Pastoral Care Ministries

August 2-3- Belgaum: I traveled to Belgaum, which is a district head quarter to promote BTCP training. I spent time with pastor Anand D’soza and with his church, preaching in their church and also meeting with a group of seven persons in the church who are undergoing BTCP training. Pastor is very happy with the ministry I did in his church. He wants to me to visit the church again after two months.

August 4th- Hubli: I traveled to Hubli that comes in Dharwad district. In Hubli I visited a Bible College by name “Satyam Baptist Bible College.” I have met the principal and told him if he can use BTCP manuals. He looked into few manuals and was very happy to notice that Dr. Dennis Mock is also from a Baptist background. They have also convinced of using BTCP manuals in to their training.

August 7- New Life College: New Life College has accepted BTCP Church History manual to be used in teaching the B.Th 1st year students this semester. New Life College offers B.Th, M.Div and M.Th level of degrees. In the beginning of the first semester (mid June) they have used manual #6 Personal Spiritual Life. I am encouraging New Life to use most of our BTCP manuals. We have about 20 students studying in B.Th.1st studying Church History. This is the first time New Life College started using BTCP manuals from this semester.

August 8-Home delivery Bible Training, Bangalore: This is a group of 12 professionals that include real estate business man, Charted account, Recording Studio manager and so on. They are learning Church History from BTCP manual. Rev. Saheb John has mobilized this group and he requested me to teach them this course. Every Second Friday I teach three hours from 6 to 9 pm. I too love teaching to this group in the market place.

August 11-14: South India Christian Leaders conference at SAIACS, Bangalore. Nearly 100 Christian leaders from south India were invited to participate in this conference for four days. I had a privilege of being part of this conference. In this conference discussion was on how could we all work together to make the churches in south India more united, active, missionary sending and helping the churches in north India as well. Impact of Christianity in south Indian society was also discussed.

August 18- Chitradurga: We had planned for a BTCP Teachers training seminar for 10 pastors in Chitradurga. However, due to persecution and severe opposition to Christianity in that district we had cancel on 17th. Chitradurga and Davanagere districts are in the central part of Karnataka, Christianity in this region is rapidly growing. Hence, BJP funded Hindu fundamentals are beating up pastors, arresting them in the issue of conversion, insisting to close down the churches that have existed more than 10 to 15 years. Please pray for these districts. Now this moment seems to be spreading all across Karnataka. They slogan is that they want make Karnataka also like Orisa.

August 19-Shimoga: I called Pastor Harish promoting BTCP training. Now he has decided to start Bible training in their church and he also wants to start in another eight churches that come under their organizations in other towns.

August 20-Bagalore: Meeting with Pastor Obed at Bangalore. I invited him to New Life College to join me for lunch and we had a long discussion about using BTCP training to his churches in Manipur. He says that he is a part of the leadership in the Manipur state churches where they have about more than 200 churches. These churches want to train their deacons so that they can be trained and promoted to be pastors after the training. In fact I have met pastor Obed three times in discussing about BTCP manuals. Now he along with his team has taken a set of Manuals and reviewing the manuals. If they are convinced they will use our materials to train pastors in Manipur.

August 19- 22 and 26 -28: Teaching Church Administration from manual #7 at Throw the Net training center at Kothanur Bangalore. In two weeks I taught about 30 hours from BTCP manual #7. This training center is also very hapy to use BTCP #7 for in their training. I am encouraging them to use our other manuals as well in the days to come. Please pray that they will most our manuals.

August 24-Brethren Church Bangalore: Preaching and promoting BTCP training in a Brethren assembly in Jaya Mahal, Bangalore. I was invited to speak in a Brethren church and also to talk about starting Bible training in their assembly as well. This has opened up a door for us to start training in Shimoga, Badravati and in few surrounding villages in the brethren churches as well. In Bangalore they want start Bible training every Wednesday and Sunday evenings. Bro. Anand who is an active elder of this assembly has reviewed our manuals.

August 28-Rural Bangalore: Karnataka State Pastors Fellowship in Bangalore. More than 200 pastors are there in this fellowship. I met the leader of this fellowship and requested him if I can promote this training in their fellowship. In fact the leader of this fellowship is my student. He asked me to talk about the training in the pastors meeting. He has taken a personal interest to encourage pastors to use BTCP training in their churches.
August 30- Bangalore: I attended the Christina Leaders seminar conducted by Campus crusade for Christ in Bangalore. I helped in the seminar translating and leading worship. They had invited about 300 pastors and Christian leaders from Karnataka and Kerala. I personally met some pastors and told them about BTCP training. I also had a chance to meet some new pastors as well.
I continue to advertise in Jeeva Bugge Kannada Magazine about BTCP training, which helps in taking the news about BTCP training to several churches in the state of Karnataka.
I am also working on collecting the addresses of the churches in Bangalore. I may complete that task in a week or two. Few main line denominations are not willing to give the address list easily due to the sensitive situations in these days. However, I keep visiting them to give me the list.

Summary: In August BTCP has reached two more districts namely Belgaum and Shimoga. I thank God for opening the door in these two districts. These two pastors in these districts are very active and their churches are growing. Secondly, Bible schools such as New Life College and Throw the Net Training Center are using one or two BTCP manuals. After much discussion Karnataka Institute of Theology has come forward to take a set of both Kannada and English manuals and review whether it suits their curriculum or not. I hope they will be convinced soon to use our BTCP manuals into their training. Thirdly, in Karnataka persecution has started in august especially in the central parts of Karnataka where Christianity is growing rapidly. It is spreading everywhere in the state. Even in the midst of this persecution God has opened the doors for BTCP in the above-mentioned places. Lastly, BTCP teachers training program which was scheduled on 18th August was cancelled on 17th due to the strong opposition to the gathering of pastors and conducting meetings. Pastors are also leaving in a big threat waiting to be taken to the Police any time and filed case against them. I hope you may have received my previous huge mail, which carried all the details of attacks on Christians in the state of Karnataka. However, we are not scared of the persecution. “And they overcame him (Satan) because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when they faced with death.” (Revelation 2:11).