Ministry Partners With Christian Nationals to Reach Northern India With the Gospel
by Allie Martin and Jenni Parker
December 22, 2003
(AgapePress) - The president of a ministry that works to plant churches and spread the gospel to unreached nations says God is moving powerfully in India.Recently officials with World Help visited the city of Allahabad in northern India, where two years ago 60 million Hindu pilgrims gathered at the Ganges to purify themselves in the sacred river during the massive Hindu festival known as the Maha Kumbh Mela, or Grand Pitcher Festival.
But during this last visit, World Help president Vernon Brewer says he saw more than 40 thousand former Hindus singing, praying, and responding to the gospel of Jesus Christ. He describes the growth of Christianity in the region as "just an unbelievable move of God," and says even though the ministry is helping with resources, prayer, and funding, the visitors from World Help largely just sat on the sidelines and watched the spirit-filled Indian Christians worshiping, praying, sharing the word of God and reaching out to others with the good news.
"It was led entirely by nationals," Brewer says. "People come for miles and miles, they spend an hour in prayer, an hour in praise and worship, an hour in the preaching of the word -- forty thousand people -- it was like a Billy Graham crusade right out on the River Ganges."
The ministry president points out that there is much work to be done in terms of evangelizing in this region. "This is the least reached part of the world," he says. "You have the Muslim block, the Hindu block, and the Buddhist block all right there in Northern India. Maybe as few as one in ten thousand are Christians."
But Brewer says ministry partners in northern India have a strategic plan to reach 175 million lost people with the gospel and to plant one million house churches throughout northern India. "We're seeing church planting movements begin: we saw a thousand church planters receiving training," he says, "and they're going two by two into the unreached villages."
This approach has already resulted in the planting of over 5,000 new house churches, and Brewer says he and others in the ministry are praying that God will allow World Help to continue assisting the partners in India to fulfill their "God-sized" vision.
