The Start of Something Big in India

I apologize that it has taken this long to update you on what happened with the Pastors Conference in India. I know many of you were praying for it consistently, and I am very excited to report that your prayers were answered.

For those of you who don't know, we kicked off our church planting strategy during my recent trip to India. We have a dream to facilitate the finish of the spread of the Gospel in the Visak district. To us, this looks like a home in every village where people are regularly gathering together to follow Jesus.

Our first challenge is to find some core leaders. We started that process by holding a Pastor's Conference where we taught the 'First Steps' church planting training developed by E3 Partners. In a few months, we will follow-up and see if anyone is implementing what they learned. When we find the 'doers', we will have our core leaders.

I was praying for 50 pastors to attend, but more than 200 pastors showed up. We focused our teaching on the barriers to multiplication. This was a tough message with the pastors. We told them that the Gospel would not spread in this area as long as they tried to maintain control. The church could not center on their salary, their people, and their building. It had to change from an institution with them in the lead to a movement with them playing a part.

The Spirit of God is an interesting thing. There are a handful of times in my life where I truly felt that I was a part of something much bigger than myself - where it was almost as if it wasn't me doing the work. This was one of those times. I can't describe what happened under that tent in India, but God showed up. We delivered a tough message, but the pastors felt the presence of God and were excited about the teaching. How humbling that I even got to be a part of it!!

We counted commitments, and tallied up the numbers. They were very significant, but all that pales in comparison to the fact that God's Spirit was evident. The truth is that I don't know if 100 people will follow through or 2 people will. Number are important, but can often be misleading. For this reason, I am not near as excited about the numbers as I am about the presence of the Spirit of God. That presence confirms that we are working with Him, and if we are working with Him, some good things are just around the corner.

Thanks to all of you who prayed while I was gone. Your prayers were answered. Wouldn't it be cool if this was the beginning of a church planting movement in Visak ...

a movement where nobody knows who we are or what sparked it

a movement where churches were not concerned with authority, denomination, or money, but instead with the love of Jesus and of people

a movement that sees poverty lessen, orphans and widows cared for

a movement where the followers of Jesus multiply exponentially in the area

a movement where isolated villages who have never heard that any God or any person cares about them, hear that for the first time

This will be cool!