Up to 10,000 Native Indian Missionaries to Attend Evangelism Conference

An evangelism training conference in India may draw up to 10,000 native missionaries next month in an attempt to disciple the responsive and least-reached people groups in the country by 2020.

The Every Tongue and Tribe Conference (ETTC), hosted by New Directions International (NDI), is scheduled for Jan. 11-14, 2006 in Chennai, India. NDI estimates that up to 10,000 Swarthik – grassroots evangelists in India – native missionaries, and representatives from people groups from around the world, will gather for the conference.

The primary objective of ETTC is to identify, disciple, and transform the responsive people groups of India as well as to evolve strategies to reach the lost and the unreached.

“Christian leaders, heads of indigenous mission organizations, and other evangelism and church planting groups and agencies bear witness to the fact that it is harvest time in India,” said Bishop Ezra Sargunam of the Evangelical Churches of India to NDI.

“When the harvest is ripe and ready to be harvested, our Lord has bid us to immediately put the shackle to it (Mark 4:29),” he added. “It is high time we take our Lord’s command seriously. ETTC calls the Church and mission agencies to action to harvest the harvestable and to win the winnable.”

NDI informs that the cost to send a swarthik or native missionary to the conference is $100 and includes cost of travel, accommodations and food for the four days of the ETTC.

“A hopeful result of this conference will be a unified effort by all Christians in reaching India for the Lord. The goal is to disciple the responsive and least-reached people groups in the country by 2020,” NDI wrote.

The mission group is asking for the prayers and financial involvement of the Christian community to “play a key role in this exciting challenge.”