I Love You But I Don't Like You

“I love you but I don’t like you.” Has anyone ever said this seemingly rhetoric line to you? The first time someone threw that on me I was a little puzzled and felt funny about it. The second time was during an ice-breaking question in a Bible-study group where I was asked if I’d choose to be loved or liked by people. The third was when I had some friends over to our house for dinner and someone brought up this line for a casual discussion. I questioned the group if it was ever possible to love someone without actually liking him or her. “Well, also the opposite of like is dislike, right?” I added to my question. Now, is it therefore possible for a person to love and dislike a person at the same time?

In the context of Christian fellowship someone might argue that the person concern is not worthy of being liked because of some negative issues or attitudes or some flaw in his/her character. But because the Lord has called us to love one another we could therefore love that person without actually liking him/her. I personally find this saying, this statement rather contradictory. Here’s why. You see when you dislike someone there has to be at least one reason why. And whatever the reason, the Bible says that love covers a multitude of sins. And if you truly love that person then you’d be willing to cover his sins or his shortcomings – the reasons for which you disliked him. And when you cover his sins or weaknesses then you can’t continue to dislike him. For if you do then you’re still holding it against him. Of course, we may dislike the sins in his life, his uncomely behavior, his weaknesses and such other negative traits in his character. And that’s also exactly why when we say we like a particular person we’re actually referring to some aspects of his character, behavior or attitude which are appealing and beautiful in nature. So in that sense, love has to do with a person as a whole while like has to do with certain aspects of that person. Love is more subjective while like more objective. 

The Bible doesn’t say, “For God so liked the world that He gave His only begotten Son…” It’s because He loved the world. He loved us. He didn’t like the sins and darkness in which we were wallowing and dying and yet out of love for us, He rescued us. That’s what love does and it should be no different with us, His children. Now you know God loves you. And it’s on the basis of His amazing love towards us that He not only bears with our sins and weaknesses but also ardently deals with them so that the things He dislikes in us is transformed and replaced with the things He likes and enjoys in us. 

Have you ever clicked on the “Like” button for a post in Facebook only to realize, after contemplation, that it actually doesn’t deserve a like and then you change your mind and click the “Like” button again in order to undo it? Some will even jest, “Where’s the “dislike” button?” Similarly, because people can change, our likes and dislikes are therefore subject to change not for the person as a whole but for certain traits in his life. Love shouldn’t change. 

God may like or dislike certain things in our lives but His loves for us endures forever. “I have loved you with an everlasting love” He says.

Love endures. Likes and dislikes don’t.


   

TESTIMONY: Fruit of my radio ministry, Biswasko Jag (Foundation of Faith)

An unknown man called me up this morning (18th June '14). He had listened to my radio program last week and wanted to meet me. I invited him over to my house. At first guess I thought he'd be just about a year or two older to me sussing (figuring out) from his voice over the phone. But it turned out that he was an elderly gentleman with white beard and 65 years of age. 

He looked at me and said, "Ah! You're just a young man. I thought you'd be an elderly person". We chatted for almost 2 hours. He had read the Bible for the last 50 years and being from a Hindu background had read the major Hindu scriptures. In search for truth, he had also spent one year learning about Islam in India. So in his conversation he'd quote from all these religious books including the Bible. At present, he said some Jehovah Witness visits him to teach him their doctrine. But he had finally concluded that there's no other book like the Bible and that Jesus is the Truth. However, he didn't want to be baptized since he was disillusioned because of the lifestyle of some of the so called pastors and Christians. He felt that people were unnecessarily trying to force him to be baptized.

Cutting the long story short, I narrated to him my testimony of how even after almost all my family members accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior I was unwilling to simply because I had the same problem - finding faults in other Christians. And this would be my answer every time, especially when my parents would try to persuade me to commit my life to the Lord. Then I told him what my mother told me one day. When I came up with the same reply, she simply said, "Son, don't look up to people and their shortcomings for in doing so you'll always have one or the other complain about them and that'll actually prevent you from progressing in life. Just look unto Jesus and see if you find any fault in Him. If you don't then believe and follow Him." Then I told the gentleman, "Sir, today I want to repeat to you the same word my mother said that day." His countenance changed and declared, "That's it! No more finding faults at people from today and I'm going to look up to Him from now on." "Amen", said I and tried to shook hands with him but he got up and hugged me tightly and sitting down wiped his tears away. The Lord touched him at that moment. After that we continued chatting for the next hour or so and handed him the book, "Questions of Life."

