Vedic Bridge French Version

                                                                                           

Here is a free download of The Vedic Bridge Gospel tract for Hindus in French language.

 

Click here for Vedic Bridge French Version 

 

for other versions Hindi, Englsih click here:  Click

Vedic Bridge Hindi

The Vedic Bridge is now available in Hindi.

This tract for witnessing is available by clicking : vedic bridge hindi

                                                

Why House Church

Scripture Romans 16:5 Likewise greet the church that is in their house.

Why am I talking about house churches? Because I think all believers should start churches that meet in homes. You may ask if I understand who are the people that I am talking to. We are nursing students and medical staff you say, we are not pastors.

I know that you are not pastors, but you know sometimes nursing students and medical staff start more churches than the pastors I speak to. I know one young man who has started so many house churches. He was not a pastor or chaplain. He was a young man who worked in the hospital canteen and served meals to the patients.

By the way he came to Christ in this chapel where we are now. He was just a single young man working in the canteen below here, but he, named Kumar, went back to his village and has started house churches. So many people have come to Christ and many new house churches have started through his ministry.

Probably you come from areas all around the state. You can go back to your town or village and start a house church. You can not imagine what God can do with you when you have a vision to start house churches that multiply.

Look at Romans 16:5 it says “greet the church that is in their house.” Now a lot of people have an inferiority complex about the house church. Some feel bad that their church is one that just meets in the home. But who was this who had this house church Paul is greeting? It was Priscilla and Aquila. It says they risked their lives for the gospel.

These were not unknown figures in the first century church these were heroes of the first century church. Why did they have a church in their house? Because that was the will of God. Theirs was not a substandard church, but a church that was everything that God intended in the New Testament church.

Sometimes I will go and visit or speak in a church that meets in the home. I am excited about that because when I look into the New Testament I see churches that met in homes. Before I can affirm them on having a house church the leaders of the church come to me to apologize.

They say, “We are sorry sir, our church here just meets in this home. Now we have a vision to buy land and build a building for our church. The owner of the lot nearby is willing to sell and we hope to buy it and construct a building with a cross on top and a scripture in the front.” They think then they will become a real church.

But when I look into the New Testament I see that they already are a real church. They already reflect what we see in the New Testament for a church. We see a group of believers, the body of Christ, who met in homes, is what we see in the New Testament as a church.

There are many of us who have been challenging believers to start house churches. So we have been telling believers who meet together as church that you do not need to buy a piece of property, you do not need to construct a building, and you do not even need a formally theologically trained pastor.

All you need is a group of believers covenanted together in a house who take responsibility for the leadership of the church and you have a church. So we began traveling around and promoting house churches. But we were convicted that we were telling people you don’t need land, or a building, or a pastor with a seminary degree. But we ourselves were attending churches with land, buildings, steeples and seminary trained pastors. Can we say that a is Ok for others when we have all those things. We were having a double standard.

So we stopped attending the churches with land, buildings, crosses on top and seminary trained pastors and began our own house church. We call our church Rajaprasad Baptist Church. Why do we call our church Rajaprasad Baptist church? Well we are Baptists and the church has Baptist doctrines. As for Rajaprasad, the house we meet is owned by Mr. Rajaprasad. That is the name on the sign on the house he has on the front of the house. We have been astounded by what God has done since we started this church. We have seen so much spiritual fruit as a result of starting this house church.

So we are changing the way we are looking at ministry. Here is what we used to say, “We believe in the local church, now find a good Bible believing church and join it.” What were we saying? We were saying you were like my friend Kumar who came to this hospital worked in the canteen and became a believer in Christ. We used to say to Kumar, when you go back to your home town find a church. Go back and visit the district capital and find the Church there with a huge compound and towering steeple and join that church or some establish church that teaches the Bible.

We are no longer telling new believers like Kumar to join an existing church. So what are we saying? Now we are saying we believe in the local church and go back to your home town and start a church there. Maybe you feel like since you are a nursing student you could not start a church. It may be you could work with one of your uncles there or another believer can help you. We are finding that any believer can start a house church and that it is part of God’s plan for spiritual multiplication and we are seeing it happen all over.

Once house churches start, they begin to multiply. If you start a church where you buy land, build building and pay a seminary trained pastor it takes a long time. How long does it take to start a new house church? It can happen right away. So once we see people go back to their home town and start a house church we are seeing it multiply. I have been studying the growth and multiplication of house churches and how the multiplication happens.

