India Village Care Ministries - Village Evangelism Church Planting

Village Evangelism & Church Planting

“Jesus went about all the cities and villages ………… preaching the gospel of the kingdom………” Mat. 9:35

We are proclaiming the gospel in unreached villages and establishing house churches where believers meet in rented accommodation. A local pastor is appointed (BY IVCM) to take care of spiritual needs and conduct worship and teaching and set up local prayer cell groups as many people travel from surrounding areas. Many people are being led to a faith in Christ (from darkness to light) and then taken care of within the local church. Baptisms are now becoming a regular feature (see photo opposite)…… further pictures in Photo Gallery.

We are currently working in 9 rural villages within two districts, and have seven pastors. Because the need is so great and opportunities for evangelism are many we anticipate becoming involved in 20 villages and have 10 pastors by the end of 2008.

On the practical side we provide the widows with sarees, new converts with bibles and provide free meals from time to time. We see the need to provide much more practical care such as provision of education, medical care, work opportunities such as tailoring and day centres. We urgently need financial support to put these things in place (see …become involved ) as we are such a new mission and most of our current resources are used to sustain the main preaching ministry.

Children’s Programs:

Bible Classes:- In many villages we are working with children, conducting Sunday schools and have opportunities to teach them Christian songs and bible stories. Many children are participating with interest and enjoy quizzes and learning about the bible.
In the holiday periods we run special programs to educate children and provide small gifts/prizes for attending.

Orphans:- In one area we try to care for approximately 25 orphans but we have no permanent building as yet due to the lack of funds. This is a matter of priority to build this permanent home with carers. It will be called New Hope Orphanage where food, clothes and education are provided free. We need about $25 a month per child to finance this care and about $5000 to build the shelter according to local government standards. Please contact us if God leads you to support this project.

“ Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress…….” James 1:27

Village Pastors Coordination and support:

We see the need to help encourage and coordinate independent rural pastors who are often left to their own efforts and have little resources in remote villages that are cut off from outside help. IVCM sees it has an important role to play by meeting together from time to time and encouraging these pastors by providing seminars/conferences. The aim is to meet together in a larger town/village and provide speakers to teach, worship together and provide free lunch and refreshments, plus a one-way travel allowance. The most recent of these was held in March of this year and was accompanied by a women’s meeting for the pastor’s wives and fellow workers.
In future we would like to provide practical support in other ways such as providing bicycle’s or scooters to help pastors reach their village churches that are often in remote places where no public transport is available. Others need financial support while their churches grow and can become self-supporting.
There are different options or projects that can generate income to help support a pastor. One such project we would like to start is to operate a “Cow Project” whereby cows can be donated for pastors to produce and sell milk to the government and use the resulting profit to support their ministry and families.

Medical ~ we are aiming to establish free primary health care centres and a mobile clinic for the welfare of poor village people. The lack of local facilities is a strong contributing factor to their high incidents of disease and death.
Aids Awareness ~ we would like to conduct Aids awareness programs amoung the village people who are often uneducated.
Village Improvements ~ many villages are undeveloped without proper water and roads and we want to help provide these basic needs and thereby demonstrating God’s love for them.
Education ~ we want to run free tuition centres in most village areas and ultimately establish Christian schools using both Tamil and English languages.
Build Permanent Churches ~ If we can build permanent churches for communities to meet for worship and teach from God’s word this will attract many more people who are often put off by meeting in peoples homes.
Agriculture/Horticulture ~ we want to provide seeds and plants for growing crops and provide basic equipment and irrigation. Training programs for students in schools and local village people are also possibilities.

“Reaching out with care …, Reaching in with love”

Missionary Training Centre:

The aim of IVCM is to run a regular training program for a minimum of 20 national students who have a desire to evangelise other remote parts of India. A program would run for 12 months and provide proper theological training, after which they would be sent out to 20 unreached villages so that 20 new churches would be planted.
It is likely that during this time they would need continued support until they become self-supporting which could take up to three years to happen. There are tens of thousands of villages that are unreached, so this program is vital and needs to develop quickly if we are to spread the gospel.

“And how shall they preach unless they are sent ….” Rom 10:15