Greetings friends. It has been a long time since my last post, mostly due to some very difficult issues I faced upon my return. The work that God did while we were there 90 days ago cannot be diminished though. It seems that each year, I am spent by the stretch to get to India, but when it is all said and done, I would do it all over again for the fruit that comes from it.

Here is pastor Joel’s recent email that encouraged my heart once again, and made me happy to bear the burden of the bridge:

dear pastur gretings in his name.trust this letter
finds you and your family in every best of health.hope
things are going smooth at your end.hope god will do
great things in your ministry.here our ministries are
vey blesing.god is doing great things in KANCHEEPURAM
didtrict.after our KALPAKKAM pastors conference,SADRAS
crusade ican feel the great MOVE OF THE HOLY SPRIT
AMONG THE PASTORS AND IN THE CHURCHES.PRAISE GOD.LAST
WEEK ALSO I GAVE THE GODS WORD IN MADURANTHAGAM
PASTORS FELLOWSHIP.IN MEETTING ALSO I GOT GREAT FEED
BACKS FROM MANY PASTORS ABOUT THEIR CHURCH GROWTH
ANDTHEIR SPIRITUAL BLESING AFTER THE MEETTINGS. THANK
YOU FOR ALL YOUR BURDEN FOR THIS KANCHIPURAM DIST.HOPE
GOD WILL TRANSFORM THE ENTIRE KANCHEEPURAM DIST.THANK
YOU PASTOR.MY LOVE AND REGARDS TO YOU AND TO ALL IN
YOUR FAMILY.GIVE MY REGARDS AND WISHES TO YOUR
PASTOR.GOD BLESS YOU……REV.JOEL

We are altogether home now from this trip!

It was an overall amazing success as the prior posts point out. The only things left to do now are:

1. Get more pictures from Brian and add them to the site
2. Post video clips
3. Meet with my pastors for future direction
4. Have Josh add a post here so you can get his enthusiastic take on things
5. Redo the website so it reflects our vision refinement and takes July 06 out of ‘upcoming’

Then we’ll get to work on the next phase of the bridge.

Thanks again for all your help friends. All you that prayed and helped were there with us and the Kingdom of God is enlarged on the earth as a result.

We had an amazing thanksgiving service today at the beautiful MGM resort. Joshua and I felt it would be best to honor those who worked so hard by having a lunch meeting here. There were about 30 of us altogether, pastors and wives. My favorite part of the time was being able to hear the individual testimonies that were shared before all. Each had such a rich experience between the conference and crusade, I took notes on each one as Joshua translated it to me. Although heavily paraphrased, what you see here reflects the genuine response from local leaders we strive to support.

Pastor Joshua (local Sadras area pastor)
- conference encouraged him to go forward in ministry, and not shrink back
- many hindus are now coming to his church, as he arranged truckloads from his village to attend the crusade.

Pastor Matthew (local pastor who took us out on the boats and helped us with the tsunami recovery reports)
- Sound man at crusade came to him and gave his life to Jesus before the 3rd meeting
- 2 new converts in church already, and his church is really geared up for doing followup

Eva. Jeyaseelan (oversaw public announcements to over 120 villages)
- Big crowd was really a mind-blower. The largest meetings in the past were 2000 or so, but we had over 5000 people the last night. Some even think it was over 7000, but 5000+ sounds right.

Pastor Andrew (Church of South India secretary and history teacher… he can help us reach CSI churches)
- conference helped him wonderfully through a combination of teachings and personal challenges
- At crusade, Andrew lead a Catholic accountant friend of his to turn from idols, and serve Jesus alone.

Rev John (Lutheran pastor… helped oversee the stage and sound)
- Was touched because although he couldnt preach during Tsunami relief (charitables restricted it), the crusade allowed him to extend the hope of Christ to the same people they had been praying for.
- God planted a seed, and new harvests are coming!

Pastor Elisha Paul (prayer committee leader)
- Prayed behind screen and tons of people appeared first night.
- Was glad to pray for so much deliverance each night, and see God come by his power to many.

Dr. M A Paul (local doctor and worship leader.. Jesus Care Ministry)
- Day before crusade it rained hard, and forced big prayer time to stop the rain for 3 days
- Of course God came through and the rain didn’t resume until the crusade was over. “I learned great faith from that moment”.

