That all peoples may know him: For Southern Baptists, the challenge is clear
– shine the bright light of the gospel on all the world
That all peoples may know him: For Southern Baptists, the challenge is clear
– shine the bright light of the gospel on all the world
Where can one find thousands of millionaires – not to mention nine of
the worlds richest billionaires as well?
India.
Who makes more movies than Hollywood?
India – by far.
“Bollywood,” the vast film industry based in Bombay (now Mumbai)
churns out about 1,000 pictures a year, roughly twice as many as Hollywood.
Hindi movies burst with melodrama, action, sexy stars and big musical production
numbers – and gross $3.5 billion a year worldwide.
Which nation boasts the worlds biggest democracy?
India.
And it still works, as demonstrated by this years stunning upset victory
by the underdog Congress Party against the ruling Hindu nationalist alliance.
Which country now counts more than 24 million Christians – nearly 19 million
of whom are evangelicals?
Right again – India.
If ones most vivid impressions of India come from old National Geographic
magazines and Rudyard Kiplings jungle stories, consider the following
facts:
Indias 1.07 billion people – second only to China in
total population – are 80 percent Hindu. But more than 130 million Muslims
also call India home. That rivals the combined population of all countries in
the Arab Middle East.
Indian teenagers spend about $3 billion a year just on fashion
accessories.
The Indian middle class (those earning $2,000 to $4,000 annually)
now numbers 300 million – larger than the entire U.S. population. It is
expected to approach 450 million within the next five years.
Massive rural-to-urban migration likely will double the population
of Indias cities within two decades. That is equal to “all of Europe,
all of a sudden, needing water, sanitation, drainage, power, transportation,
housing,” an Asian Development Bank official explains.
No fewer than 555 million Indians are under age 25.
Indian universities produce more than 1.5 million graduates each
year.
The booming Indian economy was forecast to grow 8 percent this
year as Indian industries match or surpass some of the worlds top producers.
India has some 200 million English speakers. The nations
vast collection of peoples also speak several hundred other languages and dialects.
Three Indians made this years TIME magazine list of the worlds
100 most powerful and influential people – Bollywood star Aishwarya
Rai, former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and information technology industry
mogul Azim Premji (reputedly the worlds fourth-richest man).
But despite the signs of progress, make no mistake – India still faces
enormous problems of poverty and need.
The poor in some 800,000 towns and villages still account for the great majority
of the population. About 300 million people live on less than a dollar a day.
As many as 3,000 Indian farmers in the state of Andhra Pradesh have killed themselves
in the last six years because of debt and drought.
India also has the worlds largest number of working children (up to 115
million). Many toil in sweatshops. And at least half of the population cannot
read.
Meanwhile, many of the graduates pouring out of the nations universities
cannot find decent jobs. Despite economic growth, too many applicants are competing
for too few positions. The government counts 40 million jobless workers, while
the vaunted Indian info tech industry employs fewer than 1 million.
Still, India has made amazing progress on many fronts – economic expansion,
education, technology. Its scientists, academics, computer specialists, entrepreneurs
and entertainers are challenging – and often surpassing – the best
other countries can offer. Expectations are soaring.
Diversity is India
One can find anything he or she is looking for in India – staggering wealth
and appalling squalor; showbiz fantasy and harsh reality; high-tech companies
and age-old cottage industries; instant business deals and molasses-slow state
bureaucracy; megacities and remote forests; the latest trends and ancient traditions;
go-go capitalists and doctrinaire communists; holy men and atheists; intense
spirituality and crass materialism; Hindus, Muslims, Jains, Sikhs, Christians,
Buddhists, tribals.
Hundreds of Indias ethnic, religious and caste groups live in geographical
or social isolation from each other, looking at the rest of this vast “nation
of nations” with curiosity or suspicion. If set down somewhere in the north,
many a south Indian would be as bewildered by the customs and languages as someone
from the U.S. heartland parachuting into Scandinavia. Meanwhile, in other places
– particularly cities – different peoples and cultures mix and mingle
in seemingly countless combinations. Mumbai, Indias largest city, is a
world unto itself.
With more than 17 million people jammed into a 180-square-mile peninsula, Mumbai
is the financial capital of India, the film capital, the organized crime capital,
the AIDS and prostitution capital.
