Mission India - 2009

 

    Recently I ministered in the city of Patna, which is located in the state of Bihar in the nation of India. Although I have been to India quite a number of times I have never been in this state until now. The state of Bihar is considered one of the poorest and most crime ridden states in all of India. The church here is very weak and small. Throughout the nation of India Christians make up perhaps three percent of the population, but in this state the number would considerably less than that. One evidence of this is the fact that in the city where we ministered, a city of over two million people, there are only three known church buildings. There are a number of small churches but they almost all meet in homes and consist of ten to twenty-five people.

    This area is known as the missions graveyard of India, as few missionaries ever attempt to minister here, and those who have come here have had little success. Some Indian pastors have come here from other areas of India as missionaries. Those who have braved the difficult conditions and stayed have often been asked by their friends back home, "How can you stay and live in such a place?"

    One positive thing that can be said about Christianity here is that the church has experienced little persecution, as in other areas of the nation. The reason for this is not all that positive however: the church receives little persecution because the church is so small it is considered insignificant and little threat to the Hindus. You might ask, "Why go to such an area with such little promise?" This question reminds me of something I read in the memoirs of Charles Finney. Once when Finney was debating about going to an area which had little spiritual life, he thought about all the negatives involved and how difficult it might be to minister there and try to bring light to such a dark place. But after much thought, he decided that the very factors which seemed to rule out going to this city were in fact the strongest reasons for going there. It is not the job of evangelists to determine the easiest and most promising places to minister, but to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit who will often lead us to the places most in need of the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit.

    As I usually do, I taught pastors and church workers in a conference on the Lord's return and held evangelistic meetings in the evening. Our conference was held in a hotel banquet room, and we provided a sumptuous lunch buffet for them. It was a joy for me to be able to give them the experience of spending time in such nice surroundings and being treated to a catered meal. Many of them have little money and thoroughly enjoyed being pampered a bit.

   As is almost always the case in India, this was a historical event – it was the first time ever in this city that there was a conference held about Bible prophecy and the return of our Lord. There was a lot of enthusiasm for the conference long before I arrived as the believers eagerly anticipated learning more about the rapture and the second coming of Jesus. Secondly I think a lot of them were simply excited that someone from outside of India showed enough interest to come to their community.

    My coordinator for these meetings was my good friend John Ishmael who also shared in a couple of the sessions. John has a great love for our Lord's return and is one of the few Indian ministers who preach on this important subject. My final message of the conference was a message on evangelism. Wherever I go I feel called to preach on this subject, and to help equip God's servants to be effective in soul winning.

    Due to increasing hostility among the Hindus toward foreigners doing public evangelism I have reluctantly been forced to cease the outdoor meetings that I have done in India, and this has led me to seek to reach the lost in ways that are not as open. We cannot put up hundreds of fliers and send cars across the city with loudspeakers announcing the meetings, as we do in Africa. In India we have to be a little more covert. I have concluded that the best way we can do evangelism is to hold meetings in public halls and to rely on the churches to encourage their members to come and bring unsaved friends and neighbors. We focus heavily upon music, and give the events neutral names like "cultural nights" rather than crusade or revival services. We don't see the large crowds that we see in Africa, but we do see results and unsaved people responding to the gospel invitations.

    Whenever you engage in foreign missions in third-world countries all sorts of things can go wrong and usually at least a few things do! On this mission things went remarkably smooth in almost every area. The one glitch we did experience was when we lost the electricity in the evangelistic meetings. The first time it happened the power was off for a couple of minutes, which seemed like an eternity. You can't just pause when this happens; you just go right on preaching as though nothing happened. Some of the people brought out their phones to provide a little light, and one man graciously came up to the pulpit to provide some light for me to see my notes. A generator was started and we soon had power again. Such are some of the tribulations of doing meetings in lesser developed nations.

    In my evangelistic preaching I shared messages which dealt with the future of the world, the future of believers and unbelievers, and the return of Jesus. On the final night I preached on the Day of Jesus Christ. I shared the three great events that would occur on that day – the resurrection of the dead believers, the rapture of the church, and the judgment seat of Christ.

 This ministry trip to Patna, India was a very satisfying time of ministry for me. I sensed the Holy Spirit's presence very strongly in every session both teaching and preaching. As I flew home I had a very definite sense of having achieved God's purposes for me to minister there. In our pastors' and church workers' conference John and I had acquainted the believers with the glorious doctrine of the return of our Lord Jesus. I had also taught the believers the essential truths of evangelism and then demonstrated that those truths produce results in the evening meetings. And we had given this small, weak portion of the body of Christ a shot in the arm; you could just feel their appreciation that their brothers and sisters in America had sent a representative over to them to encourage them in their work. They had not been forgotten.

    I want to thank all of you who have prayed for me and sent contributions to make this ministry trip possible. The rich presence of the Holy Spirit throughout these meetings was a clear confirmation to me that God was pleased with this mission; He was happy to bless this ministry to His forgotten children in the state of Bihar. And how delightful ministry is when the Holy Spirit is pleased. May our Lord fill your life with His peace and joy as you abide in Him.