Two proofs that God is still working in a church are that He adds wholehearted disciples to it and removes from it those who are not interested in following the Lord. We read in the Scriptures:

"The Lord added to their number those who were being saved" (In those days, only those who accepted the message of discipleship were considered "saved") (Acts 2:47).

The Lord says, "I will remove from your midst your proud, exulting ones, and leave among you a humble and lowly people. The LORD your God (will then be) in your midst and rejoice over you with shouts of joy (Zephaniah 3:8-17).

We have seen our heavenly Father work in both these ways in our church, from the very beginning.

In a country like India, with over one billion people, to find those who want to be disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ is like looking for a few needles in a hundred thousand haystacks!! We can spend a lifetime searching through these haystacks, and even then find only one or two needles. But a more efficient method would be to put very powerful magnets outside these haystacks. The needles will then be drawn out of the haystack by the magnets - with minimum effort! This is the best and most efficient way of finding those who are wholehearted. And this is the way God wants it done too. Jesus said that others would know that we are His disciples when they see our love for one another. (John 13:33-35). It is our witness as a church that is to draw others to us.

And so we wanted our church (and all the churches the Lord planted through us) to be such magnets that drew disciples out of the thousands of haystacks in India - and elsewhere too.

Since the Lord commanded us to make disciples (and not converts) (Matthew 28:18-20), we preached the three conditions of discipleship (mentioned in Luke 14:26-33) from the very beginning, - loving Jesus supremely, dying to Self daily and being free from attachment to the material things we possessed. We wanted to gather together in our churches only those who were interested in fulfilling these conditions of discipleship.

So we prayed that the Lord would add to our number those who wanted to be such disciples. We never invited anyone to join our churches. We wanted people to join us on their own. In all these years, since 1975, I have never invited a single person to become a member of any of our churches. We have received only those who came to us entirely on their own. We believed that the Lord would send to us those whom we were called to shepherd and minister to. It is the Lord Himself Who adds people to His church. Jesus said,

All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out (John 6:37).

We believed that this would be true of us as Christ's Body on earth too.

The Lord used amazing ways to add disciples to us. Here are some examples.

In a nearby country, there was a war that led to many people having to leave everything and to flee with their families in little boats. Some of those boats sank in the sea and many drowned and died. But some survived and reached the shores of India. The Indian government housed these refugees in a camp. Two of our churches were located near this camp. So some of our brothers from those churches visited these refugees (who were unconverted nominal Christians) and shared the gospel with them. As a result, a number of them were born again. Our brothers then visited them regularly in their camp and established them as a church. They also attended a number of our conferences in Bangalore and elsewhere, for about two years. Their eagerness to share their testimony was so great that they would rush to the pulpit at our conferences and testify boldly. Our other church-members hardly got a chance to testify when they were there!! We were all challenged by their zeal. In one conference, after I had spoken about how the Bible taught that wives should submit to their husbands, as the church is to Christ, one newly-married wife from among them, wept and prayed to the Lord and begged Him to give her grace to be a submissive wife right from the beginning of her marriage. Never in my life had I heard a wife weep and pray so fervently with such a request!!

After about two years, the Indian government decided to send them back to their homeland. But by then, these believers had been well established in the faith and we could appoint three among them as elders, before they went back. So God timed their stay in India perfectly. Sometime after they returned to their homeland, there was war again in their area, and they were dispersed into three different areas. But amazingly, each of these three groups had one of the elders we had appointed among them! So they could function as three churches under the leadership of those elders. Many others were also added to these churches through their witness there. One of our brothers visited them a few times and had meetings among them and encouraged them.

Another one of our brothers decided to settle down in a new place, to start a small business there. Here too, there was not a single church since the time of Christ. Through this brother's witness there, some became disciples and there is a fine church there today - for the first time in 2000 years.

The greatest miracle however, that God has done in our midst during the last 50 years, is not the planting of churches where none existed for 2000 years, but the raising up of godly elders to lead the many churches. To find spiritually-minded leaders who are willing to serve and shepherd God's lambs and sheep, without any payment whatsoever, is an amazing miracle in a country like India - where most Christian workers are salaried workers - with the money coming mainly from foreign sources. God however, has sent us men who have served in our churches as elders and shepherds, freely - for decades now. Because we don't pay any elder a salary, we have been protected from many "Christian racketeers" who would have joined us otherwise. This is the problem that many other Christian churches and organizations are facing today.

Our magnets scattered across the country have drawn some fine and genuine needles out from the haystack. We hope to draw many more in the days to come.

Praise the Lord!