India, Part 3: Make Disciples (not just converts)

The second village that Kathi and I arrived at was called Allipur, and it was (spiritually) completely different from the first village. The second we stepped out of our vehicle, the local villagers immediately began flocking towards us. Kathi wanted to begin our ministry in the village by prayerwalking again, but that was almost not physically possible this time because we were surrounded by people who wanted to hear our message RIGHT AWAY! So far be it from us to keep them from it. I began to share the gospel with them. Midway through the presentation, I noticed a creepy-looking old lady who was squatting down and sharpening two hand scythes against each other while she listened. I was a bit frightened on the inside as she was pretty close to me and I imagined her snapping and suddenly charging towards me with those scythes like something out of a horror movie the moment I said something she didn't like. But, taking a deep breath and trusting in God whether he would have me live or die, I kept going, and when I asked at the end if anyone wanted to accept Christ, 8 or 9 people raised their hands, including that lady! One of men who accepted Christ was so excited that he told us he would go gather more people in the village to also hear the gospel! We would soon identity this man to be the "man of peace."

The "man of peace" is an evangelistic concept that I learned from working with e3, but it's actually a Biblical concept found in Luke 10:1-16. In this passage, Jesus gives specific, strategic instructions on how to do evangelism. Particularly, in verses 5-7, He says, "Whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace be to this house.' If a man of peace is there, your peace will rest on him; but if not, it will return to you. Stay in that house, eating and drinking what they give you; for the laborer is worthy of his wages. Do not keep moving from house to house" (NASB). Basically, the man of peace is a person of influence in his community who is open to the gospel. e3 realizes that it's not practical for us personally to try to share the gospel with every single person in these villages that we visit in the short time that we have there (some of these villages are almost as big as cities), but if we can find just this one person of influence and focus on ministering to him (rather than continually "moving from house to house"), then there will be a foothold for the gospel in that village, and the purifying fire of the gospel can continue to spread through him long after we short-term American missionaries have left.

So thanks to our eager man of peace, Kathi and I were able to share the gospel TWO MORE TIMES in that same village, and both times even MORE people came to accept Christ! It was extremely encouraging.

This year, e3 also began implementing a certain "POUCH study" (Participative, Obedient, Unpaid workers in Cell groups of House fellowships) for discipleship purposes since Jesus does not tell us in the Great Commission simply to make converts, but to make disciples, people devoted to following and growing in likeness to Jesus Himself. Basically, POUCH is a Bible study method in which a small group of people read (or listen to) a Bible passage together and then answer a series of six questions. The first five analyze what the passage is teaching and what you're going to take away from it. The last question is, "Who are you going to share this with next?" This is the key question of sorts because it allows the POUCH study to keep expanding and allows spiritual feeding to multiply. POUCH is not complete until everyone has been obedient and followed through on this last question. This method addresses the lack of qualified pastors available to teach the vast numbers of believers throughout the tons of villages out there. We pray that God might raise up pastors to shepherd all the believers in the villages, but until He does, POUCH allows the believers to be to some degree spiritually self-sufficient and to continue learning and growing without dependency on a pastor to come in and teach every week.

So on the third day of ministry in the villages, Kathi and I returned to Allipur and did a POUCH study with the man of peace and a few other men. One of the villagers kindly laid out a blanket for us to all sit down on her porch. Many of the villagers could not read, but e3 had provided us with these awesome "talking Bibles" that could recite (in their language, Telugu) any chapter of the Bible. So we played the passage about the feeding of the five thousand for them and began going through the POUCH questions with them. As far as I could tell (since they spoke in Telugu and my translator would continue to converse with them in Telugu and I only got the paraphrased version of what was going on through my translator every few minutes), they all gave pretty thoughtful and encouraging answers. Kathi noted to me that, while we continued to refer back to the passage in our English Bibles opened in front of us to answer the questions, all the local villagers had only heard the passage from the talking Bible once, and yet they remembered every detail and referred back to specific parts of the passage in their answers. These guys did not miss a beat, but they hung eagerly, hungrily, even desperately onto every word spoken from the Bible. If only we had this same hunger for the Word, our lives, our communities, our world would be so different!

So I'll close this post with that challenge to YOU. Yeah, that's right, YOU! Do you read your Bible eagerly, hungrily, desperately? Do you wrestle with every inspired word? Can you say as King David did about merely the first five books of the Bible (because that's all the Scripture that he had during his time) that you are one of those whose "delight is in the law of the LORD,/ And in His law he meditates day and night" (Psa. 1:2 NASB). I leave it to the excellent exposition of Charles Spurgeon on this verse to say the rest...

"And now mark his positive character. His delight is in the law of the Lord. He is not under the law as a curse and condemnation, but he is in it, and he delights to be in it as his rule of life; he delights, moreover, to meditate in it, to read it by day, and think upon it by night. He takes a text and carries it with him all day long; and in the night watches, when sleep forsakes his eyelids, he muses upon the Word of God. In the day of his prosperity he sings psalms out of the Word of God, and in the night of his affliction he comforts himself with promises out of the same book.

"The law of the Lord is the daily bread of the true believer. And yet, in David's day, how small was the volume of inspiration, for they had scarcely anything save the first five books of Moses! How much more, then, should we prize the whole written Word which it is our privilege to have in all our houses! But, alas, what ill treatment is given to this angel from heaven! We are not all Berean searchers of the Scriptures. How few among us can lay claim to the benediction of the text! Perhaps some of you can claim a sort of negative purity, because you do not walk in the way of the ungodly; but let me ask you -- Is your delight in the law of God? Do you study God's Word? Do you make it the man of your right hand -- your best companion and hourly guide? If not, this blessing belongeth not to you."

Source: http://www.searchgodsword.org/com/tod/view.cgi?book=ps&chapter=001&verse=002