This is an article from the January-February 1995 issue: The Frozen Church

India’s Mission Leaders Speak to the Western Church Part Two

India’s Mission Leaders Speak to the Western Church Part Two

We gathered together seven influential Indian church and mission leaders and asked them five questions relating to Western involvement in reaching India. We presented their edited responses to the first three questions the last issue. We present here their responses to the second two questions. The leaders we contacted were:

  • Mr. Atul Aghamkar, a ministry leader from India studying at Fuller Seminary for his Ph.D;
  • Dr. Sam Kamaleson, founder of the Friends Missionary Prayer Band and Vice President at large for World Vision;
  • Dr. John Richard, former General Secretary of the Evangelical Fellowship of India and currently the Assistant International Director for the AD 2000 and Beyond Movement's Global Consultation on World Evangelization, GCOWE 95;
  • Dr. Joseph DeSouza is the Director for Operation Mobilization in India;
  • Dr. T. V. Thomas is President of the North American Council for South Asian Christians;
  • Vishal Mangalwadi is a well known Indian author on the subject of missions; Mr.
  • D. Kingsley Arunothaya Kumar is Coordinator for Communications with the Friends Missionary Prayer Band in India.

MF: What is the biggest obstacle to partnership?

Atul Aghamkar Denominationalism, individualism and an independent mentality. Lack of broader vision and a desire to co-operate with others. Suspicion and greed.

Samuel Kamaleson The biggest obstacle to partnership is the lack of understanding that true partnership is a result of commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ who motivates and strengthens through the ever present Holy Spirit. That partnership implies that discretionary deployable resources be given. In the book of Philippians there are five partnership patterns described. First, partners in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. Second, partners in prayer. Third, partners in suffering. Fourth, partners in giving oneself in mission, which means between the US and India, a partnership celebrated only by those who have already given themselves to be in mission directly within the environment where God has placed them. The fifth level of partnership in Philippians is in the discretionally deployable resources that God has given each of us.

The biggest obstacle to partnership, then, would be a lack of mutual celebration of the Lordship of the living Jesus Christ residing by the Holy Spirit within a person who celebrates His lordship. This means mutual respect and yielding autonomy to each other.

Dr. John Richard The biggest obstacle to partnership is a lack of trust on the part of national leaders because of unfortunate experiences in the past. There is no likelihood of such fraud taking place today if Westerners deal with societies who are registered with the Registrar of Societies and with the Income Tax Commissioner of India. There is now a strict surveillance of all foreign funds flowing into India.

T. V. Thomas I think the biggest obstacle to partnership is an attitude issue. There needs to be a mutual willingness to develop a relationship of respect and trust between the partners. Ingrained missionary-national relationship patterns from the past militate against its progress. We must believe God to create that humble attitude in the hearts of both missionaries and nationals. This will result in an environment to listen to each other as the common vision of taking the urgent message of the Good News to the unreached unfolds.

Vishal Mangalwadi The failure to recognize that the culture of grants is incapable of breeding a culture of partnership, it can only breed paternalism. Giving grants through the Indian leaders is (usually) even more destructive because the Indian culture does not understand the culture of the cross--the idea that one's power has to be used for self-giving service. It is tragic that hardly any forum exists to give loans and investments, except for very small family projects.

Kingsley Kumar In his Edinborough Address, Bishop Azariah of Dornakal, the great Indian mission leader of yesteryear, pleaded for his Western counterparts to treat the leaders of the younger churches as equals because there was an attitude of superiority among the parent churches. This equality that Azariah desired is basic to a successful partnership. Therefore:

Partnerships should emerge between two or more equals. This requires responsible partners who do not overly express sympathy and mercy. If one partner attempts to bully the other, the partnership is strained, and that would sooner or later take the partnership to a breaking point.

There should be a common purpose and goal among partners that serves to bind them together. Neither partner should ever try to use the other for its own selfish gain.

The area of operation and the limits of each partner should be spelled out clearly. The style and methodology of their

information system must be agreed upon prior to operation in order to avoid duplication and encroachment. If mistrust arises, the partnership is already destroyed.

Partner agencies must be accountable to one another regarding financial resources, methods of operation, etc. They should not try to establish their own name or put a mark of ownership on it.

The partner agency must be duly complimented whenever and wherever the project is reported. In fact, it must be mutually agreed upon before it is circulated. For example, I know of a Western agency that is working with one of our frontline Indian agencies in a very "small" way. In reporting in its journal, however, the Western agency has magnified its role so that it appears the entire work is being done exclusively by this Western group. This is disastrous.

Some Western agencies use the goodwill of its partner agency to raise funds abroad. However, these Westerners share only a fraction of the money they have raised with their partner agencies. This is happening often and all over, especially among splinter groups and independent agencies.

To be brief, it's a challenge to work as a team, but team work succeeds. And reaching India through partnerships is the only answer in meeting the great need of our country. Nobody can do it as a "Lone Ranger."

MF: How can the worldwide church partner and participate in missions in India?