Please pray for his complete salvation, and of course though I didn't want to be another guy to press him for baptism he desires to meet with me again. My message last Friday night was about the benefits/fruits of meeting in small groups which included church planting in every neighborhood. He had been so encouraged through the message that he desires to start a church right in his locality.

Please also continue to pray for my radio ministry. Thanks and God bless!

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Udaypur, Rupatar - 2 Days Training in a remote village. <= Click on the link/title to read and to check some lovely photos.

Meghalaya Ministry Trip Report April 2012

He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the LORD (Pro 18:22).

Well, I know it sounds rather unusual to start a report with the verse above. But I have a good reason to do so :-).

God's word can, without doubt, be taken at face value. Undertaking this two-week ministry trip for the first time with my wife, I could see the favor of the Lord everywhere we visited. No doubt, my wife at time past had accompanied me for ministry but that was simply for church meetings on Sundays. However, this visit was really a different experience for me. Her presence made me feel so complete in ministry. I would wish that it was possible for her to join me every time I make such long and outstation ministry trip. But that would also mean someone willing to take care of our kids like John (my younger brother) and his wife Esther did with such loving care. But just as I have witnessed that many couples serving the Lord together are usually older folks (and my perception could be wrong), I wonder if that would be the case with us too. Grow up fast kids!

The Church in Shillong

On the 1st of April we headed to Pokhara where we were going to drop our kids to John's house and where my mother was also living. Taking a six hour bus drive we finally reached Pokhara in the late afternoon. We were much relieved taking into consideration the moment when halfway through the journey our bus came to a halt behind a long trail of several other vehicles. We were told that there was a "bandh" (road blockade) called by some organization in protest of the death of a prisoner that took place in police custody several weeks ago. It was just past midday and to our utter frustration we were told that the road would only be open after 6 pm. This meant that we would reach Pokhara only late at night. I'm sure we whispered a prayer. The road, however, looked lively when people, both locals and tourists of different shade began to come out of their vehicles and mingle in groups chit-chatting and frolicking around. Despair gave birth to hope as we saw some vehicles coming from the opposite side after almost an hour. There were some movements of the cars on our side too as it began to inch forward and surely enough after a little while the traffic resumed its flow once again. What a relief it was!

A railway station in NJP area

Since it was our first time, it wasn't easy for us the next day, to bid farewell to the children and head to India for the next two weeks of ministry. The bus we boarded from Pokhara for the Indian border was an old one and very early in the morning as it began to rain heavily, water began to drip right inside the window seat which I had actually graciously granted to my wife. She was getting wet and I offered to swap our seats. Now it was my turn to get wet. By the time we reached Kakkarvitta (Nepal's boundary with India), early in the morning my jeans had dried up. That day in the evening we were going to catch our train from NJP, India and since we had the whole day to ourselves we went to Siliguri and lodged in a hotel until evening. We had passed by this city several times but had never ventured out to the town area. In fact, this city serves as a  gateway to different places both nationally and internationally and thus a very strategic place for mission base. Lying in the eastern part of India, it connects Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh besides being the only land route to all the northeastern states of India including Sikkim and the district of Darjeeling. After scouting through the market we returned back to our hotel to head toward the railway station. Trains rarely arrive or depart on time in India and so ours was late by more than an hour. The next morning, after the train ride we took a jeep to Shillong from Guwahati. The normally three hour’s national highway from Guwahati to Shillong is undergoing expansion and traffic snarl therefore becomes a regular occurrence. At times there have been cases where people got stuck for the whole day and whole night. Worst still there have been a couple of death too where patients with emergency medical cases sent to Guwahati from Shillong couldn't make it in time. We were spared the pain although it took five hours to finally reach our birthplace.

