Lucknow field trip

Last week Deven Pradhan, leader of the Lucknow centre, visited Sainik 220 Km. from Lucknow in between Kaushambi and Fathepur districts, where 6 of his graduates work. The field visits all took place on foot and bike. Deven comments,

“We stayed one day each in every evangelist house. Identifying and sharing our lives with their family members and ministering to them as well. All the family members are moved by our humble approached. It was also a great fun sleeping outside or in veranda along with their domestic animals since it was hot and humid and there is no electricity in the village.”

Please continue to pray for Deven and the evangelists who are working in trying circumstances yet seeing many brought into a full knowledge of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour.

LEADERSHIP TRAINING CENTER, LUCKNOW 2010 ANNUAL REPORT – Part 4

LTC LUCKNOW 2ND ANNAUL CONFERENCE:

All together we have 66 delegates including staffs.  It was a great gathering, a wonderful moment of praising God and testifying what the Lord is doing in and through us. It was also a qualitative time of learning from Pastor Gary, Jon, and Ranjit. We are blessed through their teaching and motivation. It was also a quite time of feeling the fresh touch and move of God among us. Transformation and revival is what we need today here in Uttar Pradesh and India as a whole and we have being earnestly praying that God will bring revival and transformation among us.

Our sincere gratitude to Pastor Gary, Jon and Ranjit for being a part of this conference and teaching and encouraging us to move on in doing God’s work. We would also like to thank FBCD families for upholding us in prayer and sponsoring this Annual Conference.

UNCLE PETER AND AUNTY MOALA VISIT:

Uncle and Aunty paid a surprise visit in the month of October. Even though it was a short stayed we the staff and families including the kids have enjoyed every single moment. What a joy and blessing to have Uncle and Aunty in our midst. Thanks to Uncle and Aunty for visiting us and encouraging and motivating us to prepare and equip ourselves to face the Mission challenges of this age.

LTC MISSION STATEMENT:

LTC exists to:

Evangelize

Edify

Equip National

Establish churches and nurture it to become self-governing, self-dependent and self-propagating church.

Exalt God.

LTC LUCKNOW 2011 ACTION PLAN:

Discontinue training and concentrate on follow up,
Visit all the graduates fields—to encourage, motivate, strengthen and have fellowship with their family members and believers,

Set up a graduates team—zonal wise to help, encourage and strengthen one another,

Give short term training to graduates—zonal wise emphasizing on the following points:

Help them to organize, set up church committee and operate systematically with proper Church structure.

Envision them and help them to stay focus.

Guide them in making plans and strategies and implementation.

Help them to deal with day to days practical problems in the field sensitively without compromising with the word of God.

Educate them on Indian Constitution, Law and Order in relate to Secularism and Freedom of Religion.

Motivate them to live a balance Christian life as a leader and play a role model to believers and lead a balance church life by carrying out the purpose of the Church effectively.

Explore more avenue for micro-finance project,

Explore Western Nepal to set up one training center in Nepali,

Strive toward bringing transformations and revivals among our staff, graduates and believers,

Buy Land and Construct Hostel, Hall and two Staff Quarters by June 2012

PRAYER REQUEST:

Pray for 2011 Action Plan.

Pray for Land (training center) we need around $ 89,000/-

Pray for bicycle for graduates per cycle it will cost $ 55/-

Pray for Dholak (Drum) for graduates per Dholak it will cost $ 15/-

ACKNOWLEDGMENT:

Our sincere gratitude to Fellowship Bible Church, Dallas for their financial and unceasing prayer support and partnership in our endeavor to train and equip national leaders to plant churches and to nurture and built up those planted churches to become self-governing, self-dependent and self-propagating church.
We would also like to thank Our Director, Joint Director and all the colleagues and LTC families from every Center and transit office for your prayer and moral support.

“Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”

Eph.3:20-21

In Christ,

Deven and the Lucknow Team

LEADERSHIP TRAINING CENTER, LUCKNOW 2010 ANNUAL REPORT – Part 3

Church Activities (Continued)

MOTHER’S & FATHER’S DAY CELEBRATION:

Every year our Center church celebrates Mother’s and Father’s Day to honor and give tribute to our beloved parents. Even this year we celebrated in a very colorful way. Sunday school’s children performed skit and recite poem, gifts are given away to all the mothers and fathers and offer a special prayer for them. Thanking God for giving us a good mother and father, for their selfless service and immense sacrifice for their children. Deven and Chonchon Pradhan encourage and challenge all the mother’s and father’s from the word of God.

BSK WOMEN’S GROUP MONTHLY MEETING:

These women’s groups are the prayer warrior of our Center Church; they meet every first Saturday of the month for fasting prayer, fellowship and to meditate God’s word together. They are doing a study on the character of women in the Bible.

CHRISTMAS CAROL SINGING:

The Christmas season is a great time for us to let people know more about Christ therefore, we visited every believer’s house and sing Christmas song and read a passage of Scripture. It was a great time of singing, fellowship and reaching out people around the vicinity.

CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION AT BABUKHERA:

In Babukhera we are focusing on Children, Children are our only hope since people are not willing to become a disciple of Jesus Christ. We teach children moral, hygiene, books, arts, songs, Bible stories and others. In the meant time we encourage their parent to send them to school. Many children’s has been sent to school after our initiative. With the children along with their parents and few believers we celebrated Christmas. We give away one woolen cap to each child as a Christmas gift. We also provided light refreshment to everyone. Avishek pradhan share to the kids and parents what is all about Christmas from the scripture? It was a great joy to see kids performing action songs, reciting poem and Bible verse.

CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION AT SANJAY NAGAR:

Sanjay Nagar is one of our center church new mission fields. God is doing a great work in the life of the people in Sanjay Nagar through our missionary Ajit Masih. Our missionary and believers decided to celebrate Christmas in an open place by putting up tent and invite unbelievers to come and be bless. We sung Christmas song and Deven Pradhan share the God’s word from Gal. 4:4. Tea and snack was served after the program. Everyone was blessed through this celebration.

CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION AT BSK CENTER CHURCH:

On 25th it was celebrated in the Center Church with all the believers. The Christmas theme is “Behold you will conceive in you womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus” Lk. 1:31. Children presented songs and a beautiful skit about the birth of Jesus Christ. There was also a gifts exchange, games & sport and Christmas feast. It was celebrated with great joy and excitement.

LEADERSHIP TRAINING CENTER, LUCKNOW 2010 ANNUAL REPORT – Part 2

LTC Lucknow Centre Church

BAPTISM PROGRAM AT LTC CENTER CHURCH:

In Uttar Pradesh baptism is what matter most, we have observed that many people received Jesus Christ but very few are able to take a bold step of following Him by taking baptism. There are various reasons for this, both spiritual and physical, for example no one bother before baptism but the real trials and persecution start after baptism, therefore, people fare that they will be rejected by the family, relative, society and even torture by some Hindu religious group and many more. In spite of all this pre-occupied mindset, thank God our graduates could guide 143 people to the point of water baptism; moreover in our center Church we could baptize fourteen people who are willing to pay the price whatever it cost them in following Jesus Christ. Apostle Paul said; “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” Col.2: 6-7. We want to see more people becoming an active follower of Jesus Christ.

LTC LUCKNOW CENTER CHURCH (BSK):

In March 2007, Ryan, Tommy, Uncle Peter and Deven had a planning meeting at hotel Mara Mann, Lucknow to start ministry here in UP base at Lucknow. In that meeting Deven share his vision of starting a Center Church to be a model church for all the church planters who will come to LTC for training. With that in mind we started our Center Church on 1st July, 2007 with Deven’s family, 3 single staff and 10 LTC 1st batch students with the blessing of Uncle Peter, Aunty Moala and pastor Themreingam. Today excluding students we have more that 30 baptized active members in our Center Church. Our church is growing spiritually and numerically.

We begin our ministry here in Lucknow in partnership with FBCD. Therefore, we name our Center Church as Bible Sangati Kalisiya Lucknow, which means Fellowship Bible Church Lucknow. Secondly, we also choose this name base on Acts 2: 42-47, because we want to see the kind of church and the kind of fellowship that the early church has.

Lots of activities are being taking place in our Church, apart from Sunday worship service; we have Bible study thirst in a month. Every first Saturday women’s group have fellowship with fasting from 10:00 A.M to 04:00 P.M, we have cottage meeting once in a month in believers house. We also conduct Bible study for new believers in various places. Every Sunday evening we had Sunday school for kids. We do strongly encourage personal evangelism to every believer. Some of the activities are highlighted bellow:

PASSION WEEK OBSERVATION:

Bible Sangati Kalisiya, Lucknow observed Passion Week in a very significant way. This Year Passion Week theme was “The Road to Jerusalem.” Base on this theme, Deven Pradhan preaced a series of challenging sermons. Sunday school kids present a special song and skit commemorating Jesus dead, burial and resurrection. We all are blessed through the preaching and various program.

LEADERSHIP TRAINING CENTER, LUCKNOW 2010 ANNUAL REPORT – Part 1

[Deven Pradhan has produced an extensive report on events at LTC Lucknow throughout 2010. We shall be posting a series of reports summarising his report. Ed]

Training

LTC LUCKNOW 2010, BATCH:

This year we recruited 22 students from different districts of Uttar Pradesh. Out of which 19 students have completed their 6 months class-room course and 6 months practical work. 19 of them will be graduating on 27th March, 2011.

We the staff had a wonderful time with the students teaching, encouraging, motivating and equipping them for the work of the Lord, mainly to plant and nourish the church. Paul said; “It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known… as it is written: those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.” Ro.15: 20-21

LTC LUCKNOW 3rd GRADUATION CEREMONY:

LTC Lucknow 3rd Graduation ceremony was held on 27 February 2010 at LTC campus. 20 students graduated and commissioned for full time church planter. Tony Martin addressed the graduating students’ base on Graduation Theme: “… As the Father sent me, so send I you.” Jn. 20:21

He also gave away certificates and gifts to the graduating students. Awards in the field of Academic Excellency, Best Practical and Best Citizen are also given away to the deserving students by Angela Martin. The program was attended by LTC Partners, Christian leaders, Pastors, Evangelists and believers. Dinner was served after the program. Everyone was blessed through this program.

TONY AND ANGELA MARTIN VISIT:

Tony and Angela Martin from FBC Dallas visited LTC Lucknow on 27th February and stayed till 8th March 2010. Tony Martin taught on Spiritual warfare to the present Students and staff. His teaching was really great; we all are moved and blessed. Angela had a great time with staff’s wife and women’s group as well as with Children’s at Babukhera. Children enjoyed making craft and listening Bible story. Also staff’s wife and women’s group are greatly motivated.

Tony and Angela Martin coming has been a great source of blessing to all of us. God has used them in a mighty way among us. We are looking forward for their next visit.

LTC LUCKNOW GRADUATES PLANNING MEETING (2007-08 batches):

On 24 & 25 June, 2010 we had a planning meeting with 2007-2008 batches graduates. The theme of our meeting was “come now let us reason together “Isa. 1:18. Deven Pradhan exposed the theme and preside the meeting and following Agendas were discussed.

Reporting

Discipleship

Baptism

Giving

Church Account

Membership Record

Church Committee

Tenure/Support

Micro-finance

Timothy Project

Casting vision

Making Strategy

Issues, problems and Obstacles in the field

Others

MICRO-FINANCE:

Our goal is to see our graduates and churches planted by them become self-governing, self-supporting and self-propagating. Therefore, we are taking certain steps like teaching on biblical giving, stewardship, accounting and giving loan between Rs. 5,000/- to 10,000/ to graduates who have completed one year of service for income generation project which are feasible like buying rickshaw and renting out to other on daily basis, rearing goats, piggery, small shop etc. where family members can involve, so that our graduates give their full time in ministry. This will help their family fiancé work and even give more tithes which will set a good example to other new believers on giving. In phase one we have given loaned to 12 graduates, according to their report things are going well but we will able to know more during our field visit. We will keep sanctioning to the rest of the graduates from the phase one loan repayment.