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PEOPLE GROUP PROFILE

The Southern Sotho of South Africa

The Southern Sotho of South Africa, numbering approximately 5,390,000 people, are No Longer Unreached. They are a Sotho-Tswana ethnic group indigenous to Lesotho and South Africa and can also be known as Sotho, Southern, Basotho. They are an Indigenous people, in the Bantu, Sotho-Tswana people cluster of the Sub-Saharan African affinity bloc. Their primary religion is Christianity - Protestantism. They primarily speak Sotho, Southern.

Basotho in United States photo
Photo courtesy of Joshua Project. Photo Source: Steve Evans - Flickr Steve Evans - Flickr Licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: Sub-saharan Africa Peoples
Country: South Africa
People Cluster: Bantu, Sotho-Tswana
Primary Language(s): Sotho, Southern (sot)
Primary Religion(s): Christianity - Protestantism
Population: 5,390,000
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): No Longer Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): 10% or Greater Evangelical
People Group ID: PG015533
View on Joshua Project

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Pray for the Southern Sotho of South Africa

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Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Christianity - Protestantism
Religious Affiliation: Christianity

%
Christianity - Protestant… Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Sotho, Southern
Language Family: Niger-Congo

%
Sotho, Southern Speakers

Media Resources in Sotho, Southern:

Films:

Provided by the Jesus Film Project

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Bible Resources in Sotho, Southern:

Provided by Faith Comes by Hearing

Or check out the Sotho, Southern bible resources at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

View all resources

Next steps for the Southern Sotho

The Southern Sotho are Unengaged and Unreached, which means there are less than 2% evangelical Christian populations among which there are no known efforts focused on establishing self-sustaining churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice.

Begin signifcant prayer and fasting for this group
Send cross-cultural teams to discover and research this people group
Begin gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group

Next steps for the Southern Sotho

The Southern Sotho are Engaged yet Unreached, which means there are less than 2% evangelical Christian populations but there are sustained efforts at establishing self-sustaining churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice.

Continue prayer and fasting for this group
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group
Begin training up local leaders to lead and develop strategies to reach their own people

Next steps for the Southern Sotho

The Southern Sotho are No Longer Unreached, which means there are more than 2% evangelical Christian populations and there are churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice. There is still more to be done among them.

Empower local believers to begin praying for their own people
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group
Encourage local leaders to being leading church planting strategy and looking for Unreached and Unengaged groups nearby

Pray specifically for the Southern Sotho of South Africa

And he said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many."
readMark 14:23-24

Pray for those who may have heard the gospel but have not yet submitted their lives to Christ, that they will finally see the sacrifice which He made for them and surrender their lives to Him.

Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; bring an offering, and come into his courts!
readPsalm 96:8

Pray for people here to humbly give God the glory due His name.

I will sing of the steadfast love of the Lord, forever; with my mouth I will make known your faithfulness to all generations.
readPsalm 89:1

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, they will declare and record His faithfulness and love to be passed on from generation to generation.

And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.
readMark 5:20

Pray that God will bring people who appear beyond hope to faith in Jesus and that they will then go and tell others of the marvelous things He has done.

Sotho (ROP3 - 109431) reported in the following countries:

To download a comprehensive people group list in spreadsheet form, visit our Research Data page.

Peoplegroups.org relies on updates from the field and other organizations for much of our data, so if you have any updates, please contact us. We use various international naming standards. For a list of these standards and fields, visit our Definitions page.

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