From: "Vrin Parker " Mailing-List: list vediculture@yahoogroups.com List-Unsubscribe: Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 00:02:11 -0000 Subject: [world-vedic] In the Name of Jeeezus.... Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2002 05:20:01 -0000 From: "arunsitaraman " Subject: Religious intolerance and the missionary actitivites During the last 25 years, the real estate purchases by Churches of various denominations has been of staggering proportions. There have been massive efforts to construct church buildings in all nooks and corners of the country. Where did the money come from? A CBI inquiry is called for urgently and effective action should be taken to enforce the law of the land on perpetrators who have been spreading intolerance among faiths, on converting religion into a marketplace to buy up souls and affecting the peaceful conduct of social affairs in the country. In many instances, these actions also constitute threats to the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the nation. Here is a tip of the ice-berg as gleaned from just one church website: Calcutta=85A month of systematic prayer by local Christian leaders followed. They divided the city into 25 routes for prayer walks. Many of the citiy's 160 churches adopted one or more of those routes, claiming the territory for the Lord Jesus Christ. The results of that concentrated time of prayer are still visible today. That month of prayer enhanced the Mission Calcutta 2000 Network, whose aim is to establish a church in every one of the city's 93 postal code zones by the end of the year 2000. Great progress has been made. Thirty zones that did not have a church now have one. Today, only 30 other zones remain untouched=85Many consider this city the very seat of Satan. Hindus believe that bathing in the Ganges River at Varanasi washes away all sins. A number of Christian workers took up the burden of prayer for this city and in prayer walks boldly declared before the idols, "You are not a living god." One year later, it was discovered that church planting works had opened up in sixty villages around Varanasi over that past year, with 300 baptisms reported. http://www.ad2000.org/uters4.htm Signs are Pointing to North India SIGN #3: There is a growing sense of vision and cooperation in the task. Today there are some 40 million Christians in 200,000 local churches in India. In the last few years, local churches and parachurch organizations have joined in the vision of reaching India by generating more than 200 plans for evangelization focusing on the year 2000. For example: "The Evangelical Church of India has a denominational plan to establish 1000 local churches by then. With almost 900 churches already, they expect to reach their goal in 1998 -- two years ahead of schedule. The Friends Missionary Prayer Band has developed "Hindi Heartland Penetration Strategies" to mobilize 1000 new missionaries and to research and evangelize 300 unreached people groups within the next few years. An agency has a church-planting movement among 100 of the Joshua Project 2000 unreached peoples of southern Asia. India Reach has taken on the goal of reaching 500 million people with the gospel through direct mail efforts followed up by personal visits within six weeks to the individuals who respond. They are believing God for over 65 million decisions for Christ by the year 2000. An agency has launched an initiative to present the gospel through literature to 100 million people in India by the year 2000. An agency has a goal for training 100,000 missionaries for outreadh to India, 10,000 of them by December 31, 2000. The Association of Pentecostals is working effectively towards a church for every one of the 75,000 pin codes by the end of the year 2000. The Charismatic New Life Churches have a church-planting movement for every one of the 512 districts by the end of the year 2000. Historically, much of the mission work in this part of India has been done by individual missionaries, ministries and denominations. We rejoice in their faithful efforts and enthusiastically support all that they are doing. But God is doing something very special in India at this time with His Church. As never before, networks are emerging throughout all of North India involving not only historical mainline church leaders, but new church pastors, missionaries from both international and indigenous missions and qualified professional people, many of who are leaving their careers to devote themselves to reaching the unreached in North India. Many of these people and organizations have come together as the North India Harvest Network, a loosely-organized forum established for mutual encouragement and strength in evangelism and church planting efforts. Totally managed by volunteers, it has sponsored seminars in 60 of the 200 districts of North India to build networks and mobilize workers for the harvest they truly believe is coming. Their goal is reaching "every people group in every city in every language in every geographic district." Their mission is expressed in the phrase "PLUG, PREM and be NICE," a series of acronyms that describe their focus and methodology for reaching their goals. PLUG refers to the different targets their networks are trying to reach: every PEOPLE - in every LANGUAGE - in every URBAN center - in every GEOGRAPHIC division (district, block and PIN code). http://www.ad2000.org/uters3.htm Consider the following numbers of congregations established in North India, the vast majority within the last 25 years: The table shows that the number of Christians in North India (HP, Haryana, Rajasthan, UP, MP, Bihar, Punjab, Chandigarh, Delhi) was 1,939,540 i.e. 0.49% of population; Rest of India had 17,700,744 i.e. 4.01% of population. http://www.ad2000.org/uters5.htm