We arrived at the Delhi train station shortly after 6:00 AM local time; the good news about such an early arrival is that we beat the rush hour traffic and made it to our hotel in good time. After breakfast we checked into our rooms, cleaned up and rested.
The first part of our afternoon we tried our hand at some shopping and then headed to the Delhi ministry office. We met with seven church leaders, ages 18 to 30. It was exciting to see and hear their stories, especially when one considers that three years ago there was no office, no work in this city. The same CLC approach is taken; however, the practical ministry needs are different with more focus on career, educational and relationship counseling. Prakash James, who leads the Delhi ministry, has taken a clever (and God-given) approach in that their small staff does not do all the work. They have a number of professional people in these fields that have the credentials, experience and/or passion to help. They do so as unpaid volunteers; this enables the ministry to do so much more. One common theme we heard again today is how healings and other signs and wonders have opened community doors and launched church plants.
Prakash shared with us a PowerPoint presentation with many statistics on India as a country, some ministry results, as well as their Delhi strategy. Rather than focus on the lowest class (and/or caste) people as has been the norm during over 200 years of missions effort in India, they focus on the middle class since this group is able to influence both up and down on the social scale. Hence, many of the ministry participants are students or young professionals. Some of these will also be leaders in the near term within Indian business or government.
