Pastors in India Renew Their Vision to Reach the Unreached

AIMS News: Posted 5/1/2004

More than 30 years ago, "Jihan" sat in a World Religions course at a college in South India. He listened as the professor told him about the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem. Raised as a Hindu, Jihan had never been taught about Jesus Christ. As the professor explained how Jesusí birth split the calendar into B.C. and A.D., Jihan was convinced that Jesus Christ was a historical person.

"But what about my Hindu gods?" Jihan began to search. He went to the library and researched the Bible, the Qurían and other religious texts. "I wanted to know who the true God was. If Jesus Christ was a true historical person, then he must be the true God. And if Jesus is the true God, then I am worshipping idols."

Jihan surrendered his life to Jesus Christ. His Hindu parents kicked him out of their home, and he moved to Rajasthan, a state in North India where he committed himself fully to God as a pastor and missionary.

Today, Jihan pastors a Hindi fellowship of 15 people among the Marwadas people in the southern city of Chennai (Madras). Many in his congregation belonged to an aggressive militant group who are trying to revive Hinduism by suppressing the Christian minority. Most live in fear. They worship in secret, afraid to tell their families of their new-found faith for fear of being excommunicated from them. Mostly prominent in the Northern states, similar Hindu groups are becoming an increasing presence in South India.
Jihan wanted to reach more like them, but how?

The Vision

Several years ago, God gave Bobby Gupta, president of Hindustan Bible Institute (HBI) in Chennai, a vision to reach the unreached in India. His goal - to train national leaders and missionaries to plant one million churches throughout the country - seemed impossible, but Gupta decided to trust God.

HBI partnered with AIMS to develop the Church Mobilization Pastors Training (CMPT) to train pastors to saturate India with the Gospel. Through the CMPT, pastors like Jihan could learn how to create a vision and develop a strategy to reach the lost. Pastors meet in cohorts of fifty for five one-week modules in evangelism, discipleship and saturation church planting. After completing the program, each pastor agrees to plant 3-5 churches within the next five years. In February, four AIMS staff and two associates traveled to Chennai to teach the fifth and final training to 150 pastors from the first three cohorts of the program. One week earlier, an AIMS associate completed training sixty pastors in Bangalore.

"We ought to be anticipating that within six months, they will have people who want to go on the misison field," said Gupta.

Pastors Catch the Vision...

Pastors who attended the training conference were equally excited.

"Kushan" grew up in a prominent Hindu business family. He lost everything when he accepted Christ: his family, his home, and his business. A Hindu friend offered to build him a new home if he would convert back to Hinduism.

Although he was completely broke, Kushan refused to consider it. Today, Kushan pastors a church of 90 believers in Bangalore but has a vision to reach the Kannadigas, an unreached people group in North India.

"The drought is so bad there. Last week, I read in the newspaper that one meal is shared among a whole family each day. There is no rain, no harvest. A lot of pastors are committing suicide. There is no other source of income there."

Kushan plans to train Kanndiga missionaries in South India to take the Gospel to their Kanndiga tribes in northern villages and is excited about sharing the vision with his church. "Previously, we used to talk about what we could do. Now, our clarity is good. We know how to network and how to reach them."

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