Atul Aghamkar By raising more prayer warriors who will pray for every state and people of India. By creating more awareness among the people in the West about the great need of reaching the Hindu world. Very little is heard about India among the mission circles, therefore I feel that there has to be a deliberate effort made to make people aware of the need for evangelizing the Hindus.

Dr. John Richard Evangelization, missions and church planting can best be carried out by Indian nationals. Therefore agencies such as Partners International, San Jose, California, USA, are the best conduits for partnering in missions in India today.

Joseph D'Souza The worldwide church can contribute in a number of ways. I believe the way forward is to establish meaningful partnership with both the established, creditable Indian organizations as well as with mission alliances such as India Mission Association, CONS, etc. It is important at the outset to work out the partnership direction and to review the partnership periodically. Needless to say, with India opening up economically and socially, the window of opportunity is open, and now is the time for the worldwide church to get involved in sharing the love of Christ with the people of this nation. There are many new innovative ways of going to India and being witnesses for Christ. We must not miss this opportunity.

T. V. Thomas

  1. Mobilize strategic prayer globally for the unreached Indians.
  2. Encourage Westerners and Indians living overseas to invest in income-generating ventures in India. This will create employment for Indian Christians. All or a percentage of the profits could help fund evangelism and church planting efforts within India.
  3. Mobilize Indian Christians to use their family and kinship networks back in their homeland to share the gospel in various ways.
  4. Consider ways to evangelize the Indians living outside India.
  5. Commit to sharing all forms of resources and reducing duplication of structures and institutions wherever possible in the missionary task.

Vishal Mangalwadi One hundred years ago, Abraham Kuyper, who later became the prime minister of Holland, tried to teach the Western church (see his tone lectures which we have just published under the title "The Crown of Christian Heritage") that modernism or secular humanism was a worldview, and for that reason the church will not be able to fight it with a "simple gospel," any more than the terrorists can fight a modern army with rifles and hand grenades. The Western church did not listen to Kuyper and has lost the West in this century, just as Kuyper had predicted.

The defeated Christianity of the West is incapable of winning a country such as India which has a 3,000-year-old worldview. Thanks to the New Age Movement (see Marilyn Ferguson's Aquarian Conspiracy) the Hindu/Buddhist worldview now is stronger than it has ever been. During the last two decades it has been applied to the whole spectrum of life--all the way from education to management. The "simple gospel" of the Western church is no match for this Eastern worldview, even if attempts are made to make it a "full gospel" by adding to it one or the other irrational experience, or making it a "holistic gospel" by adding to it drilling rigs, ambulances, nutrition charts and condoms.

The need is to recover the full-robed biblical gospel which won the West at the time of St. Augustine and then again at the time of the reformers.

Thankfully, as Western rationalism and its product, materialism, are dying worldwide (both in the secular universities and the Bible colleges) and are being replaced by "Eastern mysticism," the battle for the heart and mind of India has become a global battle. The whole church will have to come to terms with the Indian worldview, not just for the sake of India but for the sake of their own children. If this does not happen then the victories of my friends mentioned above will be temporary victories. Our friends will be saved from casteism only to be lost to mysticism. Their vote for Christ will remain only a negative vote against the Hindu social order without ever becoming a true commitment to the God of Truth. This work will be no better than the mass movements in Up and Punjab 50 years ago. Entire villages had become Christian and then later they reverted to Hinduism. There is much to be learned from the defeat of the church in this and in previous centuries.

Kingsley Kumar The idea of partnerships is to bring together like-minded Christian agencies with various skills and abilities to form a team. The team has a common task and seeks to avoid competition, duplication, wasting of money, etc.

Indian missions would like to have Western partners who will have a high standard of social and biblical ethics. We seek men and women with total honesty, transparency, and integrity.

We don't need heroes who will bring in money in any unauthorized way. We want to channel the funds properly, going only through approved institutions such as the Foreign Contribution Registration with the Indian government.

India, its people, mission agencies and churches should not be used merely as a tools for fund-raising. Wherever the need of the land is projected, the dignity of the people and the land must not be marred. An appeal should be made to stimulate not only the emotions of Westerners, but also their minds. They need to develop a love for the people of India and to be good stewards of all their God-given resources. The West is blessed of the Lord because God wants them to share their best with others. This is an obligation of agape love (II Corinthians 9:11) and should not be just an act of sympathy or mercy.

In countries like Iran and Pakistan, Christians and church leaders are harassed. In order to insure safety and security for these Christians, the universal church must place pressure on these governments through its own respective governments. I would call this an indirect participation.

For every one of the 4,000+ people groups in India, there should be a training center before the turn of the century. Western churches can fund such projects instead of supporting missionaries. They can support the ministerial needs by giving funds to Indian missions and churches.

They can fund the construction of churches and support all the socio-economic development activities. For example, there is a great desire for English Christian schools in India, especially in areas where church growth is gaining momentum. Westerners can accept the challenge and, in collaboration with Indian missions and churches, establish Christian schools in major district headquarters. Roman Catholics have fully utilized this avenue to impact the Indian society.

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