Evangelism
Evangelism Has Felt So Good
Evangelism is the Heartbeat of SIM. Good news of Jesus is shared to the rich and the poor, to the learned and the unlearned, urban & rural people, to children, university students, neighbours, crossing all barriers of language, culture and influence level.,”And the gospel must first be preached to all the nations – Mark 13:10”
SIM strives to echo the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ to the unreached people. Efforts have been made to present Gospel through efficient and strategic ways, considering the different groups of people, their languages, culture, social status and influence level.
Film Evangelism has proven to be one of the effective ways to introduce Christ in villages, among those who haven’t heard about Jesus before. There 30 film teams reaching nearly 1 million people every year with ‘Jesus’ film and other Gospel messages.
Gospel Meetings are conducted annually to break new grounds and to penetrate into the villages.
Through attempts are made to place one missionary in every Panchayat (Government Administrative Demarcation) who will plant at least five churches in two years, aiming Saturation Church Planting.
Medical Evangelism is yet another effective way of reaching out to the people with the Gospel when they are being treated by our medical team. More than forty-five thousand patients are treated every year and are given an opportunity to listen to the Gospel through focused evangelical strategies. Healthy Patients to Heaven!
Neighbours Evangelical is an initiative to present the Gospel to neighbours amidst stiff opposition.
More than 40000 children are reached every year with the Love of Christ through Bible Clubs, Vacation Bible Schools, Camps, Rallies organized by Children Evangelism.
Students Outreach Ministries concentrates on reaching out to the student community, especially to the university and college students. Regular prayer cells and Bible studies are conducted to teach and train students to reach their own along with evangelistic programs.
Professional Forum is a contemporary mission initiative towards workplace evangelism. It encourages working professionals to be a corporate missionary at their workplaces and motivates them towards Tent making.
Urban Ministries attempts to influence the influencers amongst the urban elite.
Church Planting
Church Planting: SIM Actively Concentrates On Church Planting. The First Decade Was Very Hard For And Co-Workers As They Could See Very Little Fruits In Spite Of Toiling Day And Night. It Was The Hardest Part Of Ministry. During The Second Decade We Could Witness A Good Harvest And Many Souls Were Added To The Church. We Then Consolidated Those Believers And Used Them To Plant Churches In Different Places.
- First Decade –1972-1982 – Evangelism
- Second Decade – 1982-1992 – Establishment
- Third Decade – 1992-2002 – Expansion
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Fourth Decade – 2002-2012 – Exponential Growth
Now moving towards the Fifth decade with the motto ‘Fresh, Full and Free’. During the 2nd and 3rd decade of Church planting many house churches were born and many zones of were created.
Saturation Church Planting
SIM targets key ‘Blocks and ’Panchayat’ and attempts to saturate every village under them with maximum number of churches i.e. it identifies strategic ‘Blocks’ and adopts it for total transformation and wholesome community development at grassroots level within its geographical boundary. To begin with, every missionary is given a challenge of establishing churches in 5 places in 2 years. Also they are constantly encouraged to develop more voluntary workers and elders to whom these churches could be entrusted as these missionaries concentrate on new pioneering areas.
On an average around 20 churches are built in a year with a parsonage where ever possible. So far the lord has given us more than 1003 churches and still many churches are in the formative stage. Education, Health care, Community reformation programs, Vocation specific training programs and Self-help livelihood programs in these villages to speed up the Church planting process as it works with the principle that anything which happens under the umbrella of SIM has to ultimately result in Church planting. There are around 2230 people toiling with directly or indirectly to establish these churches. strives hard to establish churches in every village.
To profile these churches we follow a simple method to classify them into 4 categories namely Preaching Point (PP), House Church (HC), Emerging Church (EC), Established Church (ESC).
- Preaching Point (PP): PPs are fellowships which meet at atleast once a month in place with or without baptized believers.
- House Church (HC): HCs are fellowships which meet once in a week or atleast twice in a month in any place with 5 baptised believers.
- Emerging Church (EC): ECs are fellowships which must meet once in a week in any place with 6 to 15 baptised believers.
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Established Church (ESC): ECs are fellowships which must meet once in a week in any place with 15 baptised believers. Atleast 1 Bible men (mature believer or elder who can assist the Pastor), 2 Elders and 1 Treasurer.
Now moving towards the Fifth decade with the motto ‘Fresh, Full and Free’. During the 2nd and 3rd decade of Church planting many house churches were born and many zones of GEMS were created.