Greetings to you all in the Matchless Name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It brings great joy to once again share with you the good tidings of the Revival at Kanchipuram. The Prophetical Word from God for this crusade was BRINGING END TO DARKNESS.The power nights were packed with the amazing demostration of God’s Might, as you have wittnessed in the pictures of the mass crowd pouring into the grounds we had received more than we could ask or think off ! The meetings embarked with the praise and worship which provided the solid platform for the servant of God (Andrew Deal ) to deliver the Word of God, It was Explicit, Powerful,illustrious, Practical and down to earth. Towards the end of each power night people were rushing towards to the altar for prayer and deliverance. Scores of people were delivered and transformed by the awesome Spirit of God that swept through the area. Each power night the call for salvation was given and people came running to surrender their lives to Christ.The last power night was dynamic as hundreds of people not only accepcted Jesus Christ but were also soaked in the anointing. We have strategically segregated and distributed the hundreds of decision cards to the pastors of the respective areas to carry on the follow up work. All the pastors of the three fellowships worked hard and stood with us giving full support physically and prayerfully. The weather was kind and pleasant all the threed ays giving a perfect atmosphere . On the last night 20 minutes after the end of the meeting the clouds opened up and rain started to pour down and is still raining (kanchipuram has not seen much rain this year).. wow.. Talk about God’s perfect timing. what a blessing .. The God we serve never lets us down. The people and the pastors in kanchipuram say that these meeting have brought huge blessing to them spiritually and also has brought rain.The crowd response was history as churches in kanchipuram has never seen such a huge gathering. The churches and the pastors are all fired or christ and they are not going to stop but carry the flame and light the fire of christ and extened the kingdom of God in kanchipuram. We recently conducted a thankgiving service where the core leaders participated testified the goodness of the Lord after these meeting. The pastors have decided to stand together in unity leaving their differences behind and allow God to work through them as a team and army to bring down the forces of darkness in kanchipuram. They started this by standing together that night and dedicating themselves for this cause. Awesome. We are deeply indebted to everybody who has been a part of this ministry.Thank God for everything he has done is doing and is going to do. Please continue to pray for kanchipuram. The darkness has been brought to an end and kanchipuram has been set ablaze for Christ. God Bless.

Josh’s Church, Praise Garden, where pastor Aruldas serves, is the most welcoming, mature and focussed church I know in India.

Also for me, the people there have a great heart and desire for the Kingdom of God to expand, and are ready to partner with us going forward.

Kathy and the kids came with me to their 12 year anniversary meeting, which occurs on India’s Independence day (Aug 15th) and we had a great service together. We look at 6 great aspects of Christs sacrifice for us from Heb 10, and i never felt more relaxed to comfortably stand and deliver God’s word.

I guess I can be accused of giving in to superlatives, as I am searching for ones now as i write that could surpass the ones I have used already… I dont think words can describe the depth of joy and gratitude I have in how the final night went. But since words (and a few more pics) is all we can use here, let it suffice!

God helped us break through!

Best update i could muster as we are now on the move in Europe is to paste this IM between my friend Mike and I:

[21:44] drewdeal: India was radical!
[21:44] drewdeal: http://lighthouseindia.org
[21:44] drewdeal: blog entries have some pics
[21:45] likefox2107: sweetr
[21:47] drewdeal: Largest chrstian gathering in this cities known history!
[21:47] likefox2107: really
[21:47] likefox2107: wow
[21:47] drewdeal: prior to this.. 750 was the max
[21:47] drewdeal: we have about 5k on last night
[21:48] likefox2107: wow!!!
[21:48] likefox2107: crazy
[21:48] likefox2107: praise God thats awesome
[21:49] drewdeal: yeah… India is hitting critical era of change
[21:49] likefox2107: i’m watching the video
[21:49] likefox2107:
[21:50] drewdeal: Kanchipuram is a key city of Caste history, Brahmin tyrrany, and 3000 years of oppression.. there is heavy stronghold going down
[21:51] likefox2107: wow

Indi-Andy
– Please post comments

Saturday night came with a sense of reckoning. The burden I felt on the first night was replaced with a new one, which is hard to compare in terms of severity, but it was very different. I was much more settled regarding the message itself, but the unanswered question was how far to take it. This sermon is where the Jeremiah mandate was to come into play. And this message was to be a pretty tough pill to swallow.

The day of preparation was spent almost entirely in prayer, which was a rewarding experience. I woke very early to look for a browsing center to deliver yesterdays blog post, and having to wait 2+ hours til they opened meant an opportunity to cruise around town in an auto and praying over the city. The driver took me to various temples and was bewildered as to why I did not desire to tour through them, but was content to sit outside and simply ask for a few moments of silence. The feeling in prayer was like parking myself in front of an old, tired behemoth of a principality, who was determined to never leave, but also had lost it’s teeth and was just as much of a monument to past demonic influence as the building itself. I engaged it in prayer, declaring the blood of Jesus as superior to it’s hold over the city. The experience emboldened me.

