For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. Ephesians 2.10 (NASB)
God’s glory is manifested clearly through the creation of the whole universe and mankind- but especially through the redemptive work of Christ. We can say with experiential knowledge, that His glory is being manifested to us very clearly through His amazing works in India.
For context, most of the Churches in India are filled with:
- Prosperity Gospel: Most of them do not know the power and message of the gospel. (They are seeker sensitive churches: preaching things that the Bible never promised, while producing a false worship to attract people)
- Nepotism: Pastor selects his sons as pastors in his churches. Churches are treated like their own property. Pastor’s children share the churches equally between them.
- One man show: Pastor is as a celebrity over multiple churches. He is considered to own the churches. He manages the churches by sending someone every week, and he takes all the money from those churches that is given.
- No discipleship or church membership: Intentionally, pastors do not teach to the churches, saying that they don’t want church members to get into leadership.
- Shallow Preaching: Most preach their experiences, visions, dreams, prophecies, and the Scriptures out of context.
Therefore, God has led us to have a passion to help churches and train up pastors through seminars and books. HeartCry has translated several books by Paul Washer into our language (The Gospel of Jesus Christ, The Gospel’s Power and Message, The Gospel Call & True Conversion, Gospel Assurance and Warnings, and Knowing the Living God workbook). These books are being bought in bulk by our pastor trainees. They are reading them, together with their church members. Having these books in our language is a great support for spreading the right understanding of God and His work in us. Christ’s Church- Christ’s Way by Paul Washer is almost ready to print. Before we send it to the printer, our interns are proofreading as one of their reading assignments. They have shared that this workbook covers everything about the church. We thank God for bringing this much-needed curriculum into our language so that the right understanding of the church can be spread here.
Finding and training faithful and able men is very much lacking here, but God gave me the heart for intentional discipleship in order to raise men for church planting and church leadership. The Lord has blessed my desires. For we have one young man who we have been ministering to and guiding. He demonstrated godly character, ministry abilities, and passion for God and His church. We as a church understood that he is ready for church planting, as he also longed for it. We had a few families in our church from our neighboring town, which is a famous Hindu pilgrimage site. We prayed and sent him there to plant a Christ-centered church. HeartCry supported his internship fully while he was with us, and is continuing to help his ministry of church planting there. We had a tough time finding a place for the church to gather there. But after several weeks, we were able to find a rental. He has been serving the Lord faithfully there since July 2021. God is adding to the church, and blessing his evangelistic efforts. He is also faithful in teaching sound doctrine to the church.
We have now 8 pastoral interns in our Church. We thank God for bringing HeartCry into partnership with our internship program, with which 5 interns are fully supported. They are spending their quality time reading books, sitting in classes, observing the church ministry, and attending biblical seminars. We pray and hope that each of them would be somewhere planting a church in our land where there is no true gospel. We would like to see this ministry of internship continue to be in the mighty hands of God and produce faithful church planters.
We also give opportunities to students or employees to come and stay for a period of time and learn. We give accommodation and food for them. We have 2 students with us now, which will go back to their secular studies after a few months.
My heart is reminded of Ephesians 2.10 and the “good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them” as I ponder over what the Lord is doing here for His glory. He is good, indeed, and He does things in His way. We are blessed to witness them. Our hearts praise Him for all that He is doing here.
