Source: Mission Frontiers, May 2019
Editor’s note: The following is excepted from an interview with Indian mission leader Victor John and describes a church-planting movement among the 90 million Bhojpuri of North India.
The movement started in 1998. I had begun focusing on work among the Bhojpuri since 1992 and in 1994 we began the ministry in earnest. We held the first Bhojpuri consultation, began a systematic survey for all the Bhojpuri districts, and made a decision to focus on obedience-based discipleship. We didn’t start with a blueprint for how the ministry would unfold; everything has been evolving through the years.
The real breakthrough with significant numbers happened when we released the first edition of the Bhojpuri New Testament in 1998. After that the movement began growing exponentially. It wasn’t a huge movement at that time. Things were happening in various places, but we had no idea of the big picture of what the Lord was doing.
In 2000 an audit was done by the International Mission Board (IMB), and they pointed out that exponential growth was taking place. The tipping point had been in 1998, when things just shot up. We only had 800 pastors at that time, and all of their ministries had grown within the previous two or three years. The IMB’s audit showed the rapid growth curve and it hasn’t stopped since then. Additional audits have been done by other groups in subsequent years, showing the endurance and growth of the movement.
I just met yesterday with 35 or 40 leaders who shared amazing stories. We were counting the generations of believers and churches and it’s over 100 generations! Every generation of believers starts a new church. We don’t count the number of believers (how many people got saved). We count the number of churches started.
» Read the rest of this interview. Readers may want to check out the rest of this edition of Mission Frontiers, focused on India: The Greatest Challenge to World Evangelism.
» For more of the story, get the new book Bhojpuri Breakthrough: A Movement that Keeps Multiplying, by Victor John with Dave Coles. The paperback edition $US15 from WIGTake Resources if you order before the end of May. An US$9.99 Kindle edition should be available soon. See excerpts: Bhojpuri Movement Transforming Social Dynamics (Mission Frontiers) and Bhojpuri Girl Raised from the Dead (Beyond).