An Interview With One Of Our Partners

This is the summary of an interview with a partner we had visit us in Canada recently. His identity is not being shared here to protect his ministry in India.

I understand that you began full-time ministry in 2012. How have you seen the context for ministry change in India since that time?

When my father started the ministry in the 1980s, the percentage of Christians in our area was quite small. There were only 5 churches in all the 46 villages near us. Then in 2012 there were 23 churches. Today, there are 100 churches, not only emerging out of our ministry but from all the Christians now labouring in our area. So, on the one hand we have seen tremendous growth in the church.

On the other hand, we have seen a big shift and persecution is increasing. It’s true that the government is encouraging a Hindu vision for the nation and many local organizations are actively working to promote Hinduism and discourage Christianity.

How are they doing that? And what is their message?

They are using social media, television, organizing conferences, and even traveling village to village all throughout the country with megaphones to promote their vision for a Hindu nation. But their message isn’t so much about Hinduism, but rather it is trying to project Christianity negatively.

For example, they will ask the Christians why their Pastors are not preaching about Lot and his daughters. Then they will read the story and will say that the Bible promotes drunkenness and incest. Of course, we know that Bible doesn’t avoid talking about sin, but they twist the message and say that it is encouraging it.

Tell me about the Bible training program you are seeking to initiate for the pastors in your network. What are you hoping to do, and what impact to you anticipate it having?

Several times we have conducted a 6-month mobile Bible school where we gathered a group of pastors for training in their area. We stay for a few days and teach them and return back several weeks later for more training sessions. It was a good program but we want to do something more in-depth.

Now our plan is to start a 2-year Bible training course that is at a Masters of Divinity level. We have very good material and we plan to have 24 two-day sessions with the pastors over a two-year period. They will have 8 assignments to complete between sessions and it will be a lot of work for them while they continue their ministry.

We are hopeful that this will strengthen the church. So many pastors throughout India struggle to interpret the Bible faithfully. Most preaching is taking one verse, often out of context, and using it as a bridge to talk about whatever is on their minds.

How can we preach and teach from the Scripture faithfully? What do we do with the book of Esther, for example? There is no explicit mention of God there. We need to see it in the context of the whole Bible which anticipates a coming sacrificial Saviour. We can see Christ there and we can share the gospel from the book of Esther. This, we hope, will be the impact of the training program.

Earlier this year, Engage Today sent a team to conduct 3 Leadership Seminars with you. I heard that one Seminar exposed some underlying issues that need addressing. Tell me about that. 

Yes, we had seminars with Engage Today and we are so grateful for these conferences. One of them this year was in a tribal area. The believers who were formerly tribal animists have showed amazing growth and initiative. They have constructed a beautiful church building where we had our gathering this year. The leaders from the town areas, however, were surprisingly jealous and a number of them refused to attend. It became clear to us that they still maintain a prejudice against the tribal people that is a lingering sinful influence of Hinduism.

How then, as a leader, do you address this issue in the churches?

We are going to bring the leaders from the different regions together to discuss this issue. They will then bring it to the churches and other leaders in their area.

It is certainly not a matter that is going to be resolved with just one day of teaching. We have to keep on bringing the Scriptures before the believers and address the issue head on. You know, in the story in chapter 2 of Galatians, Paul scolds Cephas for his hypocrisy. In that case, Paul was making it clear that in Christ there is no distinction. Christ does not separate into castes.

We are trusting God to do a great work in purifying the church.

Thank you for visiting us in Canada, for seeking to be faithful in your ministry, and for helping us to grow in our understanding of the mission context in India.