The local church expressed in all her beauty and diversity is a key agent for God’s Kingdom in the world. Central to the mission of ServLife is to empower, educate, and equip indigenous leaders to share the love of Christ in both word and deed with their own people. One of the regions of the world where ServLife does this is in India, where we have been working since 1992, when ServLife first began more than 75 churches have been planted throughout 5 states in India. (Donate To this Project).
To help train and equip indigenous church planters and local mission workers to minister to their own people, a one-year leadership training institute was started in Bihar, India in 2001. The workers that come to the training institute are recommended by their local church, and they come for a year of communal living, hands-on-service, spiritual formation, and teaching. The Indian church planters learn that it is first about trust and dependence upon God and then are equipped in practical ways for their ministry ahead. Our goal is that each local church will be a light in their village and share the message of Jesus Christ.
For those that graduate and go on to start a church in their village, ServLife supports them by providing financial, emotional, and spiritual support, along with continued training through the annual leadership conference that takes place in Bihar each year. The goal is that each local church will be self-supportive and send other leaders to be trained to start other churches.
Local churches that are started through the graduates of ServLife’s Training Institute share the same name of their church, Calvary Parousia Church. Parousia comes from the Greek and means “coming and presence”. Parousia is used to describe the presence of Christ with His disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration (2 Peter 1:16). We desire for Christ to come and be present in the villages where these workers go and serve their communities.
A.L.D. also travels throughout India regularly to meet with and encourage the church planters after they return to their home villages and start churches, and he recently returned from one of these trips in July, after traveling through five states in India: Chattisgarh, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal.
Das reflects, “I am so humbled by these men who are sacrificing and laying their lives down in the midst of hardship and persecution. Please pray for them and their families and ministries.”