SUCCESS OF A NATIONAL PASTOR

Our church is blessed to support 30+ missionaries and projects around the world. I still believe in sending American missionaries, but I've also learned the benefit to training national pastors. National pastors already speak the language, know the culture, follow the customs, etc. In addition, national pastors can usually live on a small percentage of what it costs to send and maintain an American missionary.

We had one of our national pastors (missionaries) from India visit with us tonight. Justus Banuel is a native of India and was saved back in 1973 by listening to a "Back to the Bible" radio broadcast. He was saved to serve and immediately desired to attend Bible college. He began pastoring while in school and experienced great success. Today, God has used Justus Banuel to start 348 churches that have a combined total of over 200,000 people attending the Sunday services. Together, those churches have approximately 50,000 people going out on weekly visitation and they are seeing literally 1,000+ converts each month! In addition, they have a Christian school that has over 900 children enrolled. Remember, all of this is in a Hindu nation. You can learn more about Dr. Justus Banuel and the ministries in India at http://www.christianityindia.com/

Justus is just one example of the great success that national pastors can have among their own people. I encourage your church to consider supporting some national pastors. You can get started by contacting Gospelink at www.gospelink.org. Another option is to support Luther Rice Seminary-University in their efforts to train national pastors - http://www.lru.edu/