BY:JOHNSON SELVARAJ - BANGALORE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
I have been a disciple of Jesus for the last 16 years and my wife Annie for nearly 17 years. We have been married for nearly 13 years and have 3 kids : Samuel ” nearly 10 years old, Samantha ” 7.5 years old and Sean ” 4 years old. We have gone thro’ numerous challenges in our Christian lives and are very grateful to God that we have stayed faithful and have the zeal to reach out to many who are lost. I am very grateful to the brothers who taught me true discipleship in 1991 and that motivated me greatly. I had an opportunity to serve in the fulltime ministry along with my wife for nearly 5 years and learned a lot and that has helped me a lot ever since I began working in the IT industry from 1997. I now work with IBM, India as a Regional Manager at Bangalore.
Just a couple of months ago we both decided to recommit ourselves to God(Joshua 24 : 14-15) and make sold out disciples all over again. God has done miracles since then and blessed with the baptisms of Prem & Kumari. We are hopeful of baptizing Uncle Paul in a few days from now. There a few other disciples who have just begun visiting us and hope together we will do incredible things for God.
It’s a great privilege to write this editorial for the Mumbai ICC. When Anthony, Mary & other disciples extended us the invitation to be a part of this retreat at Vasai, Mumbai, we did not know what to really expect. We were in regular contact with them for the last 2 months ever since we began to meet as a church at our home. But since we did not know them closely, we decided to visit them this week and found their love and hospitality overwhelming. Praying along with them and sharing our lives and convictions helped us to bond together as our dreams and visions for our Lord Jesus Christ was the same. The retreat helped us to meet the wonderful disciples like the Navin family, Thomas family, Mahesh Family, Samuel family, Sangeetha, Parthiban & Mariaraj. Their unity and trust in God and each other was amazing. They have really weathered the storm of ridicule and criticism in a very Godly manner. They really have big dreams and deep convictions of taking the good news to all corners of India. A wonderful example of collective leadership.
The retreat helped these leaders to re emphasize the need to teach the bible in a uncompromised manner and also to take the message out to several others with zeal and fervour. Also the message(on Joshua 24 : 14-15) shared by me and Annie was well received as we openly shared all the challenges we had faced in our married lives and the victory God has given us in face of hopeless situations. I see the call from God and not from people.
The retreat bonded all of us together and we decided to become personally fruitful this year and also double in number before we meet for a similar retreat in Bangalore six months from now. I am sure God will bless this desire of ours.
One of the key decisions, we made being united in God’s spirit, is that we would work together as a sister church with the Mumbai Christian Church and in our effort to be true disciples in Bangalore, we would belong to Jesus as the Bangalore Christian Church. We are really excited about this and request all the brothers and sisters all over the world to pray for us. We pray God can once again use Kip and Elena powerfully to lead us all in accomplishing the dream of evangelizing the world in one generation.
Its great to see that we are once again a part of the movement of God, which truly touched our hearts more than a decade and a half ago. Based on the love of Jesus, conviction in the word of God and sacrifice of ordinary disciples in India, its definitely our dream to build the Church which would be financially self supportive and learn to sacrifice for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord!!
To God be the glory!!!
Johnson Selvaraj
Bangalore Christian Church
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