I am organizing a research project next month where more than 2,000 house churches have sprung up. We want to find out more about how new believers become house church leaders, how Bible study takes place, the doctrinal soundness when churches spring up this fast and insights that help others start house churches that multiply.

Let me show you another verse, Colossians 4:15

Give my greetings to the brothers in Laodicea, and to Nympha and the church in her house.

Now Priscilla and Aquila were, leaders, heroes of the faith, known to us from the New Testament, but here is a church that met in Nympha’s house. She is unknown to us. Just a woman who had a church meeting in her house. So what has happened when we started meeting together in our house church? What can God do with a house church?

I mentioned that several of us meet at Rajaprasad Baptist church just almost walking distance from here. Now Mr. Rajaprasad, the owner of the house, had put a watchman there to guard and protect the house. This watchman is named Ganesh. He is a land owner but there are droughts in his area so he leased his land and came to the city to earn money as a watchman.

As we began to meet for house church and worship Jesus in our house church Ganesh noticed this. Ganesh’s idea of church was believers who met together on a compound in a cathedral like structure He was surprised that believers met together in their homes and worshipped Jesus. This concept of church was very attractive to Ganesh. He would have had difficulty going to the compound church in his home town. But to worship Jesus and have church in a home was attractive to him.

Ganesh received a Bible and read in his mother tongue. He became a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. What did he do after that? He began to tell his friends that Jesus could be worshipped in the home. So he led Swami to Christ. Then he led Shrini to Christ, Muni to Christ. So these new believers where baptized in a makeshift baptistery on the roof of our house church.

Now if we can have a church in our home then these new believers new they could start a house church in the watchman’s quarters below the Rajaprasad house and that is what they did. They started their own house church and started to look at the scriptures and obey the scriptures. Then what happened? This became known and attractive to people in the area. One of the men, Muni who made a profession of faith took the gospel back to his family. So many of his family members accepted Christ that they started a house church at Muni’s house. Through this watchman there were thirteen house churches started in one year.

How can this happen? Because the house church concept in contagious. Now they know that house church is for them. It would have been difficult for these new believers go to the compound church and sit and listen to what the priest in charge said. But when they could meet in their own home and study and apply the Scriptures for themselves they began to grow in faith.

The gospel began to spread. It produced and atmosphere of spiritual growth because house churches are not second best. House churches are found as the pattern of the New Testament. House churches actually provide an excellent environment for people to grow in Christ and for believers to exercise their spiritual gifts. What do you see in the New Testament? You find house churches. Try to find one of the big cathedrals in the New Testament. You find the house church.

What else do you find in the New Testament? You find the gospel spreading like wildfire. You find churches starting all over the province of Asia in the New Testament. We are also finding churches starting and spreading rapidly when we get back to the New Testament pattern of the house church.

When we started our house church we wanted a church with no land or building, but met in a home. We also wanted our church led by someone who was not holding a seminary degree. That disqualifies me. I studied Greek and Hebrew and for three years I studied in the seminary and earned a Masters degree in theology. So I was not the pastor. It was one of the members of our church that did not hold a seminary degree and who was not ordained by an ecclesiastical body.

A lay believer to lead our church. Now that is a model that is easy to reproduce. It is difficult if these house churches were starting rapidly to find men trained in seminaries and they would expect salaries that house churches would not be able to afford. When we put lay believers leading the house church there is a power. Why? Is it difficult to understand the Bible?

Do you need advanced degrees to study and apply the Bible? No. The Bible is for the simple person. Even the person that does not read can understand the Bible when they here is read. The need is not for more advanced degrees, but the need is for more obedience. The problem has always been applying what we hear. So when we start house churches that simply obey what they hear we create a spiritual dynamic like we had in the New Testament where the churches grow spiritually and multiply.

Let’s look at another passage of scripture I Corinthians 16:19

The churches in the province of Asia send you greetings. Aquila and Priscilla greet you warmly in the Lord and so does the church that meets in their house.

Here again you find the church described as a body of believers that met in the homes of believers. Why is it that churches multiply when they meet in homes? One reason is that stay in their communities. I mentioned that man who worked in the canteen went back and started churches. What community of people did he start them with? His own community.