The impression from the Spirit of God all day to me was that THIS is the acceeptable year of the Lord, and I kept bumping into Luke 4:18 in my studies back at the room. The people of Kanchipuram must be delivered from oppression as they put their trust in Christ for the forgiveness of sins. The oppression of caste, arrogance, and ancient curses would be confronted in the message, provided I could muster the courage to name each one without flinching. It has always disturbed me why very few Christians openly condemned casteism, so the prospect of doing so carried a pronounced sense of dread.. especially since i would be standing and speaking in the heartland of it.

So the message itself was about authority, and how Christ reigns in authority, sitting at the right hand of God. Eph 1:23 goes a step further, declaring Christ not only the head of the church, but also the church as the body of Christ, meaning that right authority must come from the church and speak renewal and reconciliation to the world. Apart from the church working in obedience to the head, the sins of the world will not be held to account.

This message brought the other burden into balance, because really it is not my business to confront an ancient culture apart from doing so in obedience to Jesus, and it is not the business of the church to call hindus to repentance without repenting themselves for failing to stop this oppression in years past (not to mention our own complicity with it). The message was hard to deliver, and when it came time to do it, all of us involved in the service had been wrestling against darkness and distraction every step of the way. I knew this night was a spiritual battle ground, yet here we were, standing together to declare freedom to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and the acceptable year of deliverance for a people long oppressed.

The crowd was larger.. about 2500+, and the word is that this was the largest Christian gathering in the known (anecdotally) history of Kanchipuram! The message was delivered, the saints strengthened through repentance, and the principalities of oppression openly challenged in the name of Jesus Christ! The beauty of it to me, was not just confronting the spirits, but calling the church to a new maturity and boldness to understand their authority and responsibility to never let let up on the kingdom of darkness, but to keep shining the light of Christ!

Anyway, the pill ws swallowed, and now we move on to the night of blessing Sunday, where we will call for salvation, baptize in the Holy Spirit, and impart a prophetic annointing!

Please pray for a great finish and a new dawn for the church in India, as you check the new pics!

Indi-Andy

Friday night approached with a great deal of trepidation for me. I mulled over not only a sermon title, but even the theme and temperature of the event. When I prayed about being strong toward tearing down strongholds, the Lord reminded me to know nothing else among them except Christ and Him crucified. (1 Cor 2). Then, when I prayed about focussing on blessing the people, the Lord reminded me about the Jeremiah prophecy! I asked Josh to take us early to Kancheepuram so I could pray while in the city, discerning the spirits here.

So from Friday 2 to 5 pm I was in the room in the city determined to pray.. Then sleep hit me!
Ok, well the sermon was at least planned. The Lord would have to speak to me in my sleep. Although I still was not settled regarding what I had prepared, the clock was running out. I arrived near 6. The grounds were ready and a handful of people were there waiting. I never had felt so ill prepared since the last 6 years, yet I had confidence that God would intervene in the service. We started a bit late, but the worship was great! God really visited a people hungry for a touch from Him. As songs rolled by, Big dump trucks rolled into the grounds full of people from villages all around. The pastor in charge of transportation did a good job, and the crowd swelled to 1500+… larger than any of the pastors could remember for the first night of a crusade here.

I received the mike at 8:05. That is 35 minutes later than promised, and I had a mandate to make sure the service was over at 8:45! The presence of God really visited me, and the Holy spirit enabled me to preach the sermon with His power, and the message of God really broke through!
The nutshell is that we need pure hearts in order to see God (Matt 5:5, Ps 24:2) and that unless we become humble like little children, we cannot enter into the kingdom of God (Luke 18:17). I enumerated 6 things that pollute our vision of seeing the Lord as He is. In order to keep my promise in finishing, I had to combine calling people to come up to be delivered from despair with closing the meeting. At least 500 people thronged forward as pastor Joel dismissed what remained of the crowd. I had to lay hands on each one, as people had an overwhelming expectation that my touch would bring the power of God. I went for it and prayed for each one. Although overwhelmed and a bit annoyed at the frenzy of it, I am confident God really did touch each and every one. Thier faith was very active. Their need day in and day out is very real, and my heart is truly attached to the future of these people.

The pastors and the people were very blessed, and everyone here is looking forward to more tomorrow night. Please pray for the harvest to continue.

In dismissing, here are a few pics. I gotta get my resolution right and get some help with the pics.