Some Shillong believers coming to see us off at a bus station

We stayed mostly in my in-laws place while in Shillong since Anu wanted to be with her parents. The next day, 5th April, we had the Good Friday meeting with the church and I preached on the seven sayings of Christ on the cross in regard to carrying our cross and following Him. The message was well received by the church and some testified how it blessed them. Post lunch we divided into groups and discussed about the message heard which was lively and effective. Saturdays are usually prayer meeting day and therefore I taught on pursuing intimacy through fasting and prayer. Several testified that the Lord had actually been already speaking to them to set aside time for fasting and prayer and my message served as a confirmation and also provided them with foundational guidelines into fasting on both its spiritual and physical aspects. After that we had a meeting with the key leaders along with our wives over the lunch discussing at length about what the Lord's been doing in our lives and ministry and sharing plans for the future. One common setback with most of the churches in Shillong is the slow pace of church growth. So the emphasis was on evangelism with a firm grip on follow-ups. I also stressed on the importance of not giving up the weekly gathering of the men. The next day we had the regular Sunday meeting and it was a joy meeting almost everyone from the church. I preached on walking in the resurrected power of Christ as we grow in intimacy with Him. Our time in Shillong, besides the meeting, was packed with invitations either for lunch or dinner including breakfast - one reason for bringing your wife along :-). It was fulfilling to see a couple of other brothers gradually growing up to carry responsibilities in the church.

Mikseng & Rosemary

Evening Meeting

On the 11th we traveled to Tura by an overnight bus. We were joined by one of our church leaders, Dilip and my elder brother's son, Abhishek who was also coming to Nepal with us since he had recently finished his high school leaving exams and was having holidays for more than two months. We reached Tura very early in the morning and what a joy it was for us to meet Mikseng and his family once again. Since it was still dark we went to sleep. That morning after breakfast we had a leadership meeting at Mikseng’s house. We spent the whole day discussing about church, future plans, evangelism, mission, etc. It was a healthy time of discussion. The first meeting with the church was going to start from that very evening and I was eagerly looking forward to it. That night I preached from the gospel of John chapter 9 on how God uses our adverse situations for His glory and for our good but not without faith and obedience on our part. Every evening, after the message we spent time praying for the various needs of the people. At times there were a couple of testimonies about people getting healed too.

Tura Times editor, Pangseng & Dilip.
Pangseng is also in Mikseng's leadership team.

The next two days (Friday & Saturday) we had seminars on the New Testament Church during the day and in the evening I did a series on pursuing intimacy with God.

Garo delicacies

One evening I was sharing on Psalms 37:4 that as we learn to delight ourselves in the Lord He shall fulfill our heart's desire. If taste is the desire when we eat food (of course besides satisfying our hunger) then we would find taste even in a simple plain food because of our delight in the Lord and we wouldn't be nagging so much at our wives. At this point an elderly couple began to look at each other and as the wife began to chuckle the husband suddenly burst in uncontrollable laughter and we also began to laugh with them. And yet in the midst of the laughter the Lord was speaking to the people. Tura is a place where I enjoy the fellowship of the believers the most. They seem to have an insatiable hunger for the word and fellowship. At times the meeting would end at around 9 at night and yet they would continue to sit down and not move from their seats. After the meeting we would then proceed to someone's house for dinner- a late night dinner that is. Also believers coming from other villages were hosted by different church members thus giving them opportunity for fellowship with each other. What a joy it always is to be with the saints in Tura! In November this year I'll be visiting them again, but it'll be primarily to train the leaders.

Anu & Abhishek

On Monday, i.e. the 16th Anu, Abhishek and I left Tura in the afternoon by a jeep for Guwahati, a five hours ride and from where we were going to board the train back to NJP. We reached the railway station two hours before schedule and the train was on time too. The next day we crossed the Indian border and soon enough we were flying to Kathmandu. At the same time our kids were also heading to Kathmandu from Pokhara by bus along with their grandmother (my Mom) and another Christian family from here who had also visited John's family.

At the crowded railway station in Guwahati

What a joy it was to see them finally! We were rather amazed that all the while Daniel never troubled anyone for the absence of his parents (he’s turning 4 on May 9th). We could see the hands of God guiding both us and the kids, ever proving His loving care for His children. But at the same time we cannot forget the prayers you made for us in this mission. Thank you so much. God bless you, indeed!

Back home, I’m teaching the Alpha course to about 40 young people most of who are non-Christians and I’ve another week to go in order to complete the course. The Lord is using this time to bring these young people to know Him better and to commit their lives to Him. Your prayers would be invaluable for this ministry.

...and yes that's our little Daniel.
He'll never pose for a photo without the  V sign

Thanks again.

With gratitude of love,
Reuben Pradhan

......More  photos.....