Pastor Victor Vengatesh
- Told people who were sick and demon pssessed to come
- A big village hindu leader got saved and will stop conducting hindu festivals from now on!!!
- One had cancer
- - after crusade, the victim testified that his body is changing

Pastor Devan
- conference represented essential days of training for his ministry
- really encouraged us to have discipline and excellence.
- the conference prepared us for the crusade

Pastor Gana Prakasham
- with pastor Matt, had 100 more posters, and did them in the rain!!! “I serve a big God!” and I believed the rain would not stop the plan of God…

Pastor Aruldas Chengulpet
- sick woman got healed 2nd night, and was lively the whole way home!

Pastor Joels mom
- thanking God for Andrew, as he carries the great commission.
- The grounds didn’t seem right, but God exceeded my expectations
- my husband was sick, but during the worship time, God revived his strength

Selvi Sekaran (Pastor Joel’s wife)
- possessed people got delivered. One girl had a serpent spirit
— she got delivered, and the next two nights she was free

Pastor Jeyasingh
- May 14th I had an acccident, and for 2 months i couldn’t not work. Jaw broken.
- i was given the volunteers coordinator job, and i coupld not speak!
– i accepted the role, and did it by God’s grace, and I was healed during the crusade.

Pastor Joel
- First madurangatham pastors were expectig crusade there
- But God directed us to the beach, and His will was confirmed
- lots of people come and go for crusades, but CGI’s relationship based approach reall made a difference
– I received many letters from pastors who are really encouraged by conference.

Pastor EK Durai
- TWR next year too!!! why not 3 or 4 days?
- God bless your family.

Pastor Joshua
- committed to seeing God move in kalpakkam.
- not by might, nor power, but by my Spirit says the Lord
- Not our vision, but the great commission.. that vision
- worship experience!
- - spiritual breakthrough during the power failure.. people kept singing… nearly 1000 kept the song!

Aruldas
- each years crusade as surpassed the year before
- kanchipuram will stop being known as a place that exports darkness, as we walk forward in the light

Pastor Marcus
- the conference has really brought a dynamic change in my ministry attitude. In my big church background, I was a bit lazy, but Joel showed me an amazing work ethic.

HERE ARE MORE PICS… of the MGM event itself:

It turns out staying here is really bearing fruit. I always felt a bit funny having to hit and run when we do ministry together when i am here, but family and work don’t allow me too many options usually. Now that I stayed however, I have been able to solidify my bond with pastors’ Joshua, Aruldas and Joel, so we can really define the mission statement of CGIM and plan for a broader scale time of ministry next year.

We met Tuesday night for dinner and talked for 2 hours. We met again on Wed fo lunch and talked for 2 hours, and we will all be together Saturday with the 27 Sadras crusade organizing pastors to celebrate and have lunch. We call it a thanksgiving meeting. When we are there, we will all share testimonies of what took place and we’ll publish all that we can here. It is vital for everyone to know about the miracles, the breakthroughs, the salvation counts, and overall, the unprecedented things that took place.

We will also be praying for all those that filled out decision cards, and distributing them to the pastors that are present. We have been careful to make sure that we are equiping the local ministries with equal share in the privilidge in following up on them. So many hindus were touched by God, we are expecting to have a really great time together tomorrow.

The day after the crusade ended, we headed back to Chennai on Monday, tired but victorious. Nobody wanted to think about the flight the next morning to Andhra Pradesh, but it was coming. I had been praying about whether I should go with them, as my business needs are very acute right now, as well as the fact that I was exhausted. Anyway, it turned out that they were fine to continue and allow me to stay in Chennai. I’ll be extending my stay til next Thursday most likely, and I am praying daily for the other 6 as they minister up north. Please pray for their rest and peace as they are in the final chapter of the trip.

An interesting backdrop story to the crusade was that we really had a remarkable time with the weather.

The day before the crusade there was heavy rain all up and down the coast. From Chennai to Pondicherry. Our night in the hotel was illuminated with lightning every 10 seconds. Needless to say, everyone was praying that the rain would depart completely for 3 days so we could have a geat event. IT DID!!!

