We have been joined in India by our long time friend, this is his first time here, though he is an experienced world traveller.

This Blog is his thoughts on his first week in India... Enjoy

How do you bring Christianity to a country that has been steeped in religion for thousands of years? How to you bring Jesus to people whose only impression of Christ has been through the traditionalized church, where Christianity is just another arm of Hinduism? Here, it doesn't matter if you operate without love as long as you participate in the right religious rituals. Here in India, Jesus is just another god in a long list of deities with no real life changing power, simply a set of rituals that need to be performed to appease an angry god.

Today I saw a a wall mural with ganesh the elephant god, Jesus and some other multi armed aberration side by side. India doesn't need another god, in fact it could benefit by losing about a million of them. India needs a life changing relationship with Jesus Christ and that will only come about through creating personal relationships with individuals.

The tent meeting revivals from our country could never work here for a few reasons, probably the biggest one is once we have gone, what happens to these young believers? They simply go back to their lives and add serving the Son of God to a list of religious rights that are as much a part of daily life as eating and sleeping.

The second I think, is the salvation message we are all familiar with, whether we are believers or not, is a completely foreign concept that people here simply can not wrap there heads around. To hear a story about the son of God coming to earth and being crucified on a cross for the sin of mankind is just another story amongst a million religious tales that these people have been raised with.

The very fundamental foundation of our religion is not death, its love. Love is the reason Jesus came to earth, love is the reason he suffered and died and love is the power that changes our lives. Now is it possible to explain what love is to a culture where love isn't even necessarily part of a marriage? Where fear, not love, holds people to their religion. Where the love between a parent and a child is so shallow it can be severed if a child has AIDS because of his fathers infidelity or makes a decision contrary to the will of their parents?

You would have better luck describing color to a blind man! Love cannot be explained, it can only be demonstrated. Love is not an act of pity it is an act of kindness. Love is not an act of religious piety where one commands people what they must do and must not do, it it is a demonstration of the fathers love that shines through our lives. That is the driving force that motivates those here in Chennai who are working at building the Kingdom of God and creating relationships that encourage, uplift, motivate and disciple. People here need to see how its done, not simply hear about it. A lighthouse set on a hill can not be here today and gone tomorrow. To show people they are lost in darkness and then take away the light and tell them to find it is as futile as telling all those ships captains they don't need the lighthouse to be present, they have seen it and should remember where it is.

To those interested in the progress of the Word of Life in Chennai, you can rest easy in the truth that those here are bringing that light to the people one person at a time and even more importantly, equipping those who have come with the source of all light so they themselves may be a guiding light to the world around them. In the week I have been here, we have meet with dozens of people and have seen some great people come along side the vision of the Word of Life here that are committed to making this vision a reality. The leadership team has gone from four to nine in my first week here and some really great things are starting to happen.