for missions (Matt 16:18; Acts 13:1-3; Eph 3:10). When churches are healthy, they obey all the Bible says, practice meaningful membership, and are led by a plurality of biblically-qualified leaders. By doing so, healthy churches equip their members to clearly represent Christ in all their lives and persevere through persecution.
• Pastoral Training: When there is a system for training local pastors, then there will be a steady supply of qualified men ready to shepherd God’s people in that place. Training promotes long-lasting, faithful, and fruitful ministry.
• Seminary: Seminaries can promote or pollute the gospel depending on whether or not they teach the Bible. That’s why we should value having good seminaries in every place. Good seminaries are committed to biblical inerrancy, have a faculty filled with national professors, and have a capacity to teach all who are ready and willing to learn. These institutions should be indigenous, contextually appropriate, and locally led to truly be effective and sustainable.
• Christian Literature: Gospel-based literature is an important way Christians teach the Bible for all of life. Good Christian books engage with a culture and help believers understand and enjoy the gospel and all of its implications for life. They do so by addressing the theological and ethical questions asked by particular communities. For literature to be effective, it should be theologically sound, locally written, and adequately distributed.
• Worship Music: Theologically true songs in the local language allow Christians to express their faith and teach one another robust doctrine through singing.
• Base: Finally, a base is a supportive environment, typically a healthy church, that meets to worship in a language expat Christian workers can understand. Without a strong base, missionaries will spiritually suffer due to a lack of nourishment and equipping. Such edification is normally provided by a local church but could also be a missionary team or a local Bible study. A strong base is only needed for expatriate missionaries. Since the Christian life is a communal life, Christian missionaries should avoid situations where they will have to live for a long time without the accountability and spiritual oversight of a local church that meets in their own language.

These structures do not stand alone. A Bible without teachers, or a church without trained pastors, cannot sustain prolonged, faithful gospel witness. However, all these structures together provide gospel clarity and ongoing proclamation.

Gospel Infrastructure as a Framework

Faithful Christians around the world have evaluated the development of the gospel structures where they live and serve. Their evaluations are available as an interactive index at the Gospel Infrastructure website.²[JL1]  With this index, you can explore the status of long-lasting, Christ-proclaiming structures in various places. These evaluations, provided by faithful ministers on location, offer practical data for anyone determining where to invest missions resources for the sake of Christ.

Some locations in the index have more than one entry due to the various languages spoken there. Other locations, such as where the Garamambu or Nik-sek people live, have no data because gospel work there has not yet started. Where no gospel structures exist, the work is urgent and foundational. In such places, missionaries are not merely reinforcing structures — they are laying the initial foundations for lasting witness. By default, the index is ranked by lowest total score so that the locations with the greatest needs are near the top. At a glance, the index provides useful information about gaps that currently exist.

The index also allows sorting by area of need. For example, locations can be ordered by their need for healthy churches or evangelism. This is particularly helpful for aspiring missionaries, enabling aspiring missionaries to evaluate a place according to their particular skill set or area of ministry interest.

Evaluations of the gaps and feasibility of ministry provides a to-do list for the work that remains. Assessments like these will constrain churches and future missionaries to justify whether their help is actually needed.

Conclusion

The Gospel Infrastructure index provides a robust, biblically-grounded framework to assess missions needs and guide ministry efforts toward lasting gospel access. Where these structures are absent, lasting gospel access is unlikely. Where they are present, gospel witness can flourish long after missionaries are gone. Top-down data collection efforts such as the Joshua Project can be used in conjunction with bottom-up data such as the Gospel Infrastructure index to further missions work. The Gospel Infrastructure index is measured from the ground up by Christian ministers who understand the work in their locations. By focusing on building essential gospel structures, missionaries can help provide a faithful witness for Christ for generations to come. All so that “repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations” (Luke 24:47).

1. “Definitions.” Joshua Project. Last modified 2025. Accessed October 30, 2025. https://joshuaproject.net/help/definitions.

2. https://www.gospelinfrastructure.com/