Now the watchman’s house church is with a diverse group from many different communities who have a variety of different languages as their mother tongue. But each one goes back and starts a church in their own community of people in their own languages and the house churches spread along those lines rapidly. What do we see in the New Testament? Cornelius the Roman centurion became a believer who else was their and came to faith. Others from the same community of Romans. The same held true when Lydia became a believer or the Philippians jailer. Right away the gospel begins to spread.

We see people exercise their spiritual gifts in the house churches. We know that God has given every believer a spiritual gift. Why has God given each believer a spiritual gift? To exercise in the body of Christ. Now what happens when the watchman Ganesh goes to his district headquarters and joins a cathedral style church? He is told to sit down and listen to what is preached.

Maybe in a year or two of listening to sermons he might get some responsibility and use his spiritual gifts. But what happens in a house church? Right away the new believer is involved in leadership and accountability and the exercising of the believers spiritual gift. So we see a dynamic in the house church that facilitates the spread of the gospel. This creates an environment of spiritual growth.

Let’s look at another passage. Philemon vs. 2

and to Apphia our sister, and to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church that meets in your home.

We see church as a body of believers that met in the home of a believer. One thing about house church is that it is less likely to have persecution that a church on a compound with a building and a cross on top. In my own neighborhood there was a mosque was planned next to my house. It bothered me because of all the people who gather there on Fridays.

The Hindus and Christians did not want the mosque and petitioned to stop the mosque. They did not want a mosque in their back yard. But I noticed that on Fridays people gather in homes and no one is complaining like they did about a mosque. I have noticed this with churches too. When there is a property bought a building built a cross on top and a sign with the church name it disturbs the area and the people feel threatened and sometimes that is when the church is persecuted. But when people meet in homes they are not threatened in the same way as when the church building is constructed. The house church becomes more persecution proof.

We find that house churches are reproducible because the homes are already there. It gives the church a power to do ministry. What do we see the offerings in the New Testament go for? Do we see them to pay for land, buildings and the salary of seminary trained leaders? No, we see them meet needs of others. In the house church the offerings can be used to meet the needs of believers or minister to unbelievers because they do not have to make payments on land, building or pay the pastor’s salary because he already has a job in the marketplace.

It is easy for the house church to sustain itself. It is easy for the house church to multiply. So I am not talking to church planters. I am talking to ordinary men and women. But think you could be like Nympha. An ordinary believer who had a church in her house. A church in your house like Pricilla or Lydia had. What if you went back and started house church in your home town, like the young man who worked in our canteen and came to Christ? You could experience the power of God is a way similar to what we see for believers in the New Testament. Think and pray about what could happen in your home town or village if there was a model of a house church that was reproducible.

Tell Your Family What The Lord Has Done! Mark 5:1-20

If God can use the former demoniac to reach his family, he can use you to reach your family too. The power of new believers simply telling his story is tremendous.

We are about to discuss something that should be dear to your heart, your family. You can be assured that your family is dear to the heart of God as well. I want to emphasize your family using the story of the demoniac in Mark Chapter 5.

Now I am not going to compare the demoniac to your family, no! Actually I am going to compare YOU to the demoniac! There is a great lesson in this story in what God has for us to do. If God can use the former demoniac to reach his family, he can use you to reach your family too.

I) the Miracle: Mark 5 verses 2-6.
Here we see one of the most dramatic miracles of Jesus. He healed a man who was in a desperate spiritual state. This was a demon possessed man. We will see how the Lord used this man.

When Jesus entered the Garasenes area this demon possessed man came to him. He lived in the tombs. He had been chained hand and foot and the demons gave him an uncontrollable strength to break the chains. No one could subdue him. He was not in his right mind, crying out continually in self destructive behavior. Living in the tombs, crying out, cutting himself he had sunk to the lowest low.

This demon possessed man ran up to Jesus and fell on his knees before Jesus. The demon cried out, What do you want with me, Jesus, son of the most High God? Swear to God that you won’t torture me! He begged Jesus again and again not to send him out of the area.
Jesus did a miracle and healed the demoniac. Jesus cast the demons into a heard of two thousand pigs. The pigs ran over the side of the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.

The people who had been attending the pigs ran off into town and told them in the town what had happened. They came and saw the man formerly demon possessed sitting there in his right mind. The whole thing frightened them.

