DAWN Fridayfax 2000 #5

India

3,000 house churches planted in Madhya Pradesh since 1994

Madhya Pradesh, with some 70 million inhabitants, is the largest and one of the least evangelised Indian states: less than 1% of the population are Christians. The decades of slow growth of Christianity in the state are coming to an end, not least because of the never-tiring initiatives of people such as ex-surgeon Dr. Victor Choudhrie who is working with an ever-growing network of Christians towards the aim of "a church per 1,000 inhabitants of the state". The fact that this will need 100,000 new churches, taking expected population growth in the next decades into account, does not seem to concern him: "Whatever must be done to reach the aim, it must be done." "I recently held a seminar for Christian leaders in a remote district of Madhya Pradesh," he told us a few days ago. "I met a Christian there whom I had almost forgotten. He had been living with tribes in the jungle, and I was excited by what he had to tell us. Here's a summary of his experiences, in his own words:" "I came to Jesus in the late 80's. Not long afterwards, I experienced a large evangelistic crusade in a city. Impressed, I returned to my village and organised similar crusades there and in the surrounding villages for years. Thousands came, and everyone liked it. The crusades were so successful, that even the lame could walk again - and walked away, never to return; the blind could see - and never looked back. At that time, we did not have a church. In 1994, I attended a seminar about house church planting which completely changed my thinking. I gave up the costs and difficulties of organising crusades and started to plant house churches with fiery evangelistic zeal, with the result that almost 1,000 house churches have been started in neighbouring districts. We don't plant only one house church per village, because there are a number of people groups which require their own house churches. I hope that the number of house churches will double in the next 12 months." "That brings us an important step closer to reaching our aim of 30,000 new house churches in Madhya Pradesh by the year 2007," says Dr. Choudhrie. "The aim doesn't even look as impossible as at first glance..."
Source: Dr. Victor Choudhrie; e-mail: victor@bom6.vsnl.net.in

Eastern Europe

Strategic alliance plants 4,000 new churches in 7 years

Don Crane of the Alliance for Saturation Church Planting, a strategic alliance of missionary churches and around 35 missions agencies, reports that the group has planted 4,000 new Christian churches in Central and Eastern Europe and the ex-Soviet Union since starting 7 years ago. "The most important news is that all these new churches were planted by local Christians who had completed church planter training. In 1999 alone, the 1,776 church planters started 2,675 evangelistic study groups and 767 new churches," he reports.
Source: Don Crane, ASCP, Budafoki ut 34/b, 1116 Budapest, Hungary, tel. (+36)-1-4665978

Cambodia

Khmer are open for the gospel

Cambodia, a gigantic battlefield under the Khmer Rouge, is now experiencing a time of spiritual openness, according to a report by Campus Crusade for Christ's South-East Asian branch. Over 50% of the Khmer to whom the gospel was presented in an understandable form were ready to follow Christ, they report. Of 140 officers, professors, doctors, engineers and businessmen who attended an evangelistic dinner, 56 decided to follow Jesus and 41 were interested in learning more.
Source: Campus Crusade for Christ/ Berita NECF

Indonesia

Bethel churches grow from 250,000 to 1.7 million members in 11 years

We have received more reports of church growth in the midst of anti-Christian and anti-governmental disturbances in Indonesia. The Gereja Bethel has 70,000 members in 800 churches in Surabaya, a city of 3.5 million, and baptises between 600 and 700 people there each month. Indonesia's Bethel churches have grown from 250,000 members and 1,086 local churches to 1.7 million members in 4,000 local churches in the last 11 years.
Source: NECF, Operation World

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