Praying for various needs

Worshiping

Word of prophecy for an elder's son

Please feel free to leave your comments. Thanks.

Divine Ability in Biblical Simplicity

In a certain prayer meeting a church leader shared his prayer needs this way, “Please pray for us as we don’t have a full-time pastor and a church as yet”. His congregations were almost 200 in numbers and yet he said that they did not have a church. What was he referring to then? Of course, he was asking the believers to pray that they would have a building to do church. Now he also had several capable men in his leadership team. Nevertheless, he felt inadequate as a church because they didn’t have a full-time pastor.

The question is do we have any Scriptural references to support the plight of this dear brother? None. In fact, we do have ample Scriptural evidences that tell us just the opposite – that we actually require neither a building nor is it mandatory to have a full-time pastor in order for a group of believers to qualify to be called a church.

In the New Testament the church never constructed buildings. They simply met in different houses. In Acts chapter 2 we read of 3000 people getting saved on the day of Pentecost as Peter put to work the power of the Holy Spirit he had just received. Was the church prepared with a large auditorium to accommodate 3000 people for their gatherings? If not, what would happen to their meetings now? Well, in verse 46 we read they simply met from house to house. And the believers' meeting in houses was called a church. In Romans 16:5 while conveying his greetings to Prisca and Aquila, Paul adds, “Greet also the church in their house”. In Col 4:15, a group of believers meeting at Nympha's house was called a church. “Give my greetings to the brothers at Laodicea, and to Nympha and the church in her house”, says the apostle Paul. Again, while greeting Philemon and others, the apostle also greets, “the church in your house” (vs. 2).

This is what the Scripture clearly teaches. And yet, Jesus said, that human tradition could easily nullify the teachings and commandments of the Scripture. And what human tradition has taught us is that a building made of bricks and mortar is the church. This blatantly false understanding of the church has led believers into a trap of thinking that a church is what happens once a week for two or three hours inside the four walls of a building. But that is not the church we read about especially in the Book of Acts. The Scripture says that they met “day by day” and “every day” from house to house (see Acts 2:46, 5:42).

Many years later the writer of Hebrews would reflect upon this “every day” gatherings of the church and exhort thus, “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Heb 3:12, 13). But like many of us today, not all were excited to practice this. Some were in the habit of not meeting with the believers. And therefore, he goes on to say, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Heb 10:24, 25). The early church was different. They met every day or at least regularly to exhort and stir one another to lead life that glorified God and to labor for the work of the Kingdom.

Now what about the story of the brother in the beginning of this chapter? Let's try to solve his problem according to the pattern in the New Testament. You see the 200 people he had with him lived in at least 10 different locations in the city. So rather than trying to accommodate 200 people in a building in one location he could have planted at least 10 churches with 20 believers each in all those 10 different locations in the city. These churches could have started in the believers' houses and those capable brothers with him could have helped provide the leadership required in these different churches. Well, it's true that it’s easier said than done but that's how it was done in the New Testament by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Why not today?

My Dad's Farewell

I always used to wonder what would happen to me and how I would face the reality when someone close to me dies one day. In fact, I used to shudder at the very thought that one day I would have to face with the death of either of my parents for the first time in life. After all every things happen to us for the first time in life and as such, there’s always the first experience of things that surrounds and affects our lives.

On the 1^st of May, 2011, I experienced the death of someone very close to me and my heart – my Dad. My father had been battling with deranged kidneys caused by diabetes for some years until his death. The weakness, the pain and the strict renal diet became his daily cross. Saints, both at home and abroad prayed for his healing. At times he showed signs of improvement and gave us hope that his life on earth would be prolonged but the Maker had a better plan.