The reaction of the people was not about the healing of the demon possessed man, but rather their reaction was on what happened to the pigs. They wanted Jesus to get out of their region. They asked Jesus to leave. Despite the miracle the people wanted Jesus to leave. Their focus was on the economic loss of the two thousand pigs.

A demon possessed man was delivered. You may not have reached the same low as this demon possessed man. But every person without Christ is in the same spiritual condition. We are totally depraved until the Lord saves us.

II) The request: Mark 5:18
Now let’s look at the request of the man formerly demon possessed who has now been healed. Now he makes a request. What is his request? Jesus I want to come with you.
As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him.

We see this kind of request all the time in the political realm- politicians expand their cabinet all the time. Instead of leaving his home place, he tells him to go back to his home place. Jesus puts the emphasis on this mans family.

He wanted to follow Jesus. He was asking Jesus to be his thirteenth disciple. It is a natural request. Jesus, you have saved me, let me walk with you. Jesus, I will leave everything, including my home place and go with you.

III) Jesus response: Mark 5:19
19 Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.”
Jesus knew what would be best. The greatest benefit to the Kingdom would be if this man went back to his family. He instructed him to go back home and tell everyone how much the Lord had done for him.

The Lord’s will to use a new believer is by starting with their own family. Look at throughout the Bible how God used his servants to save their family. In the training for trainers (T4T) study there are a number of examples of God’s desire to save your family laid out; Noah, Lot, Rehab, Cornelius, Lydia and the Philippian Jailer.

Who was saved along with Noah? His family. God used Noah and saved his entire family through him. (Genesis 7:1)

Who was saved along with Lot? His family. (Genesis 19:12-23) – When God wanted to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Regretfully, Lot’s daughter in laws did not listen to him and were not saved (this might be the result of Lot not having a good testimony so in time of emergency; he could not save his entire family). In the end, only Lot and his two daughters survived, but this was not God’ will. God’s desire is to save the entire family.

Who was saved when Rehab placed the scarlet thread outside her window at the time of the destruction of Jericho? Her entire family (Joshua 2:17-20)

Who was saved when Cornelius heard the Gospel? His entire household (Acts 10:23-25)

Who was saved when Lydia came to Christ? Her entire family. (Acts 16:14-15)

Who was saved when the Philippian jailer believed? His entire family. (Acts 16:31)

In 1Tim.5:8, the Apostle Paul said that if a man doesn’t take care of his own family, he is worse than an infidel. God is concerned about your whole family and wants to use you to save your whole family.

Here is Jesus telling the man (Mark 5:19) that his ministry is not to leave his family. Your ministry too is to go to your family. Go and tell them how much the Lord has done for you. Tell them the mercy God has shown to you!

I was in a situation where we were counseling a man in India. This is an area where there is a strong Christian presence, but only in certain cloistered areas. There is Christian Colony, Jerusalem Colony and Nazareth Colony. But the for the first time ever the Gospel was reaching the Hindu colonies, Shiva Colony, Lingeshwara Colony and Eshwara Colony. Here was a young man named Ramesh from one of these Hindu colonies. He knew the Lord and wanted to serve him.

Ramesh wanted to come out from his family, get ordained and become a full time Christian worker. For him it would be the easier thing to do. It is difficult for him to stay in his Christian family and witness. I was counseling with him along with a Hindu background believer in Christ, named Kumar.

Kumar told Ramesh to stay in his family and he used this verse when telling him. The conclusion was if he joined the full time Christian ministry he would spend the rest of his days in Christian Colony, Nazareth Colony and Jerusalem Colony ministering to Christians. He would be busy, every day praying for the strained backs and sore necks of the people in these colonies. They would call him to their homes and pray and he would be busy from morning till evening, but making virtually zero impact on the great commission.

In contrast, if he stayed in his Colony he would be at the center of one of the world’s most unreached peoples of which he belonged. He needs to pay the price to stay in his community and make an impact. He needs to tell his family what the Jesus has done and the mercy Jesus had on him by paying the penalty on the cross for his sins. He has given Ramesh eternal life and his family needs him to stay and bring them the living water of Jesus.

Jesus sent out this man to proclaim the good news to this Gentile area. When Jesus truly changes people, it is an amazing thing. This man was a vivid demonstration of this fact.
No one can argue with your story, your testimony. You just tell them what the Lord has done. This man simply had to say, I was demon possessed. I lived in the tombs. I used to be self destructive and cut myself with stones. I ran and threw myself at the feet of Jesus and he cast out the demons. Jesus healed me. He made me whole. Now I am saved and in my right mind. I obey the command of my master Lord Jesus who told me to go and tell my family, and also I am telling all around me of what the Lord did in my life.

