India is a massive country with a population of over 1 billion people. 800 million of them are Hindu and 125 million Muslim. There are 25 million Christians in India and this number is growing.
There is full religious freedom in India and this means that there isn’t much persecution of the church. But in the last few years some Hindu extremists have run a hate campaign against Christians.
In some areas of India it is now against the law to convert to Christianity.
Praise God for Christianity’s two millennia in India since the arrival of the Apostle Thomas.
The 200 years since William Carey, the great Baptist pioneer, have been remarkable. The Holy Spirit has used countless thousands of Indian and foreign workers to affect India for good in education, health, challenging social wrongs, and to plant over 300,000 churches. There have been periodic revivals in the Panjab and in South India, in Nagaland in 1976 and Mizoram in the 1980s.
Praise for freedom for Indian Christians to proclaim the gospel despite efforts to limit this through intimidation and persecution.
India has more (and larger) people groups with no Christians, churches or workers than any other part of the world. Pray that the Church worldwide might rise to complete this task.
The Church in India is, at the same time, both vital and growing, and nominal and in decline. The need for change in the Church has never been greater. Pray for Unity, the church becoming more Indian and less foreign and greater reliance on cell/house churches of an Indian model than on Western-style buildings.
The training of Christian workers is important for the health and growth of the Church. Poor discipling and lack of teaching have caused problems for Christians. There are about 100,000 full-time workers in India; about half are pastoring local churches. There is, on average, one pastor for every six congregations.
Bible schools which now number over 300, having doubled in 10 years, but they are still full.
The least evangelized areas of India — no other part of the world has such a large number of people who have never heard the message of Jesus.
Bible translation is a major challenge. There are still many languages spoken in India that do not have their own translation of the bible.
Christian films and video are important. A 200 hour TV series on the life of Christ had 70 million viewers. From this was developed Karanamaidu, the Indian film on Jesus, available in 21 main languages.