I am working together with a church based in Bombay that I have known since the early 1990’s, New Life Movement International.  New Life launched a church here in Aurangabad over fifteen years ago and though it is not a large church, it is stable.  Sadly, with an attendance of only 150 adults it is, to my knowledge, the largest life giving church in the city. 

New Life Church in Aurangabad is an English–Marathi speaking congregation.  The church we are launching will be a Hindi speaking congregation and I anticipate that it will grow along the same lines as our other model church plants in South Asia.  The Hindi services are held in another area of this city of over 3 million people.  I expect it to grow to 100 adults by the end of the year.

My role in the partnership with New Life is to provide strategic oversight, leadership training and start-up investment for the work.  New Life serves the work by providing pastoral and administrative oversight.  Together we form an apostolic team that functions to serve the young leaders in this emerging congregation.

Once the congregation reaches it’s first growth goal of one hundred adults I will consider increasing my investment into this work.  Property values are rising rapidly in the Aurangabad area and I expect that we will need to begin to look into a property purchase within the next two or three years.

The couple we are mentoring in this new congregation is Joseph and Sonali Shrisunder.  Joseph is 33 years old.  They have a darling little girl named Lydia.  Joseph and I spent many hours together in  April 2011 in one-on-one teaching and visiting the families of this emerging congregation.  Part of the strategy I use in launching a model church is the intensive leadership training I give to a young, emerging leader.  I’ve discovered that if I build the leader, and build a leadership team around him, they will build the church.

I’ve been very impressed with Joseph’s potential and will be working to develop him as a leader through the course of the coming years.  I have arranged to send him to our model church in Sri Lanka later in the year where he will be able to study our method of growth and government.

Our first services reminded me so much of the launching of our first church ten years ago.  The worship was not that great, the crowd was sparse and the ministry was very basic, focused on new believers.  But we do have an awesome building that we’re renting and it’s in a superb location.  Bev and I are filled with anticipation.