Barby and I are making our first visit back to India since our rushed departure with the arrival of the pandemic in March 2020, almost four years ago.
A Church
We were keen to linger long enough in Bangalore to make it possible to visit the church we attended. We had loved our routine. Being picked up in Kothanur by Wittin’s family, riding through Sunday morning’s quiet streets, before entering into the little lanes of Lingarajapuram—and locating the church meeting on the edge of a slum and across the road from a mosque.
It was a small crowded room on that first Sunday when we attended, but the pastor had shared of a dream to purchase the adjoining delapidated warehouse and restore it as a gathering point on Sundays. Under God’s good hand, they did so. Just before we left in 2020 the stage had been built, temporary walls put up—but with a dirt floor still under our feet. Here is the only (poor quality!) photo I could find:
Bit by bit, through the COVID years and as finance enabled them, they have restored the building. In the week prior to our visit, the false ceilings had been added. Here was the view as we waited for the service to begin.
Going back a few years… The pastor of the church, Michael, was having a tough time and a mutual friend asked me if I would spend time with him. On a hunch I invited him to come to one of our seminars, in Hyderabad—and I’ll always remember sitting with him on the concluding Friday, listening to his testimony of how the week had been ‘transformative’ for himself and his ministry. It brought us even closer together—and we continued to meet on Zoom, right through these recent years.
On returning home after that seminar, things changed. To all the vibrancy of a praying and praising pentecostal church was now added some sustained and systematic Bible teaching, as Michael began to work through books of the Bible in a more expository manner—as the church’s YouTube site bears witness.
Unsurprisingly, as Michael and I spent more time together, so did Barby and Keren. Keren is a general practitioner, with a specialty in counselling—with many clients each month—and she is also Michael’s main translator at the English-Tamil bilingual service.
The church was at the end of their annual 21 Days of Prayer & Fasting—with services in the church every day at 5am and 7pm! Over 90 people participated in every single one of those services. Amazing. And that very afternoon they were distributing small mountains of clothes to people in the wider community. [NB: At the end of this message on the day we were there (from about the 1:21.30 mark), Michael shares a little of his testimony, which provides such a winsome and compelling window into this life].
Over lunch in their home the next day, Michael presented me with a gift—a white kurta. When I tried it on for size, he took a photo and sent it to me, with a little note: ‘Introducing Paul Windsor: throwing away his old attire and becoming the Pentecostal Man of God.’
There was still more to our old Sunday routine with which we wanted to be reacquainted…
Some Churches
After the service, Barby and I would walk through to Kammanahalli, with the streets now alive with vendors, find some lunch—before returning home by auto-rickshaw. We were keen to re-trace those steps and walk past this building again, just a few hundred meters from Michael and Keren’s church.
Why? What was the attraction with this block of apartments?
Well, this Sunday morning in December 2023 proved to be similar to those Sunday mornings throughout 2018-2019. As we wandered past the building, we counted signs announcing the details of eight separate church fellowships. And, as we walked ever so slowly, we could discern the sound of five of them caught up in either prayer, or praise, or sermon.
The vehicles in the street-side car park always brought a smile to our faces. All variations on a similar theme.
Even though there appears to be a lot more at stake, Christians here will change their names, fill their homes with texts and adorn their vehicles with the same—just to make it crystal clear to whom it is that they belong.
We could learn a thing or two about letting our light shine…
From our earlier time in Bangalore, this picture was a favourite—with an auto-rickshaw equipped with all kinds of tracts and pamphlets!
Then in behind the block of flats was another church fellowship that caught the eye…
The walk up Kammanahalli Main Road had all the usual delights, including…
nice chatting
Paul
About Me
the art of unpacking
After a childhood in India, a theological training in the USA and a pastoral ministry in Southland (New Zealand), I spent twenty years in theological education in New Zealand — first at Laidlaw College and then at Carey Baptist College, where I served as principal. In 2009 I began working with Langham Partnership and since 2013 I have been the Programme Director (Langham Preaching). Through it all I've cherished the experience of the 'gracious hand of God upon me' and I've relished the opportunity to 'unpack', or exegete, all that I encounter in my walk through life with Jesus.
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Thank you for again sharing that challenge to put signs or our identity in our houses etc. – and thank you for introducing us to Michael. I loved the way the two voices danced together in the giving of the sermon – so beautiful.
So glad you enjoyed it, Heather