Why India Needs 9Marks

Church Stories
02.09.2013

I recently returned from a two-week trip to India. During my time there I taught two 9Marks conferences for pastors and seminarians. I came away from that time more convinced than ever that the mission of 9Marks is essential to the spread of the gospel in places like Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand.

Now, I realize that I am biased when it comes to this subject; though I don’t work for 9Marks, I am a True Believer. But it seems to me from my experience (admittedly limited, I’ve only been twice) and the input of pastors on the ground there that the most urgent need in India is for well-trained pastors.

There are actually a lot of Christians, a lot of churches, and a lot of missionaries in India. That’s great and really important. There are even a lot of pastors. But while many of these pastors are long on love for Jesus, courage, and willingness to sacrifice… many of them need help thinking through things that you and I might take for granted. Things like: the gospel, conversion, and biblical theology; things that 9Marks specializes in.

The fact is, it’s really hard to have a healthy church and healthy Christians when pastors don’t have a good grasp of these basic things. Just like here in the West, it’s easy for the churches of India to become distracted by things other than the gospel of Jesus Christ. But unhealthy, distracted churches usually breed unhealthy, distracted Christians.

So would you pray that 9Marks would continue to bear fruit in places like India? And would you pray that the Lord would raise up more Indian churches that have a passion for planting churches and training pastors?

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