What I Wish I Could Say To The First Generation

Last week, I read a post by Shawn Varghese. With wonderful humility, this brother beautifully reflected on his experience in the Mar Thoma Church. I was grateful not just for what he said, but for how he said it. Respectful. Humble. Gracious. His tone mattered as much as his words. Inspired, I want to follow my brother’s example.

I too grew up in a first generation Indian Church. To be honest, I had a positive experience and am profoundly grateful to God for giving me a “heritage of those who fear your name” (Ps. 61:5).

And yet, I left.

Not only that, I helped plant a new church.

How does that make sense?

Some see church planting as a rebellious enterprise. Some see it as a godly one. In the last seven years, living in the fray of church planting, I have gotten mixed reactions from my parent’s generation (and from my own as well). We’ve been championed, called a cult, and everything in between. If I could then, here are six things I wish I could say to the first generation.

1. We Thank God For You

That’s not smooth talk or empty flattery. I sincerely thank God for my parents, their generation, and the church I grew up in.

In 2 Timothy 3:14-15, Paul tells Timothy, “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”

Paul could say the same thing to me. Like Timothy, from childhood, I was acquainted with the Scriptures. The home, prayer group, and church that I grew up in gave me the grammar of the gospel. Christian faith was the air that I breathed. At mealtimes, at bedtimes, in the home, in the car, on the way to school – it was everywhere. Now it should grieve us that for so many, all of that amounted to nothing more than vain ritual, a lifeless going through the motions. But by God’s grace, for me, He used all of that to take my sinful, foolish heart and make it wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. And He did the same thing for so many in my generation.

May it be that my generation would say to the first generation, “the glory of children is their fathers” (Prov. 17:6) and the first generation would say to us, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth” (3 John 1:4).

2. We’re Trying To Honor God Not Dishonor You

Church planting wasn’t some kind of statement against the first generation church. It wasn’t my way of disowning my parents or because I thought I was better. It wasn’t because I was disgruntled, or unhappy, or angry. I wasn’t a teenager throwing a temper tantrum.

Is the first generation church perfect? No. Has culture often be placed above the gospel? Does nominalism run rampant? Are there things that are deeply concerning? Sadly, yes to all the above. But I can tell you honestly that I didn’t plant a church because I was reacting to a bad experience.

Truth is, I felt called.

I felt called by God to reach people who don’t know His Son. I was a churched, moral, hypocritical, religious, perfect-on-the-outside-but-dead-on-the-inside, Pharisee. And Jesus forgave me. He saved me. He changed me. How could I not feel a burden for an entire generation of folks, from varying denominations and backgrounds, like me?
And so the Spirit began burdening my heart with the questions like, “Who’s going to reach them?” “How can you reach them?” “Who better to reach them?” And before that struggle ended, another one began. “Is the mission only to reach Indians?” Missionaries go around the world to reach the nations, and here in America, the nations literally live at my door. It became clear that the call was not just to reach second generation Indians but anyone and everyone that God would give us access to.

And so the journey to gospel-centered, multiethnic, church planting began. And each step on that journey, however imperfectly, has been motivated by love for God, not hatred for you.

3. We’re Not Trying To Steal Your Kids

There are second-generation Indians who have stayed in first generation churches. They love Jesus, they attend, they serve, and they thrive. Praise the Lord. And there are second-generation Indians who have found new homes in other churches. They love Jesus, they attend, they serve, and they thrive. Praise the Lord.

And then, there are second generation Indians who go nowhere. Because of procreation or immigration, their names were added to the church rolls a long time ago. But they don’t love Jesus. They don’t attend. They don’t serve. And they are not thriving. That’s who we are trying to connect with.

First generation, you gave us the gospel, and that very gospel compels us to go after sons and daughters who have walked away from the church and from God. Indian or non-Indian, our aim is to see the disconnected and disbelieving connected to Christ and His Church, even through a small, flawed, local one like ours.

4. We are Co-Laborers, Not Competitors

A decade ago, I put a big map of Philadelphia on my wall. It was covered with post-it notes. Scribbled on each one was a different topic that we committed to pray for. We prayed for our city, for our schools, for our leaders, and more. One of the notes was for other churches. We listed every first generation Indian denomination we could think of and prayed for them by name. We prayed for revival to sweep across the churches. We even prayed that the planting of new congregations would become a catalyst for renewal in the first generation churches.
We may not agree on everything, but we labor for the same Master. That makes us co-laborers. We may not be in the same denomination, but we’re on the same team. Ravi Zacharias has rightly said, “Unity of faith doesn’t mean uniformity of expression.” If you glorify the Father, see people believe in the Son, and grow in obedience by the Spirit, shame on me if I do anything but rejoice. And vice versa. I pray that you advance the gospel and would hope you pray the same for me. We have the same Father, the same Savior, and the Spirit. Moreover, we have the same enemy, and it’s not one another.

5. We Plant Churches In Obedience To The Great Commission

Twelve years ago, I didn’t know what church planting was. I had never even heard of it. And once I had, I was totally against it. How does someone just start a church? Who gives you permission? When there are so many churches, why would you start a new one? If anything, why not strengthen existing churches rather than planting new ones?

But then I saw something I had never seen before. When Jesus gave His disciples the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20), what did the first disciples do? How did the Apostles seek to obey the Great Commission?
Answer: They planted churches.

The bulk of the New Testament is the story of the spread of the gospel through the planting of new churches. The epistles are letters to church plants. Church planting is at the heart of the Great Commission.

If nothing else, consider that nearly 4,000 churches close in America every year. Just to keep up with population growth and church decline, new congregations must be started. Missiologist Peter Wagner is famous for saying, “Church planting is the most effective form of evangelism under heaven.” Additionally, Tim Keller wrote, “Nothing else–not crusades, outreach programs, para-church ministries, growing mega-churches, congregational consulting, nor church renewal processes–will have the consistent impact of dynamic, extensive church planting.”
If you’re for the Great Commission, you have to be for church planting.

6. You Were Courageous. Now It’s Our Turn.

You are the most courageous people we know. Again, that’s not empty flattery. When we were young, we would joke about your stories. Coming to a foreign country with $8 in your pocket. Not knowing the language. Not knowing a soul. But the older we get, the more we’re amazed rather than amused.
Look what God has done.
Not only have you made it as individuals and families. You started churches. Thousands of them.
I’ve heard stories that when you first came to this land, you were encouraged to find local “American” churches to worship at. The prospect of starting new churches in this foreign land was too daunting. You were told to assimilate. But you didn’t. You wanted to worship in contextually appropriate, culturally relevant churches. Those didn’t exist in America, and so you started them. Thousands of young nurses and their young husbands – with little to no formal theological training – started new congregations here.

Now it’s our turn to do the same thing.

We were brought up in America. We grew up around Indians and non-Indians. And now we need the courage to plant churches in this soil that can reach the people that God has given us an opportunity to reach.

So, my prayer is that like you, we would start churches. Thousands of them. And that’s one of our hopes for The Advance Initiative.