The Firstfruits of Many ‒ Building the New Generation in India
Healthy leadership is deeply impacting community in India.
Pastor N is a passionate youth leader; young people are attracted to his commitment and purpose. His passion is only rivalled by that of his wife, Sister D, who is actively involved in women’s ministry at the church. Together they make a strong team, building young leaders who go on to plant churches in their own areas.
Because of the initial Building Healthy Leaders training he attended, Pastor N realized that a church he had planted was only running services, not transforming lives. He applied the ConneXions Model in that church, designing ways to move the people toward growth. He had just planted the church and immediately implemented what he had learned. As a result, he was able to lay a strong and sure foundation for the church.
“Because of Building Healthy Leaders, I learned how to help people grow and understand their weaknesses and challenges. So, we started making designs on those areas to build their capacity.”
Now, Pastor N meets every week to fast and pray with almost a dozen local church leaders. He keeps them accountable to the designs they have made for growth, and they spend time sharing, studying the Word of God, and interceding for each other. All of his leaders were new converts in his ministry when they started in leadership. He identified their potential during their early service with him in the church, then trained them intentionally. As they pioneered new churches in new locations, he worked alongside them, constantly modelling and training, then handing over leadership to them when they were ready.
Sister D's work with church planters’ wives has also been instrumental. She devotes herself to building one in particular, pouring life into her through praying together, meditating on Scripture, and sharing personal experiences. She has started a prayer group for all the Christian women in her neighbourhood, who meet to fast and pray, and recently she began a small-group training program for new converts with whom she shared the Gospel. She is learning to seek God first in everything that she does.
She is also building young women in her church, mentoring them in weak areas in their lives and creating a consistent atmosphere of “Four Dynamic” growth. Pastor N is doing the same, identifying young men in his church with a calling for future leadership and high commitment to the Lord. Through the initial church he planted, he and his leaders have now planted two new churches with deep foundations and strong leaders. They have started five new prayer groups in hospitals and homes in the area. In one of these, four young men have come to the Lord – the first fruits of many to come!