It is the home of Indias most expensive real estate – and Asias
biggest slum. One can live under plastic tarps on the streets, as multitudes
do, or dine with old money at the exclusive stadium cricket club (joining fee
– $30,000).
On Mumbais sidewalks and crowded commuter trains, one can rub shoulders
with stock traders wearing cell phones and $1,000 suits, beggars, college students,
Muslim women covered by black burkhas, Marathis, Gujaratis, Punjabis, Tamils,
Keralites, Kashmiris, Bengalis, Assamese.
On one bustling street, a plush mansion built as a set for Bollywood movies
stands empty, while at least 100 squatters live in lean-tos along the outside
wall.
“Thats Mumbai,” one resident says, shrugging.
That is India.
“Diversity is India,” a leading Christian strategist says. “You
can lose yourself in all the challenges and unlimited horizons for missions
in this country. You could pour a thousand lifetimes into India and never exhaust
it.”
But even a thousand lifetimes dedicated to spreading the gospel will not make
a real dent in India – unless they are lives focused on multiplying disciples
and churches.
Of all the surprises and superlatives of India, here are several of the most
important:
Indias 24-million-member Christian community is growing but
remains a small minority of the national population of 1.07 billion.
India and its closest South Asian neighbors have 200-plus people
groups with populations exceeding 1 million.
Nearly half of the worlds unreached people groups live in
India and the South Asian region. They have yet to be touched by the gospel
in any significant way.
India alone is home to 14 different “super-mega” people
groups (more than 10 million members each) who are currently “unengaged”
by a church-planting movement strategy. In other words, Christians are not yet
focusing on any of these groups in a way that will result in growing, self-sustaining
church movements. Just one of these ethnic peoples – the Rajput –
totals 40 million souls.
South Asia, which includes India, has half of the worlds
Last Frontier population – more than any other region.
As India goes, so goes the Great Commission
The three global “giants” standing between the body of Christ and
the fulfillment of the Great Commission in our day are China, Islam and India
– each with a population of more than 1 billion persons.
Two of these three meet in South Asia – India and the nearly 400 million
Muslims living primarily in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
“As India goes, so goes the Great Commission,” a Christian strategist
living in the country insists. “And how is India doing? Not that well,
quite frankly. Not because its inaccessible – because its neglected.
If this is truly the last of the giants, God is giving it to us on a silver
platter. It is a friendly place, an inviting place.
“There is no excuse for not getting the gospel out here. Im overwhelmed
at the openness.”
That assessment seemingly contradicts frequent reports of persecution of Christians
in India, resistance to evangelization and the resurgence of Hindu extremism.
True, violent opposition is very real in areas, but it often is a reaction to
the gospels spread – which persecution cannot stop.
Indias renowned spiritual tolerance also lives up to its reputation in
many ways, both as bridge and a barrier for the gospel. “India skipped
modern,” a Christian worker explains. “It has always been postmodern.”
How so? The philosophical idea that many paths lead to God or truth probably
originated in India – and now strongly influences the West. It challenges
the exclusive claim of Jesus Christ to Lordship, but opens many doors in India
to talking about him.
In the cities, at least, Christ followers readily can gain a hearing in the
noisy Indian marketplace of ideas. In the more traditional and resistant villages,
growing numbers of believers boldly are proclaiming the good news.
“Weve seen so many people come to Christ, so many churches started
– hundreds, maybe thousands of new churches,” the Christian strategist
says. “This is an incredibly responsive place. We just need more people
implementing church-planting movement strategies. That means moving from planting
an individual church and bringing a few people to Christ to saying, Whats
it going to take to see a movement that sweeps through a people?
“In Gods economy we have a vital role to play – a role
of encouraging, training and multiplying ourselves through hundreds and thousands
of national partners.”
It already is happening in some places, like the huge north Indian state of
Uttar Pradesh, where more than 5,000 house churches have sprung up in less than
two years.
It will happen in many more places, because wherever the light of Christ is
lifted up, he draws people unto himself, workers in the country insist.
Indeed, as one believer stresses – “Our job is to turn on the light,
turn on the light, turn on the light!”