Tuesday Jan 28, 2020
Pastor A. - The value of investing in missions
We were literally calling into the Hills of the Himalayan mountains, in the state of Nagaland, India, to one of Global Hope India's longterm vetted partners for this special episode.
We talk about the history of the Gospel coming to India and how it impacted the areas of India where Pastor A. serves with his church.
When Pastor A. took over as pastor the church was struggling. They were not even able to pay a modest salary, but it was at this point that they decided to become a sending church and work to send missionaries to other areas. Pastor A. forego his meager salary in order to support a missionary. It was not a convenient or easy time to do it, but they really believed it to be their responsibility.
Pastor A. believes that this commitment to send was a large part of the reason that they grew from 70 people to 1,000 people over the course of a couple of years.
It wasn't long after they started to see a positive impact in their church that Pastor A. took over the leadership for 64 churches. He put together a pastor's conference in his hometown. One of the biggest churches in his tribe's Pastor was inspired by the message and began to talk about missions. He organized a mission's conference in his church and invited all the pastors.
This led to them starting churches and homes in areas with no Christian churches and starting to see an amazing transformation!
We asked Pastor A. why the churches in the US should be looking to find an identifiable strategy to be reaching the internationals in their community. His response was in looking at the history of sending churches that the US has done an incredible job. Now it is more and more common for people from other countries to go to the US either for education, work, or family that God is demonstrating his trust in the US church by sending the mission field to them.
He noted that God has sent many people to their church from other countries and it is an honor to share the Gospel with them and how many of them have received the Gospel and been baptized and gone back to their own countries.
He believes that there will be a huge change in the US if the churches in the US will rise up and see the millions of people from India who have moved to their communities and have no idea what the Gospel is.
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Global Hope India: For over 20 years we have been watching God radically transform thousands of Americans & Indian Nationals through missions. We’ve taken nearly 1,000 Americans on short-term mission trips to India. We work with 12 long-term indigenous church planting partners located in North, South, East, & West mainland India as well as Northeast India. We empower The Church in India to make Christ known through leadership, child, & village development projects. Global Hope India is a federally recognized 501(c)3 nonprofit organization located in Morrisville, North Carolina. All gifts are tax-deductible. More about GHI.
Living the Dream Podcast: The Living the Dream podcast is where Church staff and volunteers get comfortable and aligned with the reality that God is moving millions of foreign-born internationals into our communities. We focus on this incredible opportunity God is giving us to change the world! We know how this story ends! Rev 7:9-12 shows us a Church filled with EVERY nation, tribe, & tongue gathered together worshipping Jesus. Welcome to Living the Dream podcast where we help The Church be on earth as it is in heaven. More about Living the Dream Podcast.
Meet Pastor Kevin: Pastor Kevin is Founder and Executive Director of Global Hope India and your host for Living the Dream Podcast. He's a poor kid from rural North Carolina, but get this... He just returned from his 50th trip to India in 20 years. If he doesn’t yet hold the Guinness Book of World Records for the most trips to India then he's got to be close. He's flown over a million miles to 27 different countries. He's taken nearly 1,000 people on mission trips to India. Global Hope India has seen thousands of Indian Nationals and Americans radically transformed by God through missions. The miracle continues! More about Pastor Kevin.
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