What else is interesting is that there was a word of prophecy that came to us during the final night’s pre-service prayer time that the rain would return after we were finished. So I went ahead and proclaimed to the audience that they will know God was in these meetings and that He loves them when they see it rain heavily on Monday. IT DID!

Finally… this is our 3rd crusade in a row. Each and every one of them was followed by rain.. at least a little that night, and HEAVY the next day! Last year’s meetings in Kanchipuram marked an end to a 2 year drought. It rained abundantly for 2 weeks. AND.. we never once had a drop of rain fall during our meetings or the day preceding them.

Your comments?

It has taken a while to pull together the energy and images for the crusade concluding post, but now I am ready.

I will also make other posts now that are not sent via email, so please visit the site so you can read more about the crusade’s aftermath, boat trip, etc.

Before I get into the details of the final night, let me attempt to explain the context of what we were dealing with here. The fishing villages around the crusade ground, as well as the other villages from which people came by 90 rented vehicles, are populated with people who for centuries have been isolated, intimidated and given over to desperation. The spiritual climate of the crusade was like hard ground compared to the fertile yet religio-skeptical soil of most evangelical meetings you might attend. It took very passionate, faith-filled prayer and worship to break through the topsoil. Each night I felt it softening. We had rotating teams of prayer warriors behind the stage. I could hear them calling out to God whenever there was a lull in the PA.

So on the final night, I felt compelled to say something that could relate to the gradual softening of their hearts and give them something they could use over and over going forward. The message was based on the parable of the sower. My feeling was that if their hearts could receive and understand the Word of God, value the Word of God beyond their experience that day, then I could retire from the meetings with a clear conscious that I followed God’s leading and lasting fruit would emerge. Marcus (my translator) and I felt very connected to the message as it was going out, and I knew that the soil of their hearts had been prepared. I ended it with leading the attentive audience through a symbolic action of holding a seed in thier fingers, acknowledging it as the Word of God, then placing it in their hearts. This was essentially the altar call and we had nearly 90% participation. We are still praying that these precious people will remember this moment and seek God’s promises each and every day. Then we personally prayed and laid hands on nearly 1000 people. I could not count it, but everyone was busy helping me pray. Many were personally lead to Christ.

The crowd was over 5000 strong on this final night… 2000 more than any other meeting here in anyone’s memory! We owe it to the unprecedented level of cooperation between the 20+ local churches who participated with us. I especially owe my personal thanks for this to CGI’s pastors’ Joshua, Joel and Aruldas who assurred these local leaders that their efforts in working together would bear fruit!
More on the growing teamwork we are seeing in future posts.

Here are all the pics I have now. They represent a variety of 2nd and 3rd night crusade shots as well as Sat and Sun daytime activities. More posts may explain these. I’ll get more digicam cards copied so more pics can join these below.

great news!

Day 2 has really been a great deal of fun and heavy lifting as we started off the day with an orphanage visit, a journey on a fishing boat, and then a great service.

There was a sense that people would be set free during worship, and it certainly happened! This village area really has tons of spiritual bondage to overcome. I kept my message simple in that all must come to the end of themselves before they can really turn and find Christ as their savior. The night before, a woman told me that if Jesus does something for her, then she will likely follow Him. She didn’t see that Jesus brought her to the place of surrender by letting her run dry of her own way. It is when you realize your own strength falls flat that you can come to Christ.
Read Luke 15:11-31.

Then I closed with Matt 6:24 that says we cannot serve two masters. I gave an altar call that reall made it clear that false gods have to go if you are to come to Christ. We had 30+ people come to the altar!!! It was awesome. Although we have had more come in the past, the call made it perfectly clear that this was no small decision. i really applaud the courage of these people, as 3000+ saw them come forward and renounce their religion of heritage to come to the living God!

Hey.. pictures are there on the 2 posts below.. loading now probably. If you are reading this as email, please go to the site. The pics are really good!

The first night of the crusade was really a wonder to behold.

At first it looked like there was only going to be about 300 people as we were already 45 minutes past the 6pm posted start time.

By 7:15 there were over a thousand, and by 8 there were 2500!!!

