Mission approach of Nepali church and its hindrances

One writer said in his blog, “We have not been called to be just an active member of our small Christian circle, but we are called to the ends of the earth.”

 

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I heard stories from Pr. James Rai {who is with Lord now} how Nepali churches 20-30 years ago had passion for the gospel. “We had one motive and goal, that was to share the gospel”. That time there was no Christian organizations except a few like UMN and INF in Nepal and it was not easy for missionaries to involve in church activities. Apart from that, Pastors and leaders used to enjoy walking for many kilometers to gather with other believers. The spirit of evangelism was quite high that drove them to come together in prayer and in the spirit of unity. We had passed just a decade and Christian ministry with its approaches towards mission has changed a lot. Christian organizations have been flourishing like mushrooms in Nepal. Yet the impact of the churches to the outsiders is miserable. One writer said in his blog, “We have not been called to be just an active member of our small Christian circle, but we are called to the ends of the earth.”

We are living in a comfortable zone having a big deal of ministerial activities. Friends, let me warn you here. The time may come where the realities of Orissa may one day take place in Nepal also. Nepali Christians and churches would be awaken only when they go through a tough time. Forgive me if this makes you sad but reality can’t be diverted. There are people who are risking their life for the sake of the gospel. I met a friend from Korea who was sharing about North Korea. How the Christian churches there fervently praying for the nations and living underground. They are not allowed to worship in public. Government has totally banned them from worshiping in public places. Recently one of my friend visited Singapore and she was telling me the fact that she had to wait for an hour just to get into the church building. All these realities show us that church has become much stronger when it has gone through a tough time. Churches in Arabian countries are crying and kneeling down for others. Trusting on God alone has become their whole theology. Nothing less and nothing more. It’s a shame for Nepali churches where we have got the liberty in the midst of political turmoil but yet have not understood. They are still expecting someone’s help for the church construction and still hoping on others to run the mission. I am quite sad to see the approach of many Christian organizations that we see around us. Please do no misunderstand me here. I don’t have any intention to attack any Christian organizations. I appreciate them very much but I bitterly cry looking at the people who run those Christian organization. It’s a pitiable situation. Money and salary are their personal motives. We forget our down trodden society from where we came from. People are busy to secure their life and job. Our Christian identity changes soon after we join a Christian organization.
Friends, let us just take a look at the situation in Orissa. At least 10,000 people were taking shelter in the government camps and about 5,000 were hiding in forests around Kandhamal, which has a history of communal and religious clashes, for fear of mob violence. What did these poor Christian do to the Hindus? Nothing. ! They did only one thing, that is they had believed in Christ. That’s the only thing they did. Once a nun gave a testimony on an Indian TV channel. The mob asked her to denounce Christ otherwise they threatened to destroy her life. She was bitterly crying “I can accept everything but I can’t denounce my lord and savior.” She was happy that her life was secured in Christ but not in Christian organization.
Here we are taking a long breath to relax. Our predessors paid the price and we are enjoying the privileges. Have we ever thought what impact we are giving to our generation? Let me give you an example of Diaspora Nepali church. I am not exalting anyone and it is nothing to do with the pastor of this church. A young Nepali man came to India in his teens. He worked as a helper in an Indian house. Surprisingly a Bengali lady of that house was a Christian. She started to tell him the story about Christ. Then this young man came into contact with a missionary and he was sent to a Bible school in Kathmandu for 2 years. He came back to India after completing his study. He told me the reality that he used to get 300 rupees for a month from the mission organization. He had to adjust everything from that support. Few years later that organization stopped supporting him financially, thinking that by then the church should learn to support their own pastor. From then the church took care of him. Now, after 16 years of ministry, the church had 4 Para churches in Delhi. The pastor doesn’t have any salary other than what the church gives him. I know very well that a church needs to take care of all the occurring expenses. Church needs to pay room rent, electric bills, telephone bills, pastor’s supports and all other activities. Not only that this very church even supports two missionaries, one in Orissa and another in Nepal. Isn’t this wonderful! Can’t other Nepali churches also do the same. In Delhi, people usually don’t stay very long. Their stay in Delhi depends on their job. I involved in a church in Delhi and I know very well that this church is a giving church. Believers are taught to give to the Lord. They had never lacked anything through their giving. By being in this church, I learnt my Christian foundation.

I am not saying that all Nepali churches are not like this. There might be some which are like this. According to my opinion, this is what the real biblical church should be. Church should be responsible for their own shepherd. Let me briefly bring some of the short comings of Nepali churches in particular.

