Published on Operation World (http://www.operationworld.org)
Jun 22: India, Delhi, Goa
India
Republic of India
Asia
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Geography
Area: 3,166,000 sq kmA further 121,000 sq km of Kashmir, a contested area, is administered by Pakistan and China. Geographically and politically, India dominates South Asia and the Indian Ocean. There are 28 Union States and 7 Union Territories.
Population: 1,214,464,312 Annual Growth: 1.44%
Capital: Delhi
Urbanites: 30.1%
HDI Rank: 134 of 182 (UN Human Development Reports 2009)
Peoples
Peoples: 2,533 (88% unreached) All peoplesUnreached Peoples Prayer Card
Official language: Constitutionally there are 22 official languages. The official language is Hindi (spoken by 40% of the population). English is a subsidiary official language Languages: 456 All languages
Religion
Largest Religion: Hinduism| Religion | Pop % | Ann Gr | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Christians | 71,011,000 | 5.84 | 3.7 |
| Evangelicals | 26,290,283 | 2.2 | 3.9 |
| Hinduism | 902,711,323 | 74.33 |
Challenge for Prayer
Christian media and help ministries play key roles in reaching hundreds of millions who have negligible interaction with Christians or churches. For prayer:a) The Bible Society has had a long and remarkable ministry in India – its 200-year anniversary is in 2011. It has played a key role in distributing over 30 million portions of Scripture or Bibles annually. Other organizations also supply and distribute Scriptures, such as World Home Bible League, Bibles for the World, Biblica and Bharatiya Bible League. India Bible League does excellent work in effective Bible distribution and simple discipleship via their Project Philip.
b) Bible translation is a major challenge.
i India has 456 languages; 429 of those are spoken by more than 1,000 people. At present, the full Bible is available in only 70 languages and the NT in 120. Translation is underway in another 136 languages. A new effort as great as that of William Carey's 200 years ago must occur. At the current rate of project completion, it will take until the end of this century to see all of India’s languages covered. But a partnership of agencies is establishing a translation-training centre that will drastically increase the projected rate of completion.
ii Indian missions have identified 154 languages that still need Bible translation. Of these, seven have more than 1 million speakers and 21 have more than 100,000.
iii United Bible Society has 86 projects in hand.
iv Various Indian agencies are involved in Scripture translation projects – Indian Bible Translators, IEM, IET, FMPB, NIEA, GFA, ORBIT, NLCI and Wycliffe India.
v Wycliffe India provides training in linguistics for many agencies and helps to monitor progress in dozens of projects.
vi Modern, culturally appropriate translations are needed in Urdu and many other languages.
c) Literature distribution. Writing, publishing and distributing Christian literature are major factors in evangelism, especially by groups such as OM, EHC, GFA, Operation Agape and SGM. EHC alone has produced 500 million pieces of Christian literature for India.
d) Christian publishing and bookstores. Encouragingly, books written by indigenous authors and published locally are increasing. But publishers must still contend with a relative lack of titles by Indians for Indians and with prohibitive costs in making books available for the poor. OM Books/Biblica is now the largest literature-distribution agency in Asia, with more than 30 branches within India. Pray for Gospel Literature Service in Mumbai (publishing books, tracts and such) and Evangelical Literature Service (CLC) with headquarters in Chennai (17 stores and 350 book titles in print). GFA Bible Society is one of the largest producers of literature in India, annually distributing 50 million pieces. Christian Booksellers Association was formed in 2000.
e) Bible Correspondence Courses, sent out from over 70 centres, have proved fruitful.
f) Audio resources, such as Talking Bibles, are strategically vital, since over half the population are functionally illiterate. GRN, as part of Project India, has recordings in over 400 languages and dialects and seeks to record into another 800. Faith Comes By Hearing, World Cassette Outreach, Hosanna and The Bible Society have large programmes for making audio-Scriptures available in all possible languages.
g) Christian medical work remains crucial to Christian witness, but is declining as the government increases its capacity for healthcare. Christian Medical Association and Catholic Health Association share oversight of over 700 hospitals. Emmanuel Hospitals Association has responsibility for 23 hospitals and 30 community-health programmes in North India. The high proportion of Christians in healthcare and nursing in particular is a positive testimony; pray that physical healing and spiritual new life might be found through these workers and the many Christian health care facilities they serve.
h) Christian films and videos are important:
i Dayasagar (also known as Karunamaiyudu and other names), an Indian feature-length film on Jesus, is available in 21 main languages of India; tens of millions have seen this film. Over 300 film teams from several different organizations show this film all over the country, to powerful effect. Showings number up to 2,000 a month and viewers of these up to 3 million a year.
ii The JESUS film is available in 110 languages. Pray that the hundreds of partners using this film will have success as they plant new churches across India.
i) Radio and TV are increasingly important media as millions more Indians tune in each year. Christian broadcasting has won an enormous following among Christians and non-Christians alike. Pray for:
i Programme producers – there is great need to generate quality programmes and to find talented, committed, native speakers. Some agencies involved: India Gospel Outreach, HBI, GFA, WEC-Radio Worldwide, BBI.
ii Broadcasters. The major agencies – TWR, FEBA and FEBC – broadcast between them 770 hours per week in over 100 languages on both shortwave and medium wave frequencies, and increasingly on national and local radio.
iii The massive growth in satellite and cable TV use means that TV is replacing radio. Foreign-based TV ministries are beamed into the country, and others have operations in India (such as CBN). Praise God also for the several Indian indigenous 24-hour Christian TV channels initiated in the last 5-10 years. Most of them are still regional. Pray that more Christian ministries may adapt and make use of the possibilities of this medium.
iv Internet evangelism is poised to become possibly the most significant media ministry in the country as India continues to accelerate in its technological revolution and maintain its place as one of the world’s leaders in IT. The number of active Internet users was 1.4 million in 1999, 45 million in 2009. Engaging and effective Christian content and sites for both evangelism and discipleship, in many languages, are needed now and even more for the future.
For an additional 14 Challenges for Prayer see Operation World book, CD-ROM, or DVD-ROM.
More Information
The Operation World book, CD-ROM, and DVD-ROM provide far more information and fuel for prayer for the people of India.Delhi
India
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Challenge for Prayer
Christians officially number over 130,000, but the informal number is as high as 400,000. There are over 3,000 churches, trebling the number in 1999. Many of these Christians are migrants; most do not regularly attend church. Pray for revival, new life and effective outreach by those who claim to be followers of Christ. Vision 2020 hopes to establish another 1,500 congregations for 1.5 million new Christians by 2020.For an additional 3 Challenges for Prayer see Operation World book, CD-ROM, or DVD-ROM.
More Information
The Operation World book, CD-ROM, and DVD-ROM provide far more information and fuel for prayer for the people of Delhi.Goa
India
See Prayer Information
Challenge for Prayer
Workers able to communicate in Konkani (the language of most Christians and many others) are a great need. Labourers to reach nominal Catholics, Hindus or Muslims are few but growing (GFA, Mustard Seed Ministries). Praise God for the recent completion of a new Konkani Bible – after 18 years of translation work. Other literature is needed to supplement this, for both evangelism and for discipling nominal Christians.For an additional 2 Challenges for Prayer see Operation World book, CD-ROM, or DVD-ROM.
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