We had a power failure from our big generator at 7:30, but Josh just kept singing anyway in dim lights with no PA, the growing crowd just kept singing and clapping in time to us on the platform! That is when God’s presence really visited. The hunger of the people wouldn’t let them be deterred by a mere loss of audible singing and musicians! We all just kept worshiping and I knew right then we were in for a good time.

I felt a bit awkward in preaching as I felt God wanted me to change the message at the last minute, and include David’s story of Ziklag as an opener to a message on hope despite tragedy. Then I was floating at times during the message literally not knowing what I was going to say next! I only had a half hour about though, then I went right into a time of healing by calling out women suffering from arthritis. About 200 people rushed the platform and I had a great and faithful wall of pastors and team members there to meet them and pray for individuals while I tried to keep order. People were really hungry for God. Desperate for change.

So I closed the service and prayed for people, seeing demons cast out and healings take place. That was another 45 minutes.
The pastors all said the message was really on target and were glad that I confronted the evils of the caste system from Eph 2;11-14.

Tomorrow the message will be about coming to the end of your self. We’ll call people forward for salvation. We are praying this will lead us to being able to baptize people right on the beach on Sunday.

Glorious chaos

Where do I begin?

The conference was amazing! Now that we are in Mahabalipuram, this is my first shot at an internet connection. I am downloading 500 emails while writing this… not sure what will finish first. The conference ended today at noon, and we just arrived a cool place with a great view of this tourist trap. Tomorrow, we see the sights and the crusade begins.

The pastors of Kanchipuram are some of the most devoted christians I have ever met. They were wonderfully grateful for our visit and they really really loved me and my message. Probably the best compliment I received, and what stuck me the most, was when Hallelujah Samuel, a pastor to pastors in the area, said that in 15 years of leadership ministry, I was the first to meet with him and really ask what his needs are in the area. He said many foreign ministries come and go, doing a short program, but none have sat down to ask his opinion about the needs and strategies that will really help the Kingdom of God be established here. We were moved to tears.

There were about 700 attendees, all hungry for the word, and hungry to see the gospel take root. The Tuesday Night service was awesome. We prepared the tipping point theme presentation with an actual 10×4 foot platform on a fulcrum that I climbed up and over numerous times to demonstrate how the breakthroghs for Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, David, Elijah and Daniel all meant a complete change of dynamics for the people of God. The resistance each Bible hero challenged was wiped away and the nation turned from fear to faith. The team constucted a facade of a mountain that I could demonstrate climbing, but when I took a BOLD STEP past the middle, of course i hit the tipping point, which changed the entire environment, demonstrating that the mountain is more of a mental barrier than real. I hope that clears it up. —maybe you had to be there. Anyway, they really liked and related to the visual representation.

Wednesday I started it off again building on the same theme but with a focus on Gideon, and the three issues he had to overcome before he could trust God to take the bold steps necessary to deliver Israel. Local pastors preached next and we had a conference going on! Pastor Martin Roberts preached on individual breakthrough, and then after lunch and the afternoon break we had a sunset service on the beach preached b Sundaram who covered the blessings of trusting God like Elijah did when the ravens fed him. The night time service was a celebration and pastor Aruldas (my pastor in India) preached on the power of the blood of Jesus. Wonderful.

This morning was great as well, as Pastor Aruldas did a seminar with his wife where they opened up and talked about the challenges of ministry on family life. It was exactly what Dr. Jesus ordered for the crowd. Practical instruction on how to break cultural curses among leaders is exactly what will help God’s kingdom advance. Then I got to preach again, covering all the various things God laid on my heart while there, chief among them was that in order for the church to create change in the community, they must first embrace change. Instead of being religious and resistant to what is going on the world around them. We are the change agents of the world!

Just before I closed the meetings I showed everyone that we have a website, and we can communicate through that (blog comments please!).

Then I asked those called to preach and to enter into a life of ministry to come forward for prayer. This was awesome! About 70 young men and women answered the call of God on their lives, and we (pastoral ministry leaders and I) prayed for each one. Answering the call is the first step, now they will all need training — discipleship.

There is nothing but joy at this stage. I felt a great amount of peace as far as my part went. I knew God was guiding my thoughts as I spoke. Your prayers are being felt! Now we just work to build these relationships further and see fruit come in the form of bold steps on behalf of those who were paying attention.

Check out the selected image collection!