Joshua’s pastor, and my great encouragor, pastor Aruldas (affectionately known as Arulappa) with me today to convey the spiritual background of what we are facing and ministering to. I am at a loss to convey it in words, as i dont want to be redundant, so all I can say is that we are getting fire from heaven so we can proclaim mercy, grace and peace from the Lord to the earth.

As we prayed, the Lord spoke this to me:
“Go with the anointing of Jeremiah, understanding that the word you bring will pluck up and tear down, as well as to build and plant.
You are to speak to souls mercy, and to the prevailing controlling spirits over the city that have oppressed for centuries, a death sentence”.

This gives me a mandate that only the Lord could help me bear. Through Him, I am up for it.

Kanchipuram area and history
Wiki
Decent bio site

Background of why current situation is relevant to crusade, and location is strategic:

(excerpt) HISTORIANS relate the segregation of a section of people in Tamil Nadu as “outcastes” and “untouchables” to the process of Aryanisation of southern India. Dalit isolation grew in intensity in pace with this process. “The Aryanisation of the South was doubtless a slow process spread over several centuries. Beginning probably about 1000 B.C., it had reached its completion before the time of Katyayana, the grammarian of the 4th century B.C., who mentions the names of the Tamil countries of the extreme south.” (K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, A History of South India)

In his Slavery in the Tamil Country: A Historical Overview, historian S. Manickam observes: “It is difficult to say when the institution of slavery originated in the South. Perhaps the conquest of southern India by the Aryans and the consequent fusion between them and the inhabitants of the land could have been the possible cause of the birth of Caste System and the institution of slavery which is closely allied with the former.”

City and seer key in history of caste system. From AICC
Understanding untouchability (Dalit oppression)

Understanding the local politics and current upheaval:
German news story with good background on controversy of nov/2004 arrest
Charge sheet outlining reason for arrest of high priest last year. (story)
case updates for those interested
Analysis of case developments and defence of Swami by reasonable Hindu apologist

I’ll make more updates if i can, but I welcome more links that you feel are relevant. Post them in comments.

This post will be brief although originally intended to be large. I started it twice and in both cases closed the browser before posting! Doh.

Anyway, on Sunday after meeting with Solomon, I went down to Chengulpet to meet with our main coordinator, Pastor Joel Sekaran.

We had a wonderful time encouraging one another and I was especially delighted regarding the great strides made in the crusade preparations.

Three different Pastors fellowships and various denominations are coming together to make the crusade a success. Over 240 churches!. This is the first broadly supported and coordinated meeting in the city in a long time, and the first since the upheavals in the spritual climate. Pastors that had previously been unwilling to work together are doing so… Pastor Joel is annointed to bring reconciliation here!

the more time i spend here, the more I see the unprecedented nature of our opportunity!

Please pray daily and consider fasting over the weekend for the harvest here.

Your Comments to posts like these are especially helpful. I mean.. I really need to know via posts that someone is out there praying!!!
– In comment replies, insights received during prayer are especially welcome. Let the Holy spirit speak through you.

This arrival was almost routine, but right away, we had a wonderful encounter in arranging meetings for Sunday.

Someday I’ll stop being amazed at how easy it has become for us to arrive in India and immediately get going with appointments, plans, and daily life. It really is a second home. So we went through the mandatory two days of total lag, and here on Monday, I am at the office, working with the new CGI software team. Without getting into all that, let me just finish this post with what happened Saturday, just about 8 hours after our arrival.

I called up Pastor Solomon of the Gospel Lighthouse Foursquare Church, the only Foursquare church in the Chennai area, to see how he was doing. We had missed each other on previous occasions, but this time we worked it out so I could come the next day to his Church and preach. I totally saw this as a divine appt, as my heart is to build up the Foursquare efforts here in India, looking for ways to help Pastors like Solomon know more about Foursquare from different perspectives. Solomon has 4 small branch churches under him, each with various levels of personal connection with Solomon, and i committed to him a desire to help him and his growing network get to know the foursquare family.

The services were wonderful on Sunday, and i can see a great future of ministry for Solomon, as he is a great leader and is walking out a vision to plant churches as well as build his boys orphanage up to new levels. Let me just put in an even bigger plug for him. If you are interested in spending 1 to 6 months overseas to help our churches impact the people of South India, I can’t think of a better place to be than Solomon’s! Shawn, are you reading this?

Anyway, Solomon and I had a great lunch and spent the day together talking about needs and opportunities. He is going to the India Foursquare convention in Bangalore next week, which is where i would also be if it did not have the exact same dates as the crusade! As you read this, please pray for Solomon and the bangalore church as they all get to know each other better. The partnerships we build within our own Foursquare family are key to building the kingdom of God, and rescuing souls!

Talk about busy!

The ministry teams are spreading the word with 20,000 flyers and they are posting an unbelievable 2000 posters all around the area.

Please pray that all goes well and that God grants us favor in our distribution.