Every testimony contains a before, during and after of knowing of Christ. It is his story and you cannot argue theologically with his experience. There is the power of the testimony. There is also a power in going back to your family.

In the Mission history of India there has been an emphasis on coming out of your family. For so many years the ministry went on like this. The missionary took the Gospel to the Hindu. He became a Christian and changed everything. He was convinced to change his dress, his diet and his whole circle of friends. Soon he did not fit in with his own family.

The new convert was then told to be separate, come out of his family. He was told, we have a compound, with a church, a hospital and a school. You come from an educated family and we need a Headmaster for our school so leave your family, forsake them for Christ and come live here. He could then not at all relate to his family. The Gospel dead ended when it is meant to spread like wildfire.

Illustration: Spiritual Gossip
Early this year we began using a new method for training nationals in South India in getting to Church Planting Movements. We were finding that, prior to this training; the effective evangelists were sharing the gospel with the family members of the new believers. In many cases these evangelists were leading the family members to Christ, but new believers were left with the impression that sharing the gospel was not their responsibility, but that of the evangelist.

We began to train the evangelists to help the new believers immediately share their faith using a very simple testimony or, “story” after coming to Christ. We gave the evangelists a list of scriptures to show the new believer that it is their responsibility to take the gospel to their own family members.

Some of the new believers would still ask the evangelist to come and share the gospel with their family members, but now instead of going he would train the new believer how to share the gospel. He would also train them in how to train those they led to Christ in how to share the Gospel. This approach enabled the number of people sharing Christ to grow exponentially.
We saw an immediate breakthrough using this method. Some evangelists started seeing twenty times more people come to Christ than when they were doing all the evangelism themselves. There were so many Hindus coming to Christ that new house churches and Bible study groups were being organized rapidly.

One of the evangelists was giving his testimony on how this change in method, from sharing the gospel with the family members of new believers to training new believers to share their faith changed his ministry. He said that in one village of India, so many new believers were sharing their faith and training others to share Christ that people were calling what was taking place a, “spiritual gossip.” The village was amazed and perplexed to see their fellow Hindus not only coming to Christ, but immediately leading others to Christ and training them to share their faith.

We are seeing this over and over. When a new believer goes back and tells his story of what Jesus did to save him it is powerful. We are asking every new believer to list one hundred people they know and share their story and train them to do the same. The Gospel is exploding exponentially.

This man couldn’t help doing what Jesus charged him to do. He was overflowing with joy. Anyone can tell their story. Who can argue: this is my story: Who can say no it is not? New believers are the best at this.

This is the power of the ordinary believer. Not an ordained pastor. No seminary training when Jesus sent him out. He didn’t undergo lengthy training. He just went out and shared his story of what Jesus had done in his life.

Jesus sent him back to the people who had sent Jesus away. This is so much better than what he wanted to do. He wanted to leave the Decapolis and follow Jesus.

IV) Results of this strategy
What happens when a man goes and tells his story to his family? The power of new believers simply telling his story is tremendous. In Mark 5:20 we read that this man told the whole Decapolis what Jesus had done for him.

Jesus left the Decapolis and we do not read of him returning there until in Mark 7:31 we read he returned to the Decapolis. What a difference. Now in the Decapolis they gathered around Jesus, four thousand. They would not leave that is why he fed the four thousand in the Decapolis (Mark 8:1-10). The only reason we know of from this crowd chasing out Jesus to flocking to worship at his feet is that this former demoniac made an impact
When Jesus went back to the cities of Decapolis they would not leave him. Previously they got rid of him. No other reason for this dramatic change except that the former demoniac telling his story made the difference for our thousand people.

It is a good thing Jesus did tell the former demoniac to just forget his family who was probably part of the groups who sent Jesus away. It is better that Jesus sent this man back to his family to tell them what the Lord had done for him. Jesus uses ordinary people saved by grace.
God also cares about you and wants to save your entire family through you.

Four thousand people from the cities of the Decapolis were impacted. Tell your story! The fields are ripe and ready for harvest. When you sow abundantly you will reap abundantly.