On the date mentioned above I received a phone call in Kathmandu, Nepal from my elder brother, David in Shillong, India asking us to pray for Dad as he had been rushed to the ICU. I informed John, the youngest amongst us who lives with his family in Pokhara – a six hours drive from Kathmandu. That morning my wife had already left for women’s meeting out of the town whom I called and also informed about the news. We however, expected everything to turn out fine as we had grown accustom to Dad’s sudden critical condition from time to time which later would turn normal. But after about an hour or so David called again stating that now it’s entirely up to God whether to keep our Dad alive or take him away, and that we should make preparation to travel back to our hometown, Shillong (India). Things were serious this time. Again, I conveyed the message to John who said that we should pack our luggage and move immediately. In fact, I couldn’t speak to John anymore. I knew what was coming and so I started crying over the phone. I called up Anu who by now had almost reached the meeting place and narrated the event and asked her to return home immediately. In the meantime, I gathered the kids and started praying but couldn’t pray for any miracle to happen now. All I prayed was for God to give Dad the glorious moment of his life on earth – that he would see Jesus and His angels surrounding him to take him to the eternal home. As I prayed this prayer, I picked up the photo frame which had the picture of my parents and I kissed my Dad as I wept. Amazingly, the moment I did that a peace which is not of this world filled my entire beings. I got up to my feet and felt no remorse or sadness anymore. I knew for sure that the Lord was going to receive my father unto Himself and I was filled with heavenly peace at the thought of it. It was the peace that Jesus promised in John 14:27 and I tangibly sensed it.

In the meantime I had informed some people from the church we attend here in Kathmandu about the matter. My wife arrived home and so did some believers from the church. We didn’t have enough money with us and so the church was very generous to provide for our traveling. Within an hour we packed our luggage and soon boarded the bus. It was about half-an-hour later after boarding the bus that we receive the news that my father had finally gone to be with the Lord. The news didn’t jolt me anymore for I had already been prepared with His divine peace but my wife and the girls began to cry in the bus. I had to hush them up. I called up John who had also boarded their bus in Pokhara and passed the news. It was a difficult moment for both the two brothers and their families. The next morning we met at the Nepal-India border. John came rushing toward me and hugging me began to weep. Strangely, I didn’t. In fact, I felt as normal as I would be anytime. I had never realized the power that comes from the peace that Jesus gives, “My peace I give unto you...peace that surpasses all understanding”. From the Nepal border we then hired a jeep to travel right up to our hometown, Shillong. We were however, oblivious to the fact that actually the highway leading to Shillong from Guwahati was undergoing expansion i.e. they were widening it into four lanes or so. As such, there were frequent traffic jams all along the highway. After traveling for approximately 17 hours from the Indo-Nepal border we arrived at the Guwahati (Assam) and the border at Meghalaya, our home-state.

It was around midnight and it was pouring incessantly; you could hardly see the road through the thick rain. Halfway along the highway, the rain stopped and the driver halted at a roadside food stall. The driving seemed to have aroused quite an appetite on him who began to gobble up his midnight dinner. It was around 3 in the morning, 3^rd May when we finally reached home. My parents’ house was packed with people – believers and relatives. They had been eagerly waiting for our arrival. Most of them were sleeping, spread all over the floor of the two rooms my parents occupied. It was a great relief to see my mother but in the corner of the room laid the coffin box where they had already kept the body of my father. I had pleaded with the Lord a couple of days ago that He would keep him alive for just some moments more enough for us to meet him alive but it pleased the Lord not to do so. I cannot explain why but I’m sure He did it so for the good of both my Dad and us.

We were exhausted after almost 20 hours of traveling by jeep and feeling very sleepy we crept wherever we found any empty spaces in the room and went to sleep.

The 3^rd of May, 2011 was the day of my father’s funeral. The whole activities that involved the event, right from the beginning to the end was simply perfect and yes, very peaceful. That’s not my comment alone. Church leaders who had made it for the funeral were simply amazed and testified to the peace they experienced throughout the funeral service. Some commented that they didn’t at all felt they had come to a funeral but a memorable farewell event while others said that they had never experienced such a funeral before. In the morning the sky showed signs of heavy downpour and it rained just a little in the morning. Many believers had prayed and asked God for a clement weather. Truly indeed, after the little shower in the morning the whole day witnessed a very pleasant weather. Had it rained that day it would have been quite a problem to have a smooth funeral service. Digging the grave would have been obstructed not to mention of other hurdles. And rain it did. It was almost a thunderstorm. But praise God that took place only after 10 at night when we had finished with all the tasks and people had returned to their respective abode. That night a young girl from the church returned home with her family, very tired from helping at the funeral. She scurried off to bed as soon as she reached home and was fast asleep immediately. Her family members had not gone to sleep yet. After awhile they heard this young girl murmuring to herself. Thinking that she wasn’t asleep but was trying to talk to them one of her siblings inquired to repeat what she wanted to say. What she said next in her sound sleep was astonishing. “Uncle Deep (my dad) says ‘thank you’ to aunty (my mom), and also thanks the church”, she repeated clearly. When they tried to wake her up they realized she was too fast asleep to wake up. She remembers nothing the next day. While boarding the bus from Kathmandu to the Indian border I had whispered a prayer asking God to reveal my father to at least one person in his or her dream. Of course, this wasn’t at all because of any doubts on my part that my Dad would make it to heaven but just a curiosity of his state of being in the other world. Later my Mom told me that she too had made the same prayer. Little did I know that in the days to follow not only one but that there would be several people to share about their dream and vision of my father.

