NEDA’s Great Commission Journal

 

Fueling our passion for the lost here at home and around the world!

 

If you have any submissions that would show those in your area focusing on the Great Commission please send them to:  LRand7777@aol.com

 

Serving Christ in India

Greetings to you from the Church in India!  Thanks for your faithful prayers for Neal Laybourne and me as we traveled to India in November to offer two weeks of training.  We left the day after our friend in India had back surgery and many of us were praying God would bring healing to him.  So the day we arrived Neal and I were able to visit with him and his wife in the hospital and pray with them.  We praise God that the surgery went well and before we left, our friend was home and recovering.  They send their love and thanksgiving to all of you who have been praying for them. 

I want to begin this journal entry by pointing out God’s sovereign care.  Months ago, we made flight arrangements and I tried to have us fly into Delhi.  But the arrangements that I found had us flying into another city on our way into the country and flying out of Delhi on our way out.  I thought nothing of this until we were sitting in the airport at 3:00am when the morning newspapers were dropped off.  On the front page was the report that 3 Bombs had gone off in Delhi, just hours before we arrived into the country.  Thankfully, God arranged our flights instead.  Now that’s Immanuel!

We began training sessions with friends that are truly on the frontlines.  Unassuming until you begin to hear their stories, these students are brave servants of the gospel, being used by God to bring the good news of Jesus to a surprisingly hungry people.  The multiplication of believers, churches, house churches and cell churches is mind boggling and clearly a work of God.  In a 3-4 year period God has turned 35-40 churches with 2500 believers into 200 hundred churches, 180 house churches and 200 cell churches with nearly 40,000 believers, in the face of a intense period of persecution.  One leader shared that there is a real opening among Hindus right now and that God is using signs and wonders to bring in a great harvest. 

Yet with a great movement like this comes the great need to train national leaders for the expanding work, rapidly deploying them to disciple this growing church.  Sitting with our Indian friend in his living room, he points up to a passage of scripture that is framed on his wall.  It reads, “Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.”(^NIV 1 Timothy 4:16)  This is why we have come, so that this movement of God can continue to glorify God as they watch their life and doctrine closely. 

Neal spent 2 weeks teaching on the Minor Prophets and opened up the great treasures that are found in each of these books.  Neal not only brought great insights from an often neglected part of God’s Word, but brought wise application.  With over 27 years of pastoral experience, a passion for missions and many other gifts, Neal (from Vermont) connected with these students and translators in an amazing way, bringing wisdom and sound teaching to their lives and ministry.  As one only having a third of the ministry experience as Neal, I was blessed to travel with and learn from this dear friend (from Vermont).

As He usually does with these training sessions, God complimented His message from the Minor Prophets with the lessons that come from Corinthians which I shared with the students.  After an in-depth study of 1 Corinthians during the first week, we spent the second week discussing the 8 Essential commitments of a Healthy Church that can be found in Corinthians and reinforced in the rest of Scripture.  While I know from the lively interaction that we had this was appreciated by the students, I may have been the greatest beneficiary.  For God used this teaching opportunity to convince me in a fresh way, the centrality of the gospel and the power of His Word in my life and ministry.  Now more than ever, I am more energized to open up the Word of God for the church God has me leading in New York and He is already blessing this new work.

Thanks for your prayers, your commitment to the great commission, and faithfulness to the gospel. May we never waiver, and always be willing to follow Jesus into the harvest.

 

Pastor Chad Hemphill

Mountainview Evangelical Free Church, Voorheesville, NY