Church Planter on Mission to Save India
Keys to Multiplication
How has this multiplication happened so quickly? Trueb gives credit to RAD’s biblically based methodology, but also points to two other factors: the power of the Holy Spirit and a simple model of house church — no paid staff and no building required. He believes this model is essential to church growth in rural Bihar, where spiritual and economic poverty are compounded. According to India’s government, Bihar has the lowest gross domestic product per capita in the country.
Dusk is falling as Trueb, Jagdish and Rajeev pay a visit to a third-generation church started in Lalitpur* village by a 28-year-old construction worker and church planter named Dileep Das.* He was led to Christ by another Bihari church planter named Abishek Das,* who was led to Christ and trained by Rajeev. Worship “services” at Jhunathi church would be almost unrecognizable to many American evangelicals.
Every Sunday, 15 to 20 adults and about 15 children pack into Dileep’s10x8, mud-and-brick hut, topped by a bamboo-and-thatch roof. They sit on woven mats on the ground because there are no pews or chairs. There’s no electricity either, which means there is no air conditioning when summertime temperatures top 115 degrees F. Light comes in the form of a single, oil lamp fashioned from a discarded hydrogen peroxide bottle. There is no running water or bathroom—members must remember to “go” before church. With no sound system, projection screen or praise team, the only worship instruments are a lone tambourine and the believers’ hands and voices. Yet, despite the lack of trappings this tiny group of believers praise Jesus—and the Gospel flourishes as a result.
Before he met Abishek, Dileep had never heard of Christ. Neither had any of the people in the seven churches Dileep has started in seven different villages surrounding Lalitpur. It’s a remarkable feat for a young church not yet two years old. Every Sunday Dileep visits two of the churches to continue teaching their members; he meets with all seven of the churches’ pastors once a month to train them in RAD. And he leads by example. Dileep has helped more than 35 people come to know Christ in the two years he’s been a believer.
Trueb says it’s the kind of growth that’s needed to win Bihar for Christ. That’s because in the world’s second-most populous country, sharing the Gospel can be a bit of a numbers game.
Numbers Game
Roughly the size of the state of Indiana, Bihar is home to 103 million people—about one-third of the entire population of the United States. Less than .05 percent are evangelical Christians; 80 percent of Bihar is Hindu, 15 percent Muslim and 5 percent Buddhist.
In the area Trueb serves, which includes Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh, part of West Bengal and the plains of Nepal, approximately 4,000 people die each day. In contrast, the daily birthrate is nearly 12,000, resulting in a net growth rate of 8,000—per day. Trueb says that means if Christians there aren’t “sharing the Gospel 8,000 times a day, we lose the battle of lostness. … At first, that seems like it might be really discouraging, but it’s not, because in Acts we know God overcomes those types of things.”
Spiritually, Trueb says Bihar has long been an “enemy” stronghold. It is the supposed birthplace of both Buddhism and Jainism, and is bisected by the Ganges River, sacred to Hindus. Surprisingly, Trueb says persecution against Christians has practically been nonexistent since 2006, another boon to unimpeded church growth. But he doesn’t know how long that will last, and despite impressive progress, Jagdish and Rajeev have a lot more work to do.
Their goal? A house church in each of Bihar’s 45,000 villages.
“This is a very good time for harvesting, but laborers are few,” Jagdish says. “If our people will work and will pray, very soon … every village and every district will have a church.”
“This is the right time and we have the right tools,” Rajeev adds. “And we are harvesting fast.”
*Name or location changed
Don Graham is a senior writer for IMB.