That same week on Sunday, a nine years old girl stood up and shared with the church her dream where she saw my father dressed in white and being welcomed by Jesus Himself although she could only see His feet. Two days later her mother saw Jesus hugging my father in her dream. A couple of other believers shared similar dreams they had of my father.

The whole experience brought Heaven so close to me. Heaven is indeed so real. Through my father’s demise the Holy Spirit taught me to long for the eternal and that everything I do here in this world should have eternity as its objective. And oh! What a strength and fortitude my mother exhibited throughout the whole event. Our parents had been married for almost 45 years and loved and cared for each other so much that one would expect to see my mother mourning and lamenting the death of her husband. But what amazed all of us was the reflection on her face, of calmness and confidence, self-composed, of peace and resolute faith in the Lord. The elderly pastor who preached on the funeral later confided the same with me. A couple of days later we met at a pastors’ prayer meet where he kept repeating the same thing again wondering how my mother could be so calm and peaceful. Indeed, glorious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His beloved.

By the way, some believers who had come all the way from Tura (another district in the state) and were returning back home after the funeral were stuck for almost 15 hours due to the traffic jam on the same highway we traveled by just the previous night. Usually, it’s a 3 hours ride from Shillong to Guwahati from where you proceed on to Tura. Imagine being stranded on the highway for 15 hours! It was the headline in most of the dailies the next day. One patient who was being rushed to the hospital in Guwahati couldn’t make it and died on the way while some people missed their flights. Had we been caught in a similar traffic snarl the previous day then we would have never made it to our Dad’s funeral. What an agony that would have been. But then what an amazing God we serve, don’t we?

Indeed, we cannot but thank and praise God for proving Himself so faithful time and again. And we’re so grateful for you who supported us with your prayers (some financially) during those difficult moments. We give God all the glory for your love and support. We praised God for relationship and friendship.

May He fill your heart and home with God’s own peace that surpasses all understanding. God bless you.

We love you,

Reuben

Train up a child...

Both the Old and the New Testament teaches us to teach and train our children. I believe this includes the fundamental knowledge of life and its basic necessities in addition to spiritual training.

One day, my second daughter Rhema (who was soon going to celebrate her eleventh birthday at the time of this story) accompanied me to go visit a believer in a hospital just outskirt of town. By nature she’s quite an inquisitive girl and discusses things quite a lot, and is therefore, a great help in driving out boredom and drowsiness while driving. We reached the hospital and I don’t know why but as we halted I suddenly felt a very soft prompting in my spirit to show her where the brake pedal of the van was. “Rhema, remember this is the brake pedal. When you hit this the car stops moving,” I said. “Hmm…Okay” she responded casually to herself.

On the 16^th March 2010, the whole family boarded the van to visit one of our close relatives. Not far from home we stopped in our street called Rynjah to pick up few things from the shops. I entered a cyber café to do some printings. As I was waiting to get my job done I heard a loud cry of a baby outside the cyber café. Immediately I knew that was my little boy Daniel (almost 2 at the time of this story). As I darted out of the cyber café I thought to myself why would he be crying so loud? I had left him with his mother and the rest. And there he was in Anna’s (eldest daughter) arm shrieking as if something terrible had happened to him. I hollered to Anna as she was across the road. “What’s the matter?” “Daddy, the car is rolling away,” Anna stammered with anxiety. My wife appeared from nowhere. She was searching for me desperately. I ran as fast as I could to where the car was. To my shock I found the car had rolled almost to the middle of the road and other cars were just inching away to pass by my car totally oblivious to the whole situation. In a fraction of seconds my mind was racing with many thoughts. How did the car rolled? And how did it stopped in the middle of the road? When I reached for the driver’s door there I found our brave Rhema, albeit with some tears of fear in her eyes, standing up with her right foot at the brake pedal which was almost out of her foot’s reach and holding on to the steering very firmly, stopping that big machine from rolling onto the street. I opened the door and took control of the car. She wept as I hugged her. I realized that I had put the gear on neutral. How could I have done that? Clumsy me. I had pulled up the hand brake but unfortunately it didn’t do a proper job, as it required some maintenance.

Rhema

When the car had slowly begun to roll my wife was too nervous to do anything. The rest just jumped out of the car along with her while Rhema with a quick presence of mind jump into the driver’s seat and took control of the car. We all thanked her and treated her with a nice chocolate bar (of course she deserved more than that). God used a little girl to save the day.

As I thanked and laud Rhema for her bravery I asked her how she knew what to do. She replied, “Remember you showed me once where the brake pedal was?”

Healthy House Churches

I’ve come across two major groups of house church. Both tend to stand on the extremities of opposite ends. One views and utilizes house church mostly for meeting, sitting, eating and teaching. Evangelism and mission is almost oblivious. These groups don’t deliberate reaching out to the lost or plant churches. For them it takes place only when God wants and so they leave it all to Him.

Then I’ve known and heard and met and sat in house church seminars and consultations where for these groups of people house church is a synonym for evangelism and church growth. They don’t bother much about discipling, teaching and consolidating believers in God’s word. For them discipleship means training new converts for church planting. Their popular slogans would be “Plant a thousand churches in a year”, “Indian pastor baptizes 50,000 people in a year” so on and so forth. In fact, in one of the seminars I met with some young men in their 20’s all belonging to a particular state in India. They were being trained to be church planters. What amazed me was that a number of them were fresh believers and some didn’t even know how to turn the pages of the Bible. They ought to have been taught the basic, foundational doctrine first and discipled in the way of the Lord. Planting churches might not be that difficult but what foundation you lay determines the overall structure of the church that is planted. And it largely depends upon the calling, gifting, maturity and experience of the church planter that determines the foundation.

Once there was a house church planter from Madhya Pradesh (MP, central part of India) who was invited to my hometown as a resource person for a house church seminar. Nice guy that he was, I went to him and inquired if it was true that there were people in MP planting and overseeing thousands of churches. He clarified that actually it was a combination of a network of several house churches taken together and not something accomplished by a single person. Sometimes such reports shared by the locals in conferences and seminars are greedily picked up by the organizers and other attendees who then the very next day brings out this supposedly, fantastic news with all these reports in their magazines and newsletters. I wish they were real news and of course I do believe God can do it. But the truth can be discovered when such mission fields are visited in person and every one of those supposedly "thousand" house churches are verified. However when such news are "fabricated" in order to attract potential supporters/donors in the ministry or exaggerated for the sake of promoting oneself and the ministry then the danger is that it will hamper genuine church planting mission. We’ll sit back on our chairs and say, “Praise God, the work is growing rapidly here, let’s move somewhere else” when actually much needs to be done in that particular place. We then focus our resources somewhere else without actually accomplishing the mission in the targeted area.

Both of these two different groups of house church living in the extremities of the opposite pole are imbalance in their nature and characteristics. Jesus, the Head of the Church has given us a simple recipe for a healthy church. “Go…” He said in Mt 28:19. This word, I believe is a commanding word and not at all a passive one with options. Evangelism and church planting is intentional. It doesn’t happen by itself. Then He said, “Make disciples”. Note: He didn’t say, “Go and plant churches”. In fact, there aren’t any commandments in the Bible for us to go and plant churches. The commandment is to make disciples and it is in this process that as we go out and make disciples of people that churches are planted not with a bunch of crowd but with Christ’s disciples. Jesus also added, “…of all nations”. Making disciples of all nations to me speaks of cross-cultural mission, which again is a process that requires intentional efforts. Which ethnic group to reach out to and where to move to, all depends upon keeping our eyes and ears open to the Lord of the harvest and obeying it.

In conclusion, I envision a healthy church as one that is planted and being built upon the true Scriptural foundation (Eph 2:20-22). It’s a church where the disciples love to meet, sit, eat, pray and then go out and makes more disciples of various ethnic groups in different places thus resulting in planting churches everywhere intentionally.