1. Christian doctrine
This plays an important role to keep the church alive in the kingdom. Christian doctrine is important for those who are serious about their faith and others who are seeking God. We have faced the direct encounter on how easily church can miss the doctrine. From the time of Constantine to the different face of the period, people like Luther, Calvin and Zwingli did fight for the false papacy. Human intelligence is too high sometime that it may go beyond the people’s control and overrule the Christian dogma. Let me simplify a little bit to make you all to understand better. We Christian have to do nothing other than imitating the model of Christ who is the owner of our faith. Last time one of the pastors asked me a question while I was in Nepalgunj. “Janak jee! We say that Bible is the word of God. But how can we say this when there are the quotations from Devil there. So this could not be so?” This sort of ….. question does not have any base nor it has anything that gives us food for our soul. The issues of Holy Spirit, spiritual gifts, tongues, baptism, and worship manner are very much. Let me give you a small illustration. There was a father who had three sons. All the three sons had different shortcomings. The first one was very smart and handsome but his shortcoming was that he was dumb. Second was very intelligent but he could not see. Third one was very ugly to see but he was a hard worker. See….they differ from one another, so do all of us. There is no question. You will not find two Christians with exactly same characteristics around you. There will be the people who strongly believe in one set of doctrines and others may have different beliefs. But what is the problem if after all they all believe in Christ? Our corner stone is CHRIST. LET US NOT STRUGGLE IN FIGHT WITH SUCH ISSUES WHICH HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH OUR SPIRITUAL GROWTH.
Let me come to another area. Theology. Nepali Christian professionals and pastors think that the study of theology is for those who cannot do anything in their secular study. The failure in other fields may lead the way to theological study. I have heard pastors saying “ Khai! yasle kehi garna saken! Ab Bible college jan bhannu parchha!”– (See! This man could not do anything! Now we have to tell him to go to bible college.) It makes me sad when I recount these miserable (narrow) thoughts of our pastors. Theology is very important to run a disciple Christian life. We are taking it too simply. I see people coming to theological study after securing good degree in secular field.

 
2. Social structure

 

People will dislike me and hate me as I write on this issue. It sounds very critical. Well, being a Nepali, I am proud of my culture and our country. But I would disagree with the things which have nothing to do with our heritage and patriarchal. The caste system for example. The issue of marriage is very much common in Christian arena. I have heard many Christians rejecting marriage proposal just because he/she is from a lower cast. I asked one of my friends regarding this issue. He didn’t show any interest to discuss. We become so spiritual that we neglect this sort of issue where we all are struggling, Are not we all? Let me tell you a fact. One of the educated mother said that she will not give my daughter to the sarki Christian (low cast Christian). I was shocked!! My goodnesssss! Where did Nepali church learn all this things? Once I had written an article on NBCBS bulletin, quoting that caste system is a gift from Aryans. Remember, the culture that divides our social structure can’t be called our culture. A culture should unite people together, creating social bond. It may not be necessary to have the same belief. Beliefs may differ but culture may be the same. National Culture doesn’t concern with any particular religion or its activity. It is merely an independent fact which a Christian cannot ignore giving full honor to it. So Nepalese culture need not to be called as a Hindu culture. Even great leaders or the first prime minister after independent India strongly refused (“Discovery of India”) Indian culture to be called a Hindu culture. “The word “Hindu” does not occur at all in ancient literature. The first reference to it was in an Indian book, a “tantric” work of the eight century AC, where Hindu means a people not the followers of particular religion. So it is clear the word is a very old one as it occurs in Old Persian too. Later it was used for the people living on the other side of Indus River. The world is clearly derived from the Sindhu, the old as well as the present India name for the Indus. For this sindhu came the world Hindu and Hindustan as well as Indus and India.” The caste system cannot be counted as Nepalese culture. Culture is the welfare of our society and it stands in our heritage. A normal life can think it over and find out its ups and downs. So it is not acceptable to say dashera as a Nepalese culture. How can a Christian comprise with such a culture which does not mean anything to God and to our national interest.

 
3. Leadership

 

Let me illustrate this in a better way. I am in contact with one worker who had been doing wonderful ministry since he was involved in the ministry. Somehow this man fell into a problem and he was sacked from the job and everyone left him alone. You may spend years and years of labor just to make your career but it takes just a minute to spoil all careers. But my point here is not to address this issue. But let us see another scenario where the church is lacking something to address this issue to the people. Please remember that Christ is not short minded but rather he has great passion for humanity. We love others conditionally but His love was unconditional, without any margins. Let me tell you what the pastor was sharing about that person. “See! This man did such a mistake. How can a Christian do such a thing. Now he is in foot path.” I was shocked to hear this. Not because that the person committed such a thing but because being a leader how can we don’t have compassion to others. I asked the pastor, “Have you ever visited him since then?” The reply made me so sad. “Who will visit him?” This tendency is increasing day by day in Nepal. We need to come to grass root level to think and see how we can sort out these issues. The leadership need to accept each other. How dare we to think that he or she won’t fall in any problems. But we neglect those who commit some mistakes without realizing why this is happening. There might be something behind the scene which is leading them to do so. We underestimate counseling in our Christian walk. We take Christianity for granted. Yes, I do believe that God can do everything but He has also appointed leaders and pastors to counsel us. In a Christian life is not possible to carry oneself alone. It’s all about sharing. A student is running life in danger without having any counseling. They are not strong enough to decide for themselves. They need someone who can guide them. In the same way, don’t we leaders also need someone whom we trust to speak to and share things with ?

 

( To be continued…….)
Republished in new layout on 8/14/2013

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