Ten years ago I attended the inaugural World House Church Conference in New Delhi India. It was an amazing four days as I understood for the first time the power and sheer scale of church multiplication going on around the world, especially in India. Cleverly, those serving us during the four days were introduced at the end as leaders of mass movements numbering from 40,000 to 300,000. One of them was Randeep Matthews.
Randeep sat with us up the back for most of the main sessions and we got to know him as a really cool guy. He is the Indian head of the Christian Outreach Centre (COC), an Australian Pentecostal church. At the conference his house church movement was then numbering 80,000.
It all started when, as a dormant Christian, he was visiting his mum up in Hamichal Pradesh at the foothills of the Himalayas.Two Hindu priests were trying to cast out a demon in the market place by sacrificing chickens. Randeep noncholantly told someone that only Jesus could deliver that woman. Someone else head him and challenged him to do so. After said demon was cast out Randeep slipped through the crowd and went to see his mum.
When he told her what had happened she laughed loudly and thanked the Lord that her son was back on track. A few hours later a crowd appeared and there was a knock on the door. Randeep fearfully answered and someone promptly asked if Jesus lived there as the crowd was looking for more of what had happened at the market place. For the next three hours Randeep could do nothing but pray for the sick and destitute, with miracles and healings flowing freely.
Hetold us he never got to go home for seven whole years as he was too busy overseeing an ever-growing house church movement in his home state.
As I said, when we met him there were some 80,000 in the house church movement under his leadership. His stated goal for his movement, and one that every believer in the network understood, was that they would usher in the first truly Christian state in North India. Hamichal Pradesh is home to 6 million people, so their specific goal was 51% of the state for Jesus. Several years later we caught up with Randeep in Australia and the movement had doubled again to 160,000. He told us then that he had been witnessing to the head Imam of the Chandigah Mosque and the Imam Had just told him via text that he was ready for baptism and to renounce Islam.
Last night, while researching for my next PICTURE newsletter, I came across a 2017 article by an American who works with Randeep. The movement was at that stage up to 750,000 and growing faster than ever.
However, what is truly amazing is that Randeep is only one of dozens of Indian leaders with similar movements all growing exponentially. The Indian church has tapped into the heart of God and the keys of church multiplication. Something very special is happening there that will eclipse anything the world has ever seen in terms of church growth and will eventually spill out to all countries where Indians work.
Here is the the link to the article on Randeep so you can read it for yourself.
Kevin Davis