Mumbai Christian Church

Raja and Debbie Rajan with their children Ashwin, Shefali and Isheeta!

(Raja recently visited the City of Angels Church for two weeks. He and his wife Debbie lead our sister church, the Chennai Christian Church.) KM

“As they were walking along the road, a man said to Him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head.’ He said to another man, ‘Follow me.’ But the man replied, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the Kingdom of God.’ Still another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family.’ Jesus replied, ‘No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the Kingdom of God.’” Luke 9:57-62

The first service for the Chennai Christian Church!

“….How about coming over to Los Angeles and meeting the church out here?” That’s how my phone call with Kip went! When I arrived at the LAX airport, I was greeted by a multitude of disciples. They had come to receive me. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw them, but then realized this is the way families need to be: making people special. Truly, they were extending their love to me – to an unknown brother.

Worshipping with the City of Angels Church was amazing, because they understand worship is not just Sundays, but every day is “a spiritual act of worship.” (Romans 12:1-2) I got to spend time with a lot of brothers and sisters. Now, they are no longer names behind the bulletin, but I see them as men and women of God who have given up everything for the gospel of Christ.

Indeed, Sunday services were awesome. The singing was electric. Everyone was excited to meet with one another and there was a spark of light in their eyes. The thought that crosses your mind is, “I want to be a part of this church. This group has the Spirit!” People truly come here to worship God. There were several baptisms at the end of both Sunday services I attended – daughters are being united to their families, wives are being restored to their husbands, college students are multiplying not just other students, but campuses! We even had a baptism right after staff meeting, which is unheard of in these days!

Johnson preaches a powerful Easter Service while Thomas translates!

Meeting with the disciples and spending time with them was a learning experience. Many have moved their families across America to Los Angeles to be a part of the City of Angels Church, so they can get the spiritual help they need. To these folks, spirituality is their primary priority. Some – to put God first in their lives – have given up lucrative jobs to come and then humbly stay with the brothers and sisters, while they search for a job during this time of recession in America. Others have moved to Los Angeles to get the discipling they need to become full-time preachers and women’s ministry leaders. This would shake the regular “church-goer” because this calls for a Luke 9:57-62 commitment. During the past few years in India, I have hardly heard these Scriptures being preached, let alone being practiced.

Though I was a practicing Hindu, I became a disciple in November 1989, through the efforts of what later became known as the Chennai International Church of Christ. (Chennai in earlier times was called Madras.) My father, upon hearing from me about taking this decision, came to the church and dragged me out by my hair. Then he started to beat me in front of everybody with his slippers. He came to my hostel and took everything from me. He demanded I take off what I was wearing because it belonged to him, as he had paid for it.

In 1994, I went into the full-time ministry, believing all India could be evangelized in our generation. Yet, since 2004 or so, I had gotten quite comfortable with the church settings – no more challenges, no more dreams of doing great things for God, no discipling from the Scriptures (but opinion discipling) and consequently, I felt myself drifting from the ideals of God’s Word. Many Indian disciples are hurting. I believe most would be committed, but there are too few leaders that trust God and put their lives on the edge so their disciples would take the same step. Sadly for many paid staff, trust in American dollars has gone up and trust in God has gone down. When about a dozen full-time workers were fired because of a lack of money coming in, then it became clear that I was a part of a corporate and not a church. Church is supposed to be a family and we don’t throw a member of the family out just because we have less money to survive. For the upper level leadership, no more was ministry about God and His people, but all about securing “enough” money for one’s self and one’s physical family, even at the cost of hurting God’s spiritual family. According to me, I left a corporate to join a church! Not a bad decision I think.

Disciples in the Chennai Church enjoy a great meal after the Easter Service!

In time, negative rumors spread about the new movement. Yet this only caused me to read all I could on the City of Angels website – caicc.net. (Proverbs 18:17) Though Kip and I never personally knew each other, through the blood of Jesus and our convictions about the Word, our souls were united even before we met. After visiting the City of Angels Church, I am even more convinced that it was God’s Spirit that guided my decision to step out of the full-time ministry in the ICOC and join God’s new movement by beginning a new congregation of sold-out disciples in Chennai.

In Ezra, the Spirit records that God moved the Israelites’ hearts to go and build His temple. In the same way, God has moved our hearts to rebuild. We started in February 2008 – just me and my wife, Debbie. The first Sunday, we had four others join us. From then on, God has added one by one to our number. As opposition arose from all sides, God kept encouraging us as many walked through our doors to recommit themselves to God. Today, we are 23 committed disciples in the Chennai Christian Church! Since then God has done many wonders. We started meeting in our living room; from there we have moved to a nearby school. We now have a hall, and on Easter Sunday, we had a great service and lunch together as a family. It was a great time of feast and celebration. It was awesome to see our brothers and sisters from villages travel for three hours up and three hours down just to be together!

Atop Mt. Hollywood Raja and Kip prayed for the rapid spread of the new movement throughout India and around the world!

Here in India, there has been so much talk about Kip – “he is evil,” “he is divisive” and “we don’t agree with what he is doing.” Yet none have met him personally and I know of only one person who has phoned him to talk. About eighteen months ago when the new movement began, some leaders boasted, “Kip and those with him will never get into India.” Ironically, I was one of them. But as Gamaliel told the Sanhedrin, “If their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop those men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.” (Acts 5:38-39) God’s new discipling movement in India has spread from Mumbai to Bangalore to Chennai and most recently to New Delhi! Kip and Elena plan to preach in India in October after the European Missions Conference in London.

Vandana and Johnson lead our sister church in New Dehli!

Yes, we have become aware of some problems within our churches and we are going to set it right. Through preaching and discipling, we are calling every member to hold to God’s Word as their standard. Therefore, I have a few questions: Have we become so comfortable that we don’t want to do the things we did before? Maybe we don’t want to go all the way out to help people because we have been hurt in our Christian life and are not ready to go through the pain again? Has God moved out of the picture and is money what matters the most to us now? Our children are growing and there are many needs….don’t you think our kids need to learn to trust God and face hardships that will build their character? Don’t we want our families to make a great impact in our neighbors’ lives? My conviction is that focus on self has increased – focus on God and the lost has decreased. I pray that God will give us the courage and strength to not just seek Him and find Him, but to keep Him as Lord of our lives.

Phone number: 011-91-93-8001-3555
Email: raja@chennaicc.org
Chennai Christian Church website